Message duplication

[arma@seul.org]

So, I looked through majordomo, resend, etc. I know what to change,
I think, to prevent duplicate messages from our list server. It will be
a hack, but anything like this will be a hack.

The fundamental problem is that entirely separate majordomos get spawned
for each message. I refuse to use IPC because that's stupid for this case.
This leaves somehow letting the majordomos anticipate what the others will
do.  Specifically, having them examine the headers and decide whether
they're going to send to a given person, or whether one of the other
majordomos has already dealt.

Now, the problems we're going to have with this solution:

1) bcc's and other header inanities will result in duplicates. We can deal.

2) people who are trying to sort their mail will get confused. I guess
   they might recover, but there will still be loss of information there.
   The mail they get will have a "sender: owner-list@majordomo.seul.org"
   header, so they can still sort somewhat. But they won't know all the
   lists it went to, just one. This will increase newbie confusion.

3) Our archiving procedures will be moot, because we archive via having an
   alias on each list that processes its mail. This includes web archival.

This is really going to be a hack, since something like this really ought
to be done in the MUA -- mail readers should filter duplicate message-IDs,
for example.

Is removing duplicates really wise? necessary?

--Roger

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