The Song Fight Bulletin Board

The FAQ doesn't talk about this. Maybe it should explain what to expect by way of a confirmation message, if there's anything to explain.

I've always assumed that there's not much to explain: that this automated message goes out whenever a new e-mail arrives in the Fightmaster's mailbox, no matter what its title and content, who sent it, or whether it's a second message with the same title and content from the same person.

However, I've submitted six times for the current fight (I'll explain) and received only two messages, so now my assumptions are shaken. Was the lack of a corresponding message an indication that a given submission contained mistakes?

Because they did. I really need to make sure I have my glasses at hand when I do this. Here's how I came to submit six entries:

- I sent one for my song, but there was an extra character in the name of the mp3.
- I immediately sent it again, with a corrected attachment. But in both the title and the body, I added text indicating that there was a corrected attachment.
- I then sent an entry for a friend's song. My friend does not have an e-mail account.

At some point in all this I received exactly one automatic confirmation.

A FEW DAYS LATER, after Lunkhead posted a reminder to everyone to make sure they got it right, I checked my entries and discovered I hadn't. So:

- I sent one for my song, with the correct attachment name, but no extra content in the title and body beyond the strict requirement. (That's something else the FAQ could clarify. If the first line of the body is as specified, can there be additional text?)
- I then sent one for my friend's song, intending to correct a typo in the attachment name, but I botched that.
- I immediately re-sent one for my friend's song, with a corrected attachment name.

At some point in all this, I received exactly one more automated message.

I've peered intently at everything and I'm pretty sure I got the two submissions exactly right last time around (a testament to my competence, I'm sure). But if the automated message is supposed to arrive for every correctly formatted entry, I'm down one, so maybe I still don't have it right.

Maybe the bot just won't send more than one response to the same email address in a short time. I've sent in submissions with random notes in the body with no problem.

It's just using Dreamhost's standard auto-responder. So whatever behavior that thing has, is what you get. For now.

JB

To clarify, you get the automated message for any submission or random e-mail, correctly formatted or not. Except if you don't, in which case either your mail wasn't received or the automated message wasn't sent for unknown reasons, or it didn't arrive.
Does that help?

If jast's first sentence is accurate, then I should have received six replies. What I actually observed is more in line with josh's theory, and jast's second sentence, proviso number two (the message was received, but the automated message wasn't sent because the bot had just sent one).

FWIW, I didn't get any notices from the e-mail server about being unable to deliver.

How about your friend gets a gmail account and you stop making more work for the already-beleagured fightmaster, hm?

fluffy wrote:How about your friend gets a gmail account and you stop making more work for the already-beleagured fightmaster, hm?

No computer, no Internet service provider, no cable, no telephone. Hard to imagine, but true.

I have a rusty gmail account. I'll dust it off if necessary, pardon the mixed metaphors. Also, next time I'll get enough sleep before submitting a song. And find my glasses! Sorry for all the f-ups. Thanks for your patience, and for running this great site.

Hopefully I uploaded the correct entries of yours, but, if not, I'd say that's more your fault than mine.

Thanks. -- They're the right entries, as far as I can tell. . .