Steve,
I also was deeply offended by Richard's apparent lack of sensitivity to the
current terrorist situation.
However, I can now understand his concern. It appears that the list was the
subject of what amounts to a denial-of-service situation, created by only a
few people who were not aware of the limitations of the list server.
EDI-L has provided all of us an extemely valuable resource for sharing
EDI-related information. Many of us have also become better acquainted as a
result of it.
If our list has outgrown the UCOP server resources, then perhaps we need to
look for another alternative. I can't make that decision.
Whatever the result is, however, I want to thank you and Richard and the
UCOP for hosting the EDI-L list and providing us this extremely valuable
resource.
I hope you will share this posting with the rest of the list.
Best regards,
Dave Taylor
Sysmark Information Systems, Inc.
800-SYSMARK (800-797-6275)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Sullivan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 10:39 AM
Subject: more on off-topic postings
> This is Steve Sullivan, the manager of the server that the EDI-L list runs
> on. You saw the note from Richard Hintz, but I wanted to let you know
what
> led to his decision.
>
> On Wednesday evening, we got reports that our other listserv lists were
not
> having postings distributed. We found that the EDI-L (with almost 1400
> subscribers) was taking up all the resources of the listserv; even so, the
> number of items for the EDI-L list was accumulating faster than they could
> be processed.
>
> When I looked at the queue of the EDI-L list, I found postings that were
> racist, inflammatory and showed religious bigotry. I found a 1 MB Power
> Point file and a 780 KB postscript file. Of the 13 postings in the queue,
> none were about EDI issues.
>
> It was obvious that we had to limit postings to EDI-L or tell our users
> (who pay my salary) that they wouldn't be able to rely on listserv for the
> forseeable future because people outside UCOP wanted to talk about the
> disaster. Since no one at UCOP is subscribed to the EDI-L list, the
> decision was fairly easy to make. I deleted the queue and made the list
> moderated.
>
> This decision wasn't made as a callous disregard of people's feelings, but
> a legitimate need to provide service to our users. No one likes the fact
> that we had to choose between the two, but since there are many other
> avenues to talk about the disaster, we felt justified in limiting the
> number of postings to EDI-L.
>
> I feel like I've become a censor, and it's a role I detest (never mind the
> time I could be devoting to other activities). Nonetheless, until the
> traffic on this list becomes manageable again, the list will continue to
be
> moderated.
>
> Please send you comments to me directly - mail to the EDI-L list will not
> be approved.
>
> Steve Sullivan
> Systems Manager
>
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> To contact the list owner: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/edi-l%40listserv.ucop.edu/
>
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