Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nfsun!ditka!dasys1!cucard!ccnysci!dan
From: dan@ccnysci.UUCP (Dan Schlitt)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: re/routing (was: why you should say "-d ru)
Keywords: rerouting
Message-ID: <863@ccnysci.UUCP>
Date: 15 Aug 88 14:03:38 GMT
References: <676@bacchus.DEC.COM> <881@vsi1.UUCP>  <3674@palo-alto.DEC.COM>  <891@vsi1.UUCP> 
Reply-To: dan@ccnysci.UUCP (Dan Schlitt)
Organization: City College of New York
Lines: 31

I have refrained from commenting on this string up until now, even
though I have some fairly strong feelings on the subject.  I was sort
of waiting to hear what Mel Pleasant had to say.  Now that he has
commented I would like to add my couple of cents worth.

We should all appreciate the work that Mel and the others in the
mapping project do for making uucp mail more reliable by providing up
to date maps.  It certainly makes my job of telling people how to
address their mail a lot easier.  "Use user@site and let our mail
system figure out the best route."

HOWEVER,  that doesn't always work.  Bad map entries or missing ones
sometimes get in the way.  Or sometimes users think they know better
how to route the mail than I do. :-)   Anyhow, sometimes you need to
use a specific route.  You can't do that if some intervening mailer is
going to mess with the specific bang-path you have given.

My goal is to make it possible for userA at my site to send mail to
userB at some other site.  I can control my map entry, the map entries
I use, and my mailer.  I cannot control how other people administer
their mail systems.  Frequently userB has little influence on how mail
is administered on their site.  Why should my goal of communication
between the two users be frustrated by the combination of poor mail
administration at one site and the ****** behavior of someone else's
"smart" mailer?

--
Dan Schlitt
dan@ccnysci