Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 14:08:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Missing messages, upcoming events
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

ronkean at juno.com wrote:
> Thanks for posting the missing messages.

You're welcome.

> When I paste something from a web page into a message, even it it is
> just a couple of words, it makes the message html, and then I have
> to explicitly convert the message to plain text for it to appear on
> the WSFA list.  Sometimes, I forget to convert the message, and it
> does not go through.  Sometimes, when that happens, you catch it,
> and let me know.

Not very often, since the logs of blocked messages are immense, and
it would take me all day to page through them.  A couple times, the
logs have gotten so large that I ran out of disk space, and *all*
subsequent messages were lost.  Fortunately, this doesn't happen very
often.  It takes logs of over 100,000 spams to use up all my Panix
disk space, and I very seldom get that many between logins.  (But it
*has* happened.  Overnight.)

I checked just now, and I see one message from you, titled "test," was
blocked last night.

> Perhaps the missing messages failed to go through because they were
> in html.

No.  Blocked messages are not stored anywhere.  They are deleted.  All
that is logged is the email address of the sender, the subject line,
the length, and the time and date.

I don't know why your message which you sent at 5:51 pm didn't show up
in the logs until 11:20 pm.  But I can make a guess.  The Panix staff
have said that the vast majority of Panix CPU power is being used to
block spam, as is about half the disk space.  Apparently this is not
unusual for ISPs these days.

That was not the same as a "stuck" message.  A "stuck" message shows
up in the logs, but doesn't go to subscribers.  Your message didn't
even show up in the logs for over five hours.  I don't know if the
delay was at Juno, at KeithLynch.net, at Panix, or somewhere in
between.

Stuck messages seem to be happening more often.  One of Steve's got
stuck this afternoon, which is probably why he re-sent it.  I unstuck
it anyway.

I will continue to keep an eye out for them whenever I log in, which
is multiple times every day except during cons.

Since the stuck and truncated messages appear in the logs, they've
been in the online archives at http://www.wsfa.org/list/ all along.
Anyone who didn't see what you placed beneath the dot in your message
last night can see it in the online archives after the next time I
update them, which should be later this weekend.

I was disappointed you weren't at last night's meeting.  It was
the first Maryland meeting my brother went to.  (He's been to four
Virginia meetings.)  Have you met him?  Perhaps I can talk him into
going Wednesday's WMOD event.  Will you be there?

For those who haven't checked our calendar
(http://www.wsfa.org/calendar.htm) since last night:  Wednesday
evening's event is a talk by Ed Hudgins on "Space: The Free Market
Frontier" in a Chinese restaurant right on top of the Rosslyn Metro
station.  Also noteworthy in our calendar:  The June meetings are
swapped, Balticon is next weekend, and the Matrix movie viewing is
this evening.
--
Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/
I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but
unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable.  Please do not send me
HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.