Re: Mailing list problems

[Pete Templin <templin@bucknell.edu>]

On Thu, 20 Mar 1997, Tim Sailer wrote:

> In your email to me, Martin Schulze, you wrote:
> > 
> > Pete Templin writes:
> > 
> > > In the future, please contact the mailing list maintainer (i.e. ME) if
> > > you're not getting your mail.  Although I may not be able to totally
> > > rectify the situation myself, I will take responsibility for the problem
> > > report and get my butt in gear for it.  Making mention of dead lists in
> > > mail to the lists and deep in a highly "charged" email won't (necessarily)
> > > get much done.
> > 
> > Please take a look at the distribution lines.  The mail was delivered
> > to our project leader who should react immediately.  And the mail was
>                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> How can you demand immediate reaction from a volunteer with a fulltime
> day job?

And why should "dead lists" problems immediately get escalated to the
project leader?  Do prison breakouts immediately go to the chief of police
and mayor?


On Fri, 21 Mar 1997, Martin Schulze wrote:

> Bruce Perens writes:
>
> > Unfortunately those 6 hours of downtime occurred while I was asleep.
> 
> Oh Bruce, you've really said the right sentence.  This for sure is the
> best argument for a multinational team of mailinglist administrators?
> So why should all of the lists be kept in _one_ hand by _one_
> institution?

Why is this issue such an incredible priority, at least in the eyes of one
person?  I've gotten two requests from Martin Schulze for an account on
the machine that runs the lists.  I haven't created an account for him,
but one existed on the machine that hosts the lists since BEFORE I became
the list administrator.

Why the need for a team of administrators?  It's not much work, and
certainly not IMHO enough to warrant the crazy system of figuring who has
fixed what and when.  I never got the impression from Bruce (correct me if
I'm wrong, Bruce) that anyone else seriously responded to Bruce's request
to take over the mailing lists.  

If I understand correctly, the lists are housed at some sort of ISP in
Texas (I'm not sure the details really matter at the moment).  There's a
nearly complete hot backup in place at an academic institution (that
machine belongs to me: templinux.bucknell.edu) with hourly updates from
the master site, and an additional daily "backup" is done to
master.debian.org if I understand correctly (I'm not involved in that).
Sure seems to me that the lists aren't cornered to one institution, and
I'd also like to add that the daily "backup" is housed on a machine
already tied to the project - that certainly doesn't sound like a smart
move for getting the lists out to other places.

In the hopes of ending the CRAP here, I'll remind one and all that I have
some plans to further coordinate and synchronize the hot-site backup with
the master, and to make the "transition" automatic, merely using DNS MX
records.  It won't be a couple of keystrokes, though, as I need to make
sure that subscriptions are properly handled by BOTH sites no matter WHICH
site actually gets the initial email.  I will need TIME to do that, and if
the machine is doing a fairly decent job at the moment, I don't feel a
need to prioritize this task over my day job which is taking over my
entire night tonight.

Please, direct your email correspondence DIRECTLY to me.  This will get
"fixed".  I'm a "developer" (by stuffy title), as I have an account on
master, but I'm not developing anything.  I _want_ to spend time on this
project.  I've been very impressed with Debian's features ever since Dan
Quinlan showed it to me back in July or August of 1996, and I'd like to
contribute back.  I want to spend time managing a server for the project.
I didn't get the sysadmin job which was open here at BU, and as a matter
of fact, the person whom I replaced got promoted to that position.  As a
result, I need to keep my hands on a keyboard tied to a server if I expect
to keep my skills honed.  We'll get some kicking lists real soon.

Thanks,

Pete

--
Pete Templin     templin@bucknell.edu   (717) 966-9656
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