posting speed

[David Bandel]

On 9/12/06, Dominic Lepiane <archangel at nibble.bz> wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 September 2006 14:53, Tony Alfrey wrote:
> > Bill Campbell wrote:
> > <snip>
> >
> > > Check the Received: headers in the messages that are slow to see
> > > where the delay occurs.

[snip]

>
> So clearly the processing delay is in the list.  So, what gives?  What's the
> big delay?
>

So many questions, so little time:

Let's see, my read of the RFCs is that e-mail is "best effort", not least delay.

The mail server picks ups the mail and has a list.  So as not to slow
down other services unnecessarily (e-mail is _not_ interactive in case
you hadn noticed), the list is tagged as "bulk mail" and processes
e-mails when it is not busy doing other more important tasks.

Now, I'd have to look inside the mailman list itself, but mailman puts
names in the order they signed up for service.  So newer list members
are nearer the bottom.

To get around spam controls, mails are sent out a few at a time from
the top of the list to the bottom.  Any requeues (because of grey
listing, remote server non-availability, etc.), get serviced at
intervals (will check, but that could be 15, 30, or 60 minutes).

So yes, it could take a while for e-mails to get out to some of you.
Since Lonnie is in the server, he often sends out replies to e-mails
before I even see the question  (at my gmail account).  So sometimes
it looks like Lonnie has responded before the question was asked.

But the mail server never rests, and just keeps chugging along.  In
fact, two weeks ago it moved to a new 3.2GHz system w/ fast 160Gb SATA
drives and is churning out the mail faster than before.

If you want interactive, please check out the IRC channel.  Those of
us with lives who can only browse the mail 2-3 times a day don't even
notice a 30 or 60 minute delay.

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
            - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto