Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rice!phil
From: phil@rice.edu (William LeFebvre)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: comp.sys.sun moderator receiving duplicate messages
Keywords: repeated messages, comp.sys.sun
Message-ID: <2380@kalliope.rice.edu>
Date: 21 Dec 88 22:33:17 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Reply-To: phil@rice.edu (William LeFebvre)
Followup-To: news.sysadmin
Organization: Rice University, Houston
Lines: 57

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>