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Tim Lodge
May 13th, 2010, 07:06 AM
The link between the Tapcis Web Forum and the Dixonary Google Group
seems to have gone funny again. The message from Mike headed "Round
2104 Results" on the Google Group actually contains the rolling
scores. Both results and rolling scores appear correctly over at
Tapcis. I seem to remember this happened before after Mike dealt a
round. Would any of the moderators care to comment?

-- Tim L

Dodi Schultz
May 13th, 2010, 09:14 AM
Tim Lodge wrote:

> The message from Mike headed "Round
> 2104 Results" on the Google Group actually contains the rolling
> scores. Both results and rolling scores appear correctly over at
> Tapcis.

But isn't it the Google Group that sends the e-mails? Both of the above
that I got by e-mail carried correct subject lines.

--Dodi

Paul Keating
May 13th, 2010, 09:56 AM
Mike sent two messages, about 7 minutes apart. One contained the round
results and had these headers:

Subject: [Dixonary] Round 2104 results
Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 16:07:41 -0700
Message-ID: <mshefler.4avhfa (AT) no-mx (DOT) www.tapcis.com/forums>

The other contained the rolling scores and had these headers:

Subject: [Dixonary] Round 2104 rolling scores
Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 16:14:30 -0700
Message-ID: <mshefler.4avhfa (AT) no-mx (DOT) www.tapcis.com/forums>

Google Groups correctly forwarded the two messages with different headers,
which is what most of us see displayed by our email clients. But if you log
on to Google Groups it's a different store.

The threaded display on groups.google.com expects that all messages will
have unique message-ids. As you can see from the headers, these don't.
Google's threaded display is confused as a result. It gives the thread the
subject of the first message, but displays the text of the second message.
This is of course weird, but is the sort of thing that software does when
the data does something that the program knows can't possibly happen. Use a
program outside its design parameters and all bets are off on what it does.

Tim is quite right: it has happened before. Mike sent the messages to
tapcis.com, which forwarded them to Google, and tapcis.com's method of
generating unique message ids ... doesn't. IIRC this happens if a member
posts a second message to the forum soon after the first, because the number
is derived from the time of day. I gather this is none too easy to fix.

--
Paul Keating
The Hague

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Lodge" <5sfwiyj02 (AT) sneakemail (DOT) com>
Subject: [Dixonary] Tapcis Forum/Dixonary Link Problems


> I seem to remember this happened before after Mike dealt a
> round. Would any of the moderators care to comment?

Tim Lodge
May 13th, 2010, 10:26 AM
Paul

Thanks for the clear explanation and for reminding me that Tapcis.com
fails to generate unique message IDs for messages posted close
together by the same person.

I'll just have to go to Tapcis.com if it happens again. I must be one
of the few people who normally relies exclusively on the Google
Dixonary website!

-- Tim L

France International
May 13th, 2010, 10:51 AM
How close together is too close? I seem to remember posting the messages at
least several minutes apart.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Keating" <keating (AT) acm (DOT) org>
To: <dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 10:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Dixonary] Tapcis Forum/Dixonary Link Problems


> Mike sent two messages, about 7 minutes apart. One contained the round
> results and had these headers:
>
> Subject: [Dixonary] Round 2104 results
> Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 16:07:41 -0700
> Message-ID: <mshefler.4avhfa (AT) no-mx (DOT) www.tapcis.com/forums>
>
> The other contained the rolling scores and had these headers:
>
> Subject: [Dixonary] Round 2104 rolling scores
> Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 16:14:30 -0700
> Message-ID: <mshefler.4avhfa (AT) no-mx (DOT) www.tapcis.com/forums>
>
> Google Groups correctly forwarded the two messages with different headers,
> which is what most of us see displayed by our email clients. But if you
> log
> on to Google Groups it's a different store.
>
> The threaded display on groups.google.com expects that all messages will
> have unique message-ids. As you can see from the headers, these don't.
> Google's threaded display is confused as a result. It gives the thread the
> subject of the first message, but displays the text of the second message.
> This is of course weird, but is the sort of thing that software does when
> the data does something that the program knows can't possibly happen. Use
> a
> program outside its design parameters and all bets are off on what it
> does.
>
> Tim is quite right: it has happened before. Mike sent the messages to
> tapcis.com, which forwarded them to Google, and tapcis.com's method of
> generating unique message ids ... doesn't. IIRC this happens if a member
> posts a second message to the forum soon after the first, because the
> number
> is derived from the time of day. I gather this is none too easy to fix.
>
> --
> Paul Keating
> The Hague
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tim Lodge" <5sfwiyj02 (AT) sneakemail (DOT) com>
> Subject: [Dixonary] Tapcis Forum/Dixonary Link Problems
>
>
>> I seem to remember this happened before after Mike dealt a
>> round. Would any of the moderators care to comment?
>


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Paul Keating
May 13th, 2010, 11:28 AM
Yes, you sent them about 7 minutes apart. It's not as if they were sent in
the same split second or anything. I'm afraid I don't remember how close is
too close, or (more likely) was not paying attention, but I have an idea it
was something inconvenient. Dan will know, I think.

I suspect that vBulletin only puts ids on the messages for the same reason
that Coryphæus does: spam filters dislike messages without one. So it
doesn't think it's really all that bad if two message ids match, whereas
Google Groups thinks it's not only bad, but can't happen.

--
Paul Keating
The Hague

----- Original Message -----
From: "France International" <stamps (AT) salsgiver (DOT) com>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 5:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixonary] Tapcis Forum/Dixonary Link Problems


> How close together is too close? I seem to remember posting the messages
at
> least several minutes apart.

Daniel B. Widdis
May 13th, 2010, 09:42 PM
PK> IIRC this happens if a member posts a second message
PK> to the forum soon after the first, because the number
PK> is derived from the time of day. I gather this is none
PK> too easy to fix.

There is a patch, which I had asked Judy to install, but she was away for a
week when it happened the last time and might not have caught the whole
story.

"Soon" is within the same posting cycle (which happens hourly from within
the software). I've also asked Judy to set up the posting echo more
frequently via a cron job. Perhaps I asked too much.

I'll follow up.

--
Dan