>Joe, I see the sense of what you are saying, I just don't recall that
>the Sinclair net was being screened in that sense, and if it is, we
>weren't put on notice, were we? I would have asked Kathy for a postal
>address and may still have to go that route. Guess now I need to know
>if I can resubmit my E-mail to her, or ask for the address, assuming she
>is still interested in the subject. Thanks for your response. Ray
There is no special screening being applied to the Sinclair discussion list
other than the usual checks to see if the poster is a member of the list
(to keep out spam), and for text that could cause administrative problems
(to block malicious software attacks). Attachments aren't relevant to either
of those kinds of checks. People send attachments rather frequently, and
nothing unusual happens to them.
If you can send me the bounce message you saw, I may be able to decipher
exactly what problem you saw and where. In general, whenever you see a
bounce message (an error message from a mailsystem, keep it so you can
forward it to someone who can help.
Meanwhile, remember that a mailing list is like a paper newsletter in some
ways. Just because you get a single copy of a paper newsletter returned
doesn't mean there is anything wrong with your local Post Office. The
copy may have gotten returned because that particular addressee moved,
or there is a problem in a Post Office somewhere down the road, etc.
Usually you'll see something stamped or written on the returned copy,
such as "addressee unknown" or "moved with no forwarding address".
Similarly, just because you see a bounce message from some mailer out
there in the Internet doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the list.
Some addressee may have moved, or there may be a problem somewhere else.
Some particular addressee may have even programmed their local mailbox
to do something fancy, or their employer or their ISP may have done so.
The bounce message usually contains some indication of what the problem is,
such as "unknown user" or "message too large" or the like.
Most bounce messages resulting from messages that have been distributed
by the list software should come back to me. A lot of them do, believe me.
However, there is buggy software here and there in the Internet that
does not follow the standard protocols and that does not return errors
to where they should go.
And of course if you send a message both to the list and to someone else
at the same time, the copy you send to the other address (not to the list)
is just like any other personal mail you send and is not handled by the
list software at all.
Once again, if you can forward the actual bounce message, it will help
a lot in finding out what happened.
John Sinclair Quarterman <jsq@mids.org> (the list owner)
[ This is the Sinclair family discussion list, sinclair@jump.net.
[ To get off or on the list, see http://www.mids.org/sinclair/list.html