Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!giza.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl_kleinpaste From: karl_kleinpaste@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: How to deal with a recalcitrant postmaster? Message-ID: Date: 22 Feb 90 14:50:55 GMT Sender: usenet_news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Organization: Ohio State Computer Science Lines: 26 I run a few mid-sized mailing lists, that is, population in the ~200 range. There's a number of list recipients for whom mail gets from here to there via a Certain Well-Known Vendor. Every 10 days or 2 weeks or thereabouts, the mailer and/or nameserver configuration at this Vendor goes all to hell, and I start getting large numbers of bounces aimed back at myself (as the "-request" address). Now, usually, when I get this sort of thing, and it's clear that it's a local problem at the intermediate site, I just forward such stuff to postmaster@that.site. But this one Vendor postmaster's inability to maintain a functioning mailer on a consistent basis is really beginning to irritate me. This has been going on for quite some months now. This Vendor is also the MX host for a Well-Known Network Services Company, connected to the Vendor via UUCP. If I were the Net Svc Company, I'd be pretty @#$% irritated that my customers' mail was so frequently trashed, but it's possible (if unlikely) that the Net Svc Company isn't even aware of the problem. Any suggestions on how to deal with this sort of situation? My forwardings to postmaster@Ven.dor have gotten alternately flammable and sarcastic, but nothing has helped so far. I could publicize names, I suppose, but I'd really rather not do that; I just want the mail to move more consistently. No vendettas are on my mind. --karl