What is the listserver at hub.org doing?

When I got a new message from Tom Lane at 7:30am in England, I wondered
if he was working on PostgreSQL all night as well as all day, so I looked
at the mail headers and found he had posted in mid-evening his time but
the message had taken 6 hours to be forwarded.

I got curious about the delays in mail forwarding through the mailing
lists and looked at the headers of some messages (see below). It seems
that a message arrives at hub.org and then gets sat on for a few hours
before it is sent out again. Sometimes it does an internal loop and
gets sat on twice! (By comparison, the Debian listserver resends messages
within a minute.)

The result is that messages take a long time to get out on the mailing
list and so are answered unnecessarily by several people.

Why does this happen?

Received: from hub.org (hub.org [216.126.84.1])
by mail.enterprise.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA25948
for <olly(at)lfix(dot)co(dot)uk>; Fri, 27 Oct 2000 06:55:16 +0100 (GMT/BST)
Received: from hub.org.org (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by hub.org (8.10.1/8.11.0) with SMTP id e9R5pdq12817;
Fri, 27 Oct 2000 01:51:39 -0400 (EDT)
(envelope-from pgsql-general-owner+M6935(at)hub(dot)org)
Received: from hub.org.org (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by hub.org (8.10.1/8.11.0) with SMTP id e9R2DeU15616
for <pgsql-general(at)hub(dot)org>; Thu, 26 Oct 2000 22:13:44 -0400 (EDT)
(envelope-from pgsql-general-owner(at)hub(dot)org)
Received: from chameleon.view.net.au (calypso.view.net.au [203.30.237.210])
by hub.org (8.10.1/8.11.0) with ESMTP id e9QNSWU58965
for <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>; Thu, 26 Oct 2000 19:28:33 -0400 (EDT)
(envelope-from mtw(at)birdseye(dot)view(dot)net(dot)au)

Received: from hub.org (hub.org [216.126.84.1])
by mail.enterprise.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA26047
for <olly(at)lfix(dot)co(dot)uk>; Fri, 27 Oct 2000 06:55:49 +0100 (GMT/BST)
Received: from hub.org.org (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by hub.org (8.10.1/8.11.0) with SMTP id e9R5pdq12808;
Fri, 27 Oct 2000 01:51:39 -0400 (EDT)
(envelope-from pgsql-general-owner+M6936(at)hub(dot)org)
Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [209.114.132.154])
by hub.org (8.10.1/8.11.0) with ESMTP id e9R0tbU42933
for <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>; Thu, 26 Oct 2000 20:55:37 -0400 (EDT)
(envelope-from tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us)

Received: from hub.org (hub.org [216.126.84.1])
by mail.enterprise.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA02058
for <olly(at)lfix(dot)co(dot)uk>; Fri, 27 Oct 2000 07:36:03 +0100 (GMT/BST)
Received: from hub.org.org (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by hub.org (8.10.1/8.11.0) with SMTP id e9R6ZAq40016;
Fri, 27 Oct 2000 02:35:10 -0400 (EDT)
(envelope-from pgsql-general-owner+M6937(at)hub(dot)org)
Received: from web10001.mail.yahoo.com (web10001.mail.yahoo.com [216.136.130.37])
by hub.org (8.10.1/8.11.0) with SMTP id e9R4hJt28401
for <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>; Fri, 27 Oct 2000 00:43:19 -0400 (EDT)
(envelope-from jdearl(at)yahoo(dot)com)
--
Oliver Elphick Oliver(dot)Elphick(at)lfix(dot)co(dot)uk
Isle of Wight http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
PGP: 1024R/32B8FAA1: 97 EA 1D 47 72 3F 28 47 6B 7E 39 CC 56 E4 C1 47
GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839 932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C
========================================
"If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a
branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast
them into the fire, and they are burned."
John 15:6