Xref: utzoo comp.sys.atari.st:7159 news.misc:1178
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ucbarpa.berkeley.edu!fair
From: fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu (Erik E. Fair)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,news.misc
Subject: BITNET redistributions and USENET Gateways (or Why I Hate BITNET)
Message-ID: <22802@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 31 Jan 88 22:59:46 GMT
References: <607@cernvax.UUCP> <2802@alvin.mcnc.org> <1727@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Followup-To: news.misc
Organization: USENET Protocol Police, Western Gateway Division
Lines: 34

Lately in comp.sys.atari.st there has been a flurry of bounced
digests and other cruft being posted by my gateway from the bowels
of BITNET. Sorry that I took so long to respond folks, but I don't
read comp.sys.atari.st and I didn't know about it until the middle
of last week.

Quick explanation: comp.sys.atari.st is bi-directionally gatewayed to
INFO-ATARI16@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU. Among the other addresses on this
list are redistribution points for BITNET. Unfortunately, someone on
BITNET is not doing his/her header hacking right, and when delivery
fails, the digests get bounced back to the whole list, instead of to
the responsible administrator. Ah, if they'd only convert to netnews,
we wouldn't have this problem...

Fortunately, my gateway can filter stuff, and now that I am aware
that this is happening, there is a filter in place to stop it from
ever reaching those of us fortunate to be on USENET. I have also
posted cancel control messages for those errant articles, so they
will be removed from your disk as soon as the control messages
arrive on your system.

The responsible BITNET site, so far as I am able to determine is
CANADA01, and as soon as I know who the site contact is, I'll post
his/her address here as a followup to this article to let you all
know who to bitch at. Failing that, you can complain to
INFO-ATARI16-REQUEST@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, which is the address of the
ARPANET mailing list coordinator.

	keeper of the ucbvax USENET gateway,

	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu

P.S.	there is a special place in purgatory for the people
	responsible for BITNET's so-called mail system.