Re: managing this listserv

Dear Sean,

 Thanks for all you do as our list serv-ant!!

 Diane Pertson
 Otter Point Haven otterpt@macn.bc.ca
 Nature Notes from Vancouver Island
 http://zapbc.com/nature.htm at
 Parksville & Qualicum Beach Online http://zapbc.com

 ----- Original Message -----
 From: Sean A. O'Hara <sean.ohara@poboxes.com>
 To: <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
 Sent: Monday, July 19, 1999 2:11 PM
 Subject: managing this listserv

 Fellow subscribers -

Just thought I'd take a moment to remind you about the overhead of this
listserv group.

After a couple days off over the weekend, I found I had waiting for me
several hundred error messages from the listserv program about accounts
which were still apparently bouncing messages due to some sort of fatal
problem.  Some of these were people e-mail ids which were no longer in
existence or valid, others were 'full
mailboxes', as well as a generous sprinkling of insundry transient
errors.  I chose to modify the group's setup so that people wouldnot be
automatically dropped due to transient errors or strange problems like
those some of you experienced in the past year.  In exchange for this, I
get to deal personally with a lot more errors. Being the kind of guy I
am, I tend to give people the benefit of doubt and not remove them from
the group at the first sign of problems.  I took a couple of old
accounts off the group last week and I am still getting error messages
from those accounts as the listserv
still tries to mail old discussion messages to those apparently invalid
e-mail accounts.

Why am I telling you this?

 I have always taken it as my personal obligation to manage my own
e-mail affairs myself, making sure I am not oversubscribed to lists and
overfilling my mailbox, removing myself from lists before myaccount
expires or is cancelled from the internet.  Apparently so people don't
share this pro-active approach.  While it is true that people like me
can help in the event of problems or if you really cannot manage to
unsubscribe yourself, please be aware that I get a large amount of these
requests all the time.  I enjoy participating in the group and I think
people enjoy my posts.  Sometimes when I go silent it is because I am
still trying to unravel these errors and deal with people's individual
problems.  It can at times be overwhelming.

 Not really complaining, but if ever the idea arises in you mind that
'someone else will clean things up for me', consider my case as I slave
away to read hunders of errors messages and deciper their specific and
diverse reasons, considering how I should deal with them on an
individual basis.  After looking at 300 hundred 'user unknown' messages
for a single expired e-mail, the odds seem good that I might remember
your name for a long time . . . .     ;-)

 If any of you are confused about how to manage your listserv affairs,
check out the following web page I prepared (and bookmark it for the
 future!):
 http://www.support.net/Medit-Plants/discuss/subscribe.html

 your humble listserv-ant
 Sean O.

 Sean A. O'Hara                       sean.ohara@poboxes.com
 h o r t u l u s   a p t u s          710 Jean Street
 'a garden suited to its purpose'     Oakland, CA 94610-1459, U.S.A.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index