From: Jim Carpenter [jimc@fred.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 12:57 PM
To: aiboss@aol.com; 'Rosie Field @home'; 'Rosie Field @work'; 'E Frank
JACKSON'; 'Jimc @ fred.net'; 'Jim Carpenter @bls.gov'
Subject: email failures

Importance: High

Categories: Undelivered

Rosie, Frank, Jennifer

I sent the newsletter at just after midnight this morning.  The attached
Excel spreadsheet contains the error messages from the 45 undeliverables as
of noon today.  I did not include the auto replies from people on vacation
(less than a half dozen).  There were 205 messages sent in 5 groups of about
40 each.   25% failure rate seems much too high to me.

Some of these error messages don't look right.  Like "too many hops" to
Grant_F@bls.gov - she's at may agency and I've never seen this problem at
BLS.

Here are some ideas for handling these failures:

1.  Try resending to same name with a note about initial failure.  There may
be a problem with sending large blocks or blind cc's.
2.  Try sending from another SMTP server.
3.  Try modifications of the name (e.g., caps may be a problem)
4.  Post the list on the web and encourage members to check it and send
corrections.
5.  Display the list at meeting registration table for people to make
corrections.
6.  Check the meeting sign-in sheets (only for the failures)
7.  Find a successful delivery in the same organization and notify them of
the failures.
8.  Try web search engines.
9.  Try contacting the ISP.  Some error messages were lengthy and included
the email of the ISP which I didn't copy to the spreadsheet.  I keep the
entire undeliverable message.
10. Send a post card about the problem with instructions.
11. Call the person.

We may want to form a committee to handle this problem.  I'll check the
volunteer list.



--Jim Carpenter
President, DAMA-NCR
http://www.dama-ncr.org