North American Network Operators Group

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Re: I-D (Re: Out of date contact information )

  • From: Sean Donelan
  • Date: Sat May 04 20:25:11 1996

Since an amazing number of sites can't even implement "Postmaster" I don't
think expanding the number of aliases improves things.

Also, I think some people may have the problem statement reversed.  It
isn't the "newbie" sites with the worst problem (Ok, they can be a
problem), but the older, established sites.  Information entropy sets in.

When people move on to new jobs, old aliases don't get updated.  With
dozens of mailing lists, the probability all the lists get updated
correctly approches zero.  "Postmaster" (or any of the dozen more
aliases Vixie's document sets out) will end up pointing to someone's
mailbox who left years ago.  The more specific the aliases, the less
it will get used, and the less anyone will notice it isn't working
until its too late (the smoke detector battery problem).

I'd much rather concentrate on getting *ONE* point of contact working,
following the axiom, put all your eggs in one basket and watch the basket.
The other more specific aliases are nice, but things break.  And when
those other aliases break, who are you going to contact?

If folks like Vixie's I-D, all I would add is an opening paragraph
which says....

	Before doing anything else, make sure POSTMASTER works, we mean
	it this time.

BTW, whatever happened to Dan Long's second-edition of the NOC telephone book?
-- 
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
  Affiliation given for identification not representation
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