okamoto@hpccc.HP.COM (Jeff Okamoto) (06/23/87)
This is a copy of a letter mailed to comp.mail.elm regarding a problem with multiple copies of an article showing up in this moderated news group.. ----- To the readers of comp.mail.elm: I'm sure you have noticed that two postings of mine have produced multiple copies of my patches. This article is intended to be both an apology and an explanation of why this series if events came to pass. The basic root of the problem is two-fold. The first problem is that Dave Taylor is no longer moderating comp.mail.elm. If he was still acting as moderator, then he would have seen the multiple copies mailed to him and only posted the first one he saw. However, since he has an auto-approval-and-forwarding program in its place, these multiple copies went unnoticed until they slammed onto the net. The second problem is that notes (as opposed to news), allows a user to post to a moderated news group. Here is a blow-by-blow description of what I believe transpired. 1. User posts to comp.mail.elm. Notes, not realizing that this is a moderated group, posts it to the USENET. 2. Message arrives at other sites. Those running notes accept the article. Those running news, however, recognize this as a moderated group. They check for the existence of the "Approved:" header and do not find it. They mail to the moderators address (which they get from a file). 3. Message arrives at "elm-info-request@hplabs" (or wherever). Dave Taylor's automatic forwarding program takes over. He rewrites the "From:" field, adds the "Approved:" field, then posts it to news. 4. News sites now see the "Approved:" field, accept it, and propagate. An interesting question that I have for you moderators out there is: Have you ever gotten multiple copies of a request-to-post that looked equivalent to the multiple copies of mine? I would greatly appreciate it if you would mail me, as I can use your testimony to (hopefully) speed up a fix to this problem. So, it seems as though notes is responsible for allowing postings to moderated newsgroups, and that Dave perhaps should have checked the incoming requests for approval more closely. In summary, I apologize the the multiple copies. If you moderators will send any comments regarding multiple copies of postings from sites running notes, I would appreciate it very much. Thank you for your patience, Jeff Okamoto Hewlett-Packard Corporate Computing Center Palo Alto, CA