Damn! I know it and I apologize. It's really frustrating that I can't use
my a regular reply to the Extropians List, like I can to other mailing
lists. Can't anybody figure out how to fix the List so we Jupiter brains
don't have to edit the headers on messages from the List before we reply to
them?
It is not the original poster's software that is adding the duplicating
addresses. In this case they sent the message only to
"extropians@maxwell.kumo.com". It is not the replyer's software which is
adding the duplicate addresses. In this case, I simply hit "Reply", and it
replied to the two addresses that are already listed in the headers. It is
the List software which is adding the extra "Reply To:
extropians@extropy.com" to the message which already had "To:
extropians@extropy.com". This makes it appear that there are two addresses
that can be replied to, but really they go to the same place.
If you look closely at the "duplicates", you will see that they are
addressed to different addresses. No software in the world can know that
these two differently-seeming addresses are really the same destination.
In my opinion, the List software should not add duplicate reply addresses
in this manner. The List software should choose to remove the original
address, refrain from adding the second address, or coordinate the two
addresses so that they are the same. Failing to do so causes duplicate
messages unless every person who replies to the message manually edits
their send-to lines. Normal Reply functions will tend to reply to both
addresses.
To test this theory, simply press "Reply All" (At least in Netscape and
Eudora) to this message and see what addresses you send to. You would
expect to reply to me personally as I sent the message. You would expect
to reply once to the List which received the message, you might even see a
copy sent to yourself depending on how your software is configured. I
think you will also see an extra address which also goes to the List which
the List software inserted into the headers when it broadcast the message.
If you do not manually edit out this extra address, you will end up sending
duplicate messages to the List. This is what is causing duplicate messages
to occur.
(Note that you do not actually have to send these duplicates! After you
have tested this theory, you can cancel the message without flooding the
List with duplicate test messages!)
-- Harvey Newstrom <mailto: harv@gate.net> PGP 5.5 Fingerprint F746 7A20 EB7D 27BA 80A5 4473 D8E1 6A54 1EB0 56F7 PGP Public Key from <http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371>, <ldap://certserver.pgp.com>