Re: Issues for the IBM folks

[Scott Klement <wdsci-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I can't tell you how many hundreds (nay, thousands) of times over the years,
> that I see a response posted on one of the midrange.com lists _before_ the
> original post shows up.  I have no idea how/why that happens.  The original
> post _had_ to show up for someone, or there couldn't be a response.  It's
> almost a daily occurrence.
The way e-mail works...  it tries to send a message.  If the receiving 
server is too busy or not available, it either tries a different 
server (if you have multiple mail exchangers for your domain) or it tries 
later.  Often admins set it up to retry in 15 minutes or 30 minutes, etc.
So if a message from Midrange.com to your computer can't get through, it 
may try 15 minutes later.  However, that same message may have gotten 
through to someone else's mail exchanger without any problems.  That 
person could then reply 5 minutes later.  If at that time, your mail 
exchanger is no longer busy, it would receive that message 10 minutes 
before the original one.
Even if you do have multiple servers, the same problem could occur because 
the secondary server may simply wait until the primary is back up, and 
then forward it to the primary.  The result is the same amount of delay...
I know, this is off topic for the list, so I'll stop now. I just thought 
you might find it interesting to understand why this sort of thing 
happens.