ghost messages added to SEELANGS from 1990s

Prof Steven P Hill s-hill4 at UIUC.EDU
Mon Jan 16 21:57:10 UTC 2006


Dear colleagues:

Attached below is SEELANGS' "Index" of 17 current messages, which Index I received 2 days ago (1/14/06; "Special issue #2006-15").  As I do each 
day, I clicked "Search-request" to receive the full text of all  17 current messages.   When those full texts arrived in 1 big batch (2 days ago), I 
scrolled down the large total number of lines and glanced over the full messages.  (Same procedure I follow regularly.) 

But a very strange thing  seemed  to happen to me 2 days ago.  ( First time ever, at least that I was aware of. )  After clicking "Search-request," 2 
days ago, I received, all unawares, what I later counted as 20 (not 17) total message texts.  Among those 20, I realized (much later) there were  3 
extra "ghost messages," in addition to the 17 current messages offered by that "Index." DID THAT HAPPEN ALSO TO THE REST OF YOU? (I.e., to 
those particular "SEELANGS" subscribers who receive daily only the current "Index" and then click "Search-request" to see the full current texts.)  

Today,  to make sure I hadn't imagined all of this,   I went back & clicked "Search-request"  again  to that same Saturday Index (see below).  On this 
2d try, when the requested batch of 17  full texts arrived an hour or two ago, this time they included also 7 ghost messages!  But the 7 ancient 
"ghosts," received today, proved to be totally different from the 3 ancient ghosts which I received 2 days earlier.  Go figure.

As I look back now at the original "Index"  (attached below, offering 17 messages), and compare it with the 20 total messages I received 2 days ago,   
I see that all 3  ghost messages dated  from April-May 1991, 14+ years ago. Those 3 ghost messages were from Dalton, about ruble 
exchange rates (5/20/1991), from Birnbaum about AATSEEL meeting "in San Francisco"  (5/19/91), and from the SEELANGS editors explaining all  
SEELANGS subscription procedures (4/5/1991; very long message).  And there seemed to be a strange visual pattern in those 3 ghost messages.
Dalton's, Birnbaum's, and the editors' 1991 messages each seemed to be physically attached ("run onto") the immediately following message, 
without any line-break to separate them,  as follows.  Dalton's '91 message was  "run onto" Shir's  message (#024129); Birnbaum's '91 message 
("AATSEEL in San Fran.") was "run onto" Gapova's message  (#024139);  and  the SEELANGS editors' long '91 message was "run onto" Alex' A-Strat's 
message (#024143),  and somehow seemed to have replaced (?) Tomback's message (#024142).

When I re-tested this procedure again on Monday (1/16/06), again sending a "Search-request" for Saturday's same 17 indexed current messages 
("Special issue #2006-15"; attached below), I again received the requested batch of 17 current (1/14/06) messages. But on this 2d try, amongst 
those 17 valid texts  there were also scattered 7 hoary old ghost messages.  These 7 "ghosts" proved to be from  Johnskoy,  just before Shatsev 
(#024135); from Browne and from Scatton, just before Conliffe (#024137); from Browne again, just before Caron (#024140); again from Browne and 
from Van Doren, just before Orwin (#024141); and the 7th "ghost" was from Cubberly, just AFTER Alex A-Strat, i.e, at the tail-end of all 17 (24?) 
total message texts.   With the exception of Johnskoy (1996), the other 6 ghosts all dated from 1991, and 5 of THOSE dated from April-May 1991.   
(What was it about those two months...?)  

Were  any  "ghost messages" from the 1990s also inserted in YOUR batches of full current texts, which you requested from Saturday's current 
Index to "Special issue #2006-15" (below)? Or was I alone in receiving such ghosts?  If the former, I suppose the bug or gremlin insinuated its way 
into the SEELANGS list-server (the sender).  If the latter, then it must mean the gremlin or bug slipped into my particular computer (the receiver)....

If  you still have your original "Search-request" results (output) from Saturday's particular Index ("1/13-1/14/06, #2006-15"), it would be 
interesting to see whether you received the same curious outputs that I received on Saturday (and today).  Or if that is already deleted from your In-
Box, but if anyone is so intrigued by my bizarre results (or so foolish?), as to try the same experiment now,  presumably you would "Copy and 
Paste" that Index (attached below), and then address your Request NOT to "Reply" (which would go to everybody), but rather to the "Request"  
address, which is:

"SEELANGS-Search-request at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU" 

With much puzzlement,
Steven P Hill,
University of Illinois.
_ __ __ _ _ __ __ __ __ _ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ _

Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 20:04:47 
From: SEELANGS automatic digest system <LISTSERV at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU> 
Subject: SEELANGS Index - 13 Jan 2006 to 14 Jan 2006 - Special issue (#2006-15) 
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU 

Index  Date  Size Poster and subject
-----  ----  ---- ------------------
024127 01/14   85 From:    Rossen Djagalov <rossen.djagalov at YALE.EDU>
                  Subject: a question about Okudzhava, Eidel'man and their
                           American friends

024128 01/14   47 From:    Rossen Djagalov <rossen.djagalov at YALE.EDU>
                  Subject: translitaration

024129 01/14   17 From:    "B. Shir" <redorbrown at YAHOO.COM>
                  Subject: the most popular Russian newspapers on-line?

024130 01/14   42 From:    Peter Morley <morley at CANTAB.NET>
                  Subject: Re: the most popular Russian newspapers on-line?

024131 01/14   47 From:    Joshua Wilson <jwilson at ALINGA.COM>
                  Subject: Re: the most popular Russian newspapers on-line?

024132 01/14   14 From:    Richard Robin <rrobin at GWU.EDU>
                  Subject: the most popular Russian newspapers on-line?

024133 01/14   15 From:    Nila Friedberg <nfriedbe at CHASS.UTORONTO.CA>
                  Subject: Re: the most popular Russian newspapers

024134 01/14   60 From:    KatarinaPeitlova <peitlovakatarina at TISCALI.IT>
                  Subject: proiznoshenie - e-

024135 01/14   37 From:    ÷ÌÁÄÉÍÉÒ ûÁÃÅ× <shatsev at MAIL.RU>
                  Subject: Re: the most popular Russian newspapers

024136 01/14   78 From:    "Paul B. Gallagher" <paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM>
                  Subject: Re: proiznoshenie - e-

024137 01/14   33 From:    Mark Conliffe <mconliff at WILLAMETTE.EDU>
                  Subject: one-year position

024138 01/14   23 From:    Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
                           <darancourlaferriere at COMCAST.NET>
                  Subject: A Chinese-English-Russian Question

024139 01/14   10 From:    Elena Gapova <e.gapova at WORLDNET.ATT.NET>
                  Subject: Re: the most popular Russian newspapers on-line?

024140 01/14   41 From:    Inna Caron <caron.4 at OSU.EDU>
                  Subject: Re: A Chinese-English-Russian Question

024141 01/14   80 From:    Donna Orwin <donna.orwin at UTORONTO.CA>
                  Subject: Re: one-year position

024142 01/14   13 From:    Richard Tomback <kaunas4 at RCN.COM>
                  Subject: Old Slavonic Josephus

024143 01/15   15 From:    Alex <a_strat at KHARKOV.COM>
                  Subject: Re: translitaration

The sizes  shown are the  number of lines  in the messages,  not counting
mail headers.

To order the messages you are interested in, simply reply to this message
and include the original text, just as  when you are replying to a normal
message and  want to quote  what your correspondent said.  Before sending
the message,  delete the  lines corresponding  to the  items you  are not
interested   in,    and   make    sure   your    reply   is    going   to
SEELANGS-Search-request at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU,        and       not        to
SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU.

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