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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!system5!root
From: root@system5.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: mail problems
Message-ID: <123@system5.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Feb-87 19:05:47 EST
Article-I.D.: system5.123
Posted: Wed Feb 25 19:05:47 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Feb-87 01:19:49 EST
References: <6661@alice.uUCp>
Reply-To: plocher@hobbes.UUCP (John Plocher)
Organization: U of Wisconsin - Madison  Spanish Department
Lines: 54

+-----<6661@alice.uUCp>--- mvs@alice.UUCP -----
| I'm experiencing some problems with the UNIX* electronic mail system.
| Often many lines of what appears to be debugging or logging information
| find their way to the beginning of my mail item!
| Lines of the form
| 	Received: by xxx.yyy.UUCP (4.12/4.7)
| 		id AA12424; Mon, 16 Feb 87 14:09:06 est
| are often added.  Surely these should be written to a log file...
+----------------------------------------------

How easy it is to become acustomed to this annoyance!  Is there an RFC out
there somewhere which states that each site which handles a mail message
MUST put this crap in?  Right now my mailbox has 3 messages in it, 120
lines total.  Of this, there are 12 lines of 'real' information, that is,
the stuff actually written by the authors!  The first message has 23 lines
of Received: stuff, 4 >From/>From:/From lines, and 4 lines of 'text'.  Most
of this mail message doesn't really matter to me.  Sure, if I'm having
troubles getting mail to/from somewhere these lines help pinpoint mailer
fubars, but this trace info should be the EXCEPTION, not the RULE.

+---
| "From" line gets horribly mutilated.  '%' signs crop up, which ...
| Occaisonally a greater-than-sign '>' is prepended to a line in the body
+---

  The From line gets chomped by some mailers because they insist
(wrongly or rightly) on adding themselves to the from address.

'%' signs are a kludge used in forwarding mail between Arpanet and UUCP

The > is prepended on lines which begin with the word "From".  This is
because some mailers think that a message starts with the word 'From',
and since this 'From' is not the beginning of an article, it gets changed.
It really should be changed back...

+---
| Also my mail sometimes goes on the road for a couple of days.
| I've sent mail to a friend down the corridor and judging from the
| baggage tags it has been holidaying at some other machines?  Where
| exactly is "seismo", it doesn't seem to be on my floor.  Who is
| "mc" and where is his vax?  Maybe it's down in the comp center?
| Aren't there maps of these things?
+---

If your internal mail ('down the corridor') is being routed through
seismo, mcvax,  et al,  then you *really should* talk to your
system manager.  That's like going from Chicago to Milwaukee by way of
San Fransisco or Boston.  Nice places to visit, but one heck of a
commute!

On the map picture I have (from mod.map newsgroup), seismo is in Maryland,
mcvax is 'somewhere northeast' of Maine.

	John