Xref: utzoo comp.mail.misc:1043 comp.mail.uucp:1393 news.admin:2791 news.misc:1573 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!odyssee!pinard From: pinard@odyssee.UUCP (Francois Pinard) Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.uucp,news.admin,news.misc Subject: Multiple addresses in .signature Keywords: signature, gateways, routing optimization Message-ID: <1217@odyssee.UUCP> Date: 21 Jun 88 16:12:41 GMT Organization: Odyssee (ORA) inc., Montreal, Canada Lines: 67 Recently, I received this comment from a nice fellow: P.S. Sincedoesn't know where odyssee.uucp is, I suggest you add some more info to your signature. and I'm interested in an honest discussion on this. I'm still amazed by the incredible frequency of those huge .signatures, with four, five, six, seven addresses in them. Do people really check seven mailboxes each morning, on X different machines? Why don't we have *one* address each. This gives me the impression that everybody is trying to solve everybodyelse's problems, instead of solving their own. Presume that someone is on BizarreNet (if you are on MyOwnNet, every other net is bizarre, isn't it? :-). Why should everybody include in his/her .signature how guys from all BizarreNets around have to proceed to mail to them? Don't BizarreNet people know how to get out to other nets, including the famous MyOwnNet? Let me reformulate this in my own terms. Since we are on UUCP, this is *my* problem, at least as Postmaster, to know how to get onto Bitnet, Internet, CHUnet and elsewhere, and to automate this as far as possible for my users. I'm not waiting, if someone from Bitnet writes to me, to receive a second address in his/her .signature prefixed by "UUCP:"; simply give me *your* address, I'll use it. Stop taking me by the hand to go to the Post Office, please, I know the way. If I'm not grown up enough to know, I'll ask mom. And that will make everybody's .signature cleaner. Consider Internet sites, in particular, that have domain addressing automated to a high degree. "odyssee" has been duly registered since years. If bigsite does not maintain the uumaps itself, the ".uucp" domain should direct its mailer to rely on a nearby center that maintains them, which will then take the routing in charge. In last resort, UUCP domain mail could be directed to uunet.uu.net. Do Postmasters really agree on this? On the paranoid side, is it possible that there are some sites do maintain uumaps, but exclude Canada or anything not being U.S., without forwarding unresolved mail to a full-fledged uumapped nearby site? (you Americans are sometimes incredible :-) (smile, don't flame!) We have, UUCP wise, a very neighbour that is also an Internet site: larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu. It is true that it would be better, speedwise and probably moneywise, to have mail going via the Internet to this site, and go UUCP to us only from there, and to have a special "Internet:" entry in our .signatures. But this has several drawbacks, including political issues about ethics of Internet usage, practical problems about Internet dependability (sometimes :-) and the fact that our true address will be slightly obscured. Even more, I prefer to let optimizations and politics be wired into the routers (and their data) instead of spoiling every .signature, including mine. Is'nt that reasonnable? How about the current and future status of site.uucp routing optimization from inside Internet? How is Internet used for uucp to uucp routing optimization? The same questions are equally interesting for other major networks, of course... Keep happy, everybody. -- ------------------- --------- ------------------------------------------ Francois Pinard "Vivement C.P. 886, L'Epiphanie (Qc), Canada J0K 1J0 pinard@odyssee.uucp GNU!" (514)588-4656; Odyssee R.A.: (514)279-0716 ------------------- --------- ------------------------------------------