phil@rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (12/22/88)
Just what is going on here? Ever since a few weeks ago I have started receiving multiple copies of messages that were posted to comp.sys.sun. Now, I'm the moderator for comp.sys.sun, and all the messages that get posted to that list are supposed to be mailed to "sun-spots@rice.edu". But I am receiving multiple copies of messages with identical message-ids in that mailbox. At first, I thought it was just some incompetent individual posting the same message multiple times. But then it started happening to different messages. When I saw it happen to a message from Barry Shein, I knew something was wrong! I have extracted the headers from three separate incidents (including Barry's). The Berkeley from lines for these incidents are: ____________________ [ From: yale!root (Celray Stalk), Message-ID: <45884@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> ] From news@husc6.harvard.edu Fri Dec 16 16:59:09 1988 From usenet@uunet.uu.net Fri Dec 16 20:49:06 1988 From news@uunet.uu.net Fri Dec 16 23:45:37 1988 From bunker!news@philabs.philips.com Sat Dec 17 08:50:27 1988 [ From: bcs@encore.com (Barry Shein), Message-ID: <4423@xenna.Encore.COM> ] From uucp@eddie.mit.edu Sat Dec 17 13:49:44 1988 From news@husc6.harvard.edu Sat Dec 17 13:56:02 1988 From news@husc6.harvard.edu Sat Dec 17 14:01:23 1988 From news@purdue.edu Sat Dec 17 14:05:42 1988 From news@dartvax.dartmouth.edu Sat Dec 17 14:20:18 1988 From root@ics.com Sat Dec 17 22:04:21 1988 From news@mirror.tmc.com Sat Dec 17 23:38:18 1988 From banyan!uucp@bu-it.bu.edu Mon Dec 19 12:59:24 1988 From encore!cloud9!uucp@seismo.css.gov Mon Dec 19 20:04:45 1988 [ From: eap@bu-cs.bu.edu (Eric Pearce), Message-ID: <26714@bu-cs.BU.EDU> ] From news@husc6.harvard.edu Thu Dec 15 17:45:39 1988 From uucp@eddie.mit.edu Thu Dec 15 17:46:29 1988 From news@dartvax.dartmouth.edu Thu Dec 15 18:25:00 1988 From news@purdue.edu Thu Dec 15 18:41:40 1988 From root@ics.com Thu Dec 15 22:09:20 1988 From news@mirror.tmc.com Fri Dec 16 01:05:49 1988 From encore!cloud9!uucp@seismo.css.gov Fri Dec 16 03:48:57 1988 From polygen!uucp@eddie.mit.edu Sat Dec 17 13:30:56 1988 ____________________ Yes, that's 8 and 9 copies of the same message! This is no longer a minor annoyance. This is now a serious problem. How can I possibly remember in my head every message that I have processed so that I can eliminate the duplicates? My job is hard enough without this crap! I would post all the headers, but it is in excess of 17K. I will be glad to mail the headers to those who are interested. Ideas, anyone? William LeFebvre Sun-Spots moderator Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu>
karl@dinosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (12/22/88)
I suspect that you're being bitten by comp.sys.sun not being a moderated newsgroup at all sites. If it's not marked moderated at some site, and a user follows up, it will post locally and then begin propagating around the net until it hits a site where it's duly marked moderated, at which point such a site mails it to you. It's conceivable that such an article gets to a number of sites before the various copies start running into correct sites, so you get that many copies. I suggest a newgroup message to re-assert the moderated status of comp.sys.sun. --Karl