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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mimsy!mangoe
From: mangoe@mimsy.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Sending Email to People who post to the USENET
Message-ID: <5685@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Mar-87 19:11:36 EST
Article-I.D.: mimsy.5685
Posted: Thu Mar  5 19:11:36 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Mar-87 00:19:20 EST
References: <17699@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 25

Jordan Hayes writes:
>it's really a shame that people like dave believe that the Path: line
>has any useful information in it.  it should *never* be used for
>routing mail, not even for a hint.[...]  [I]t made me wonder about why
>people think mail is so unreliable sometimes.  it's probably due to the fact
>that the From: line is unrealiable and a bounce was unable to get sent back.

Well, I don't know about you, but often the Path: is the only information I
have available to find a site.  Our maps simply don't get udated that often.
Furthermore, when I do construct a path that, according to the mailer, is
going to work, often as not I end up just sending back over the path anyway,
because the map information is somehow defective.  (There's one site I have
to construct a path to anyway, because there are two sites with the same
name.)

People have the opinion that mail is unreliable because, often enough, it is
unreliable given the routing info they have available to them.  Following
the path back at least has the advantage of being current information, and
one can just as well argue that a lot of the defects encountered in tracing
it back arise because the path itself isn't being contructed correctly by
the news software.

And remember, the Ides of March are coming....

C. Wingate