Date   : Fri, 11 Feb 1983 13:08:00 EST
From   : Frank J. Wancho <FJW@mit-mc.arpa>
Subject: Correction

It was not bugs in the MC mailer that were causing it to be clogged.

After the first TCP changeover on Jan 1, we found were were getting
many rejections at BRL from hosts that could not yet speak TCP.  At
about that same time, we found that MC was able to speak both the old
(NCP) and new TCP and moved some of the list temporarily back to MC.

However, on Feb 1, the second changeover to TCP only occurred and many
sites were dropped off the net because they do not speak TCP.
Unfortunately, it did not occur to either Keith or myself that we
should have removed those temporary additions at that time.  What then
happened was that this caused a large backup of legitimate queued mail
at MC of which INFO-MICRO and INFO-CPM were a large portion.  ITS has
a primitive file system in some respects, so indeed things did get
clogged to the point where the mailer almost stopped working at all.

So, earlier this week, CSTACY took it upon himself to spend many many
hours clearing out the backlog.  In the process, he blocked the local
redistribution of both INFO-CPM and INFO-MICRO, which included our
temporary sublists - and it was those sublists that were the main
cause of the problems on MC.  Naturally, he could not have been able
to clear the backlog with new mail coming in.

So, I hope that this clears up any misimpressions which may have been
caused by Keith's previous message.

Meanwhile, we are still unable to send to certain sites from BRL, and
this, coupled with problems related to the above discussion, I will
have both mailing lists temporarily shutdown until my own host is up
and checked out for handling mailing lists.  That should be early next
month if all goes as planned.

Please bear with us and accept my apologies to all concerned for any
inconveniences and misunderstandings.

Thanks,
Frank