Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!emv
From: emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: precedence of % when there are no @'s in the address (was mail survey)
Message-ID: <677@mailrus.cc.umich.edu>
Date: 6 Sep 88 23:41:51 GMT
References: <4740@b-tech.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@mailrus.cc.umich.edu
Reply-To: emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti)
Organization: University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor
Lines: 21

In article <4740@b-tech.UUCP> zeeff@b-tech.UUCP (Jon Zeeff) writes:
>6) Should the address "zzz!user%site.com" be sent to site.com or zzz?  
>(ie, what should have precedence)

At umix, mailrus, and sharkey, zzz!user%site.com becomes zzz!user@site.com.
(which then becomes user%zzz@site.com).  


The reason (which predates me) is that users here believe that a
% is just another way of writing @ .  So for instance
	user%site1%site2.com -> user%site1@site2.com
	
This behavior is not likely to change any time soon, and only
seems to bite people who either reply through news paths
or go through a pathological variety of gateways.  I'm 
actively trying to hunt some of these problems down, but
you never know what someone else is going to try to type
as an address that routes through your machine....

--Ed
"news is not mail"