Re: e-mail delivery gone crazy

["Daniel Glassey" <dglassey gmail com>]

On 17/08/07, Alan W. Irwin <irwin beluga phys uvic ca> wrote:
> On 2007-08-17 08:33-0500 Boncek, John wrote:
>
> > I've been subscribed for a long time, receiving regular delivery.  Last
> > night I received 42 messages from this list, with dates as far back as
> > October of last year.
>
> Same here.  My guess is this mailing list has been configured badly for the
> case when the mail is temporarily undeliverable.  That would explain why
> only a small subset of the e-mail was held back pseudo-randomly over the
> course of the last year.  The algorithm appears to be hold on to all the
> first-time undeliverable mail until some fixed date in the year.  That fixed
> date appeared to be last night.
>
> All the above is speculation of course, but something really strange did
> happen with a relatively small subset of the messages (I got about 30
> delivered last night) over the last year so I think it is time to review the
> configuration of this mailing list.

Another explanation is that lots of people that aren't subscribed have
sent mail to the list - so they get moderated. The time of the list
admins is precious so I think moderation doesn't happen very often.
I'm sure that they would appreciate help with this if someone can
spare the time. Even if I'm wrong with this I'm sure they would still
appreciate the help ;)

Regards,
Daniel