Thank you for putting this message out! I subscribe to several lists, and
have received some wonderful information. I have also enjoyed some excellent
history. BUT, I have been bombarded , it seems, of late with the same
message on several lists, and it just makes me crazy.

Thanks again
marcia

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven J. Coker 
To: [email protected] 
Date: Thursday, May 28, 1998 2:36 PM
Subject: Messages Good. Lots of Copies Bad.


The following explains why it is bad to send a message to multiple mailing
>lists.
>
-COPY-<<<<<
>
>Subject: Re: mass crossposting to rootsweb lists
>   Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 21:58:14
>   From: Brian Leverich 
>
>Hi all -
>
>Here's an explanation of what's going on:
>
>Each of RootsWeb's mail servers is designed to receive about 1,500 incoming
>pieces of mail each day and deliver them to the list subscribers.
>
>Cross-posting an article to too many lists (say more than 5 lists) can
seriously
>interfere with the operation of one of those servers.
>
>Why?  Consider what happened this morning, when someone cross-posted an
article
>to 50 lists.
>
>This particular thread, because it has been cross-posted to 50 lists and
spawned
>about 20 replies that were also cross-posted, has by itself generated about
>1,000 inbound messages.  That's almost doubled the load on the server.
>
>That's bad.
>
>What's worse, the servers are designed to receive an inbound piece of mail
on
>average about once each minute.  When something is massively cross-posted
to 50
>lists, though, the server has to absorb essentially a whole hour's worth of
work
>arriving within a few milliseconds.  That *really* jars the machinery.
>
>And here's what's *really* bad:
>
>A few poor souls were subscribed to all or most of those 50 lists.  Within
the
>span of a few hours, they received 50 copies each of 20 messages.  That
means
>they were mailbombed by a 1000 pieces of e-mail, and that caused them all
sorts
>of pain.
>
>So that's why RootsWeb discourages massive cross-posting.  However, we
haven't
>announced a formal policy because folks don't make this mistake too often,
and
>anyway we're working on a technical solution that would simply make it
>impossible for users to accidentally do this.  Cheers, B.
>
>--
>Dr. Brian Leverich       Co-moderator, soc.genealogy.methods/GENMTD-L
>RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative       https://sites.rootsweb.com/
>P.O. Box 6798, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798      [email protected]
>
>