Good afternoon,
Executive Summary: Please try not to cross-post the same message to multiple eLists - in other words, do not add multiple email Lists in the To: or Cc: fields of a new message. Instead, please generate a separate email message for each email List you wish to post to. This will help prevent messages with duplicate Message ID's from getting deleted by "smart" email-handling programs and, thus, help prevent duplicate messages from getting dropped from the message archive locations. Details: First, I am referencing the three archive locations, here: Primary (Long-term): http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html Secondary (Long-term): http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Tertiary (Short-term): http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html It had come to my attention that some messages are variably not successfully being archived into the three archives available for NYSbirds-L. For the past several weeks, I have been working with these various Archive Managers and Owners and the Cornell ListManager to identify what is causing messages to seemingly drop from the archive - never even appearing. A variety of contributing factors were identified, some of which we, as Managers/Owners don't have any control over. One of the factors that can prevent messages from being properly archived has to do with an email's unique Message ID. Each time a user creates and sends an email message, that email message will be assigned a unique Message ID "number", regardless of how many email addresses the message is addressed to in either the To: or Cc: field. This means that if a user sends a message to List A and decides to Cc: the same message to List B, the message arriving at List A and List B will have the same unique Message ID, even though the recipient Lists are different. Where this becomes a problem is in the "smart" way that many new email servers are handling messages that appear to be "identical" through the comparison between Message ID's. If there is a subscriber who is only subscribed to List A, they will not see this as a problem. If there is a subscriber to both Lists A and B, they may likely see a problem; their email server will allow the first message arriving into their server to be processed as normal, but recognize the second message (arriving split seconds later) as a duplicate and trash that second "duplicate" message, before it even goes out for delivery to their email address. The result is that a subscriber to Lists A and B may only get that cross-posted message from List A and not from List B, or vice versa, depending upon arrival time. Now, apply this to the Archives. The Archives are treated in the same way that any subscriber is treated. The Archives are created from a subscribed email address. If said Archive "subscriber" is subscribed to Lists A and B, that Archive will only "see" a single duplicated or cross-posted message - the one which is received first by the Archive's mail server. As a result, any cross-posted message might show up in email Archive for List A and not in email Archive for List B, C, D, E, etc., even though the message was originally addressed to multiple other email Lists. A relatively simple work-around for this, although perhaps a bit clunky, is to generate a unique message for each List. It probably takes an extra 20 seconds per List address (cut-and-pasting the entire message into a new email for each List). I realize this may not be feasible or convenient for many to do in this way. The benefit in doing this, is to produce a unique Message ID for each message sent to each email List, allowing each respective multi-List-subscribed email address to receive each "cross-posted" message; thus, allowing each message to appear in each respective email Archive for the greater good of future references to the Archives. In summary, please try not to cross-post the same message to multiple eLists - in other words, do not add multiple email Lists in the To: or Cc: fields of a new message. Instead, please generate a separate email message for each email List you wish to post to. This will help prevent messages with duplicate Message ID's from getting deleted by "smart" email-handling programs and, thus, help prevent duplicate messages from getting dropped from the message archive locations. Thanks very much to those who took the time to read this long-winded explanation! If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me off List. Thanks again and good birding! Sincerely, Chris T-H -- Chris Tessaglia-Hymes Listowner, NYSbirds-L Ithaca, New York c...@cornell.edu NYSbirds-L <http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> - Archives NYSbirds-L <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME> - Welcome and Basics NYSbirds-L <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES> - Rules and Information NYSbirds-L <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> - Subscribe, Configuration and Leave -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
