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. Since  doesn'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.
-- 
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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
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