[Healeys] delayed emails

[Mark J Bradakis]

On 2/17/19 9:25 AM, Bob Haskell wrote:
> Listers,
>
> This is probably a question for mjb, but wondering if other folks are 
> receiving emails many days after they've been written?  A couple of 
> days ago I received rkeysor's email about his aluminum radiator 
> installation that was sent on January 23rd.  Yesterday, got Bill 
> Lawrence's question about hydrolastic fluid from the 27th.


What is happening in these cases is that the messages are getting pulled 
out of the queue for some reason and being set aside until they can be 
reviewed by the admin guy, which is me.  I get a couple hundred such 
messages each and every day.  Sometimes it takes me a while to get 
through them all.  The vast majority are spam, but there are a few 
legitimate emails, such as the ones to which you refer.  When I get to 
dealing with them I approve them and they get sent out, and as you 
noticed, it can be weeks before that happens.  That is strictly my 
fault, I don't spend 24/7/365 at the keyboard dealing with such issues.

What has also been happening over the last few years is that there is a 
delay of several hours for regular messgaes to get through the system.  
I have looked into that and have yet to determine if it is a problem 
with the software, or perhaps some hardware issue that causes major 
delays in disk reads and writes. But I am trying to deal with that, at 
the moment leaning towards getting a brand new box with a new OS on 
line.  I wrote this on another list earlier.

====

> MJB wrote : "...I'll give fair warning...(when bringing a new server 
> online)." : that should be a sign for us to donate some money, 
> eventually for a professional grade server.
> How much money is such a server?
> Marcel
>

A nice, state of the art server would run about 3 - 4 thousand. But 
these days Team.Net doesn't do the volume of email and web services as 
it did back in its prime, the first decade or so after coming online 
back in 1991.  Back then it took serious hardware and expertise to 
provide such services, and high capacity network connections to private 
residents were rare and expensive.  In those early days I'd do annual 
fund drives, and out of the 15 - 16 thousand subscribers would get a 
couple thousand dollars which covered the monthly charges and hardware 
maintenance.  At that time if every subscriber sent me like 5 bucks a 
year Team.Net would have been my full time job, and I would have been 
able to spend more time on my Triumphs.

Nowadays anybody and their dog can easily set up a web page, Team.Net is 
not the only game in town.  Back then some of the popular lists had a 
thousand or so folks on them, and saw a dozen or more messages per day.  
Peak traffic would be about 5 million email transactions a month.  As I 
recall when I attended the Silver Anniversary SCCA Solo II Nationals in 
1997, roughly two thirds of those entered in the event were subscribed 
to the autox list here.

So now it is a lot less hectic for me, still have to deal with hundreds 
of spam messages a day, constant bounces and such.  But it it 
manageable.   No need for annual fund drives, computers and a network 
connection are something I would have anyway.  So the bottom line is we 
don't need a several thousand dollar machine. An appropriately 
configured PC intended for the home market would have the necessary 
computing power to handle the current Team.Net load.  I plan on going to 
Best Buy to get a new clock radio later today, maybe I'll take a stroll 
though the computer section, see what's out there.

====

That message did kick loose a few dollars  through the donate link in 
every outgoing message.  So chances are good there will be a new machine 
doing the work within a week or two.  So the many hour delay could be 
fixed soon, no ETA on when the scatterbrained, procrastinating man 
behind the curtain will manage to never get behind in moderator approvals.

Oh, I never did get to shopping around for a new clock radio.

mjb.