Xref: utzoo comp.mail.misc:5127 comp.mail.uucp:6207
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Getting People off BITNET mail lists
Keywords: bitnet off
Message-ID: <7246534@bfmny0.BFM.COM>
Date: 29 Mar 91 00:02:36 GMT
References: <23911@well.sf.ca.us>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Followup-To: comp.mail.misc
Distribution: na
Lines: 30

In article <23911@well.sf.ca.us> dhawk@well.sf.ca.us (David Hawkins) writes:
>We're having an occaisional problem with people who get accounts here,
>sign up for a lot of BITNET lists, and then leave (for one reason or
>another.)   I don't know a lot about BITNET and how it works, so these
>are fairly basic questions:
>
>1.  Is there a simple way to send a message to BITNET saying "Take
>this person off every list" ???
>2.  Is there a way to block people from signing up on BITNET lists?
>
>The reason I'm concerned is that our present connections are uucp, and
>our phone bills are getting up there enough to get the boss's
>attention.   Also, people don't log in and the mail builds up quickly
>enough to fill up /usr/spool/mail

Please stop thinking up new ways to erode the Well's already diminishing
functionality!  If you really want everyone to languish in PicoSpan all
day, force it as the shell, and have done with it.

In the meantime, Well users can sign up for a lot more different kinds
of mailing lists than just LISTSERV (what you call "BITNET") mailing
lists.  The procedures for doing drops, suspends, address changes etc.
vary according to the particular list.  You probably don't want to waste
your time on such detailed nursemaiding anyway.

It would be better to hack Sendmail as follows: when incoming mail
arrives for a user whose mailbox is bigger than N bytes, *and* who has
not logged in for M days, then generate a bounce to the sender.  This
lets the moderator of the mailing list deal with the issue.  You can
even supply an explicit explanation of why the bounce is being done.