Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 18:15:33 EST From: King Robert long, long ago Subject: [PT] First Response or Random? About one of my pet peeves, DiehardDon@ said: > Thank you for participating. I would be interested in a short thread of >feedback on the "names in a hat" method, versus "first response". Just for >future reference. Ah, Don, I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to expound on this one. I may be a little late in responding, but here it is... I am *not* a fan of the "first response" method. Why? Because it gives some people an *unfair* advantage. How can that be, you ask. Well... Not all email travels immediately across the internet. Have you ever gotten messages from this mailing list in such a way that you see the response to a message before you see the original message? Some time, take a look at the timestamp on the headers of your messages. On occasion, it can be hours off from when you received it (taking into account various time zones, clocks set wrong, etc.). Take into account, the mailing list software doesn't send email out to everyone simultaneously. It has to go out one at a time. So while Person A may be the first one to get that message you just sent to the list, Person B is near the bottom of that list of subscribers and may have as much as a 10 minute delay. Maybe even more! Also take into account, some people's email servers do some funny things to try and save some wear and tear on the system. Sometimes, they may hold outgoing mail until a big enough batch of mail is saved up. It then bundles it and sends it out. Suppose you make an offer to the list and say the first response gets it. Well, Person A may really be the first one to respond, however, their ISP holds their outgoing mail until it can bundle it up. If it's a slow day, the mail may not be sent out for three to four hours! Meanwhile, Person B has come along, sends out a message-- well after Person A has sent theirs. Yet because of this bundling of mail policy some ISPs have, Person B is the first message to hit your mailbox! The opposite is also true. Your incoming mail may not get immediately delivered to you. Your server may receive it off the internet, but other stuff takes higher priority with the processors-- like web surfers, IRC, FTP, etc. Your messages may be backed up in a queue behind 200 other people who are getting email on that same server. As a result, your incoming mail will be delayed. Maybe not by much, but I've seen delays on some systems for as much as an hour! Someone could have already responded to your "first response" offer and you've written them telling them "congratulations" before everyone's even had a chance to read the offer-- even if they're staying logged on all day! And another thing: sometimes, the Internet can be just plain slow. Email does not necessarily travel instantly around the world. I may send a message from here on the east coast of the US to a friend on the west coast. It will travel through several hubs and routers before it actually gets delivered. It may bounce from Atlanta, Georgia to Dallas, Texas to Chicago, Illinois to Denver, Colorado and finally to my friend in Washington state. Add to that, if one of the major hubs has gone down (like the one in Georgia did a couple of years ago), the entire internet in the US is going to be backed up as all those routers are trying to figure out different ways to deliver email and handle web surfers and so on... Sometimes those messages were being bounced to Canada, Japan, Brazil, and Europe before they were being delivered across the country! This was causing *severe* delays! Also, internationally travelling email can travel some pretty interesting routes. If I send a message to Australia, it may travel through Europe or Japan before it actually gets there. If you know how to read email headers, take a look at the routing some time. You'd be surprised at some of the hops your email has taken. I could go on about several other things, but I think this message is getting long winded enough. However, it is on topic, since it answers Don's original question. Suffice it to say, I am *not* a fan of the "first response" method. As it can give an unfair advantage to those who have the right type of internet connection, are placed right in the list of mailing list subscribers, and live close enough to you that there aren't many router hops. I like the "random pulling a name out of a hat" method. My 2 strips of latinum. King Robert the First