bug#335: bug tracking system leads to duplicate replies appearing

[Don Armstrong]

On Thu, 29 May 2008, Joe Wells wrote:
> I believe this is due to messages being addressed to both
> bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org and XYZ@emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com where XYZ
> is the bug number. When someone follows up, their message gets sent
> to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org twice, because everything sent to
> XYZ@emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com will also be sent onward to
> bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.

This is because people are using reply-to-all, instead of
reply-to-list or reply-to. I can resolve this by discarding duplicate
message ids, but thats more of a sledgehammer. Far better would be for
people to stop being silly and using reply-to-all, and instead use
reply-to-list or reply-to, both of which are set properly and behave
correctly.
 
> Interestingly, by the time these two copies show up in the
> gnu.emacs.bug USENET newsgroup, they have the two different message
> IDs <mailman.12118.1211578329.18990.bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> and
> <mailman.12121.1211578334.18990.bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>.
>
> By the way, it seems at first glance that none of these are the
> original message ID of Stefan's message, but instead these are fresh
> message IDs chosen by the bug tracking software and mailing list
> software.  At least the two message IDs that begin with “mailman” are
> definitely fresh.  These pieces of software should *not* be making up
> fresh message IDs. 

Debbugs has nothing to do with these message IDs; it adds
Resent-Message-Id: for the messages which it forwards, and retains the
original Message-Id:. Most likely this is something to do with the
mailman list-to-news gateway.


Don Armstrong

-- 
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is
research.
 -- Steven Wright

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu