"keyword.*" takes over just "keyword"

[lwc]

My usual address for someone (whose address is an exclusive sender) is "someone.*.myuser" but I tried writing them just from the none existing "someone.myuser" and then I thought to myself "I hope they won't reply and open up a new alias".

They did reply...but Spamgourmet decided not to open the new alias!

How do I know?

1) I looked in my list and it didn't open a new alias...

2) As if this was the "*" address, the subject for this none existing address actually said "exclusive sender for this address".

3) Their reply masking address also looks the same as the one from the time they replied to the original "*" address, which means if I reply it would be from the "*" address.

Is this a feature or a bug?

I wonder what would have happened if I had a none "*" address and wrote from a none existing "*" address. Would then the roles switch places? In 3)'s case, would this mean I could only reply from the none "*" address this time?

Not to mention what if I have other addresses with just other things instead of "*" - will they all share the same reply masking and which would take precedence?

[josh]

When the code gets a message, it looks at the address and decomposes it in accordance with the published features -- one of the main things it does is try to figure out what the "word" is -- if it's the first time the system has seen that "word", then a new address is created, and other parts of the address are examined to see how it should be created -- that is, if there's a number, then that's how many messages are allowed, and if there's a + or a *, then the exclusive sender setup code is invoked, and if there's nothing, then the default number is used, etc., etc.

Once a disposable address is created, the only relevant part of it is the "word" - the other parts are ignored. So, it's a feature

[lwc]

Ok, but now it was easy because I only had one address with a certain word so none existing ones with the same word and a different code are ignored.

But what if I have multiple addresses with the same word and a different code? Which of them gets the incoming mail?

[josh]

you can't have multiple addresses with the same word -- there is a known bug where a duplicate record is put in when two messages arrive to a new address nearly simultaneously, but that's different - the second of the two is ignored, or they're both updated identically - can't remember which. Logically, anyway, for each user there can only be one address per word.

[lwc]

So once a certain word is used, can I make up endless variations of the code (certainword.*, certainword.+, certainword.3, certainword.blabla, etc.) as a secondary measure to debug this address?

For example, if I use the address for a certain organization, but still want different people/departments in it to get different variations so I can have some local control (at least I'll know if the person/department that got certainword.3 sold me or the one that got certainword.blabla, etc.). If so, that's truly a feature and not a bug!
...and I wish I knew it earlier! I have exactly an address that I need open for people I still don't know about, but it was ruined because of one department that published it in a semi-public page.

Hey, I'm not saying it's as smart as bothering to use a whole new word, but it's still a secondary measure nonetheless.

Besides, if it's true, I can tell people, after they've sent me their initial mail, "hey, remember that weird ".*/+." in my address that you thought I gave you by mistake? Well, don't use it from now on!"

[josh]

you can use any variation with the word, and it'll be the same address, including omitting the middle part altogether, as you can do these days.

Note, though, if you reply using reply address masking, the address that replaces yours will be the exemplar that was established when the address was created, which will be what it first looked like.

[lwc]

Then tell me this:
1) Is there a risk you consider this "feature" a bug and would "fix" it one day - resulting in new addresses popping up in my database left and right (assuming I use this feature, which I currently don't)?
2) If you truly consider this a feature, how about allowing us to change the "reply masking address" (I guess that's the proper term) when editing a certain alias?

[josh]

Neither a feature nor a bug, but rather an aspect (?) -- I never plan on fixing it. It would require a fundamental overhaul of the system.

[lwc]

That's a (good) answer to question 1), thanks. What about 2)?
You could say 2) isn't even related to all of this - it's just a matter of letting us semi-edit (just the code word) the database entry.

[josh]

I'm afraid to allow editing of the "exemplar" like in #2, because if a user modifies the address to something other than a spamgourmet address, then the reply will go somewhere else, and I'm afraid it won't be very obvious. We probably could come up with a user interface that would make it mistake proof, but that could take awhile.

[lwc]

because if a user modifies the address to something other than a spamgourmet address

Which was exactly why I specifically said:

letting us semi-edit (just the code word)

How can anyone possibly abuse that? All you have to do is ignore our changes if we wrote anything that isn't either a blank, +, *, a word or a number.

[lwc]

Just a quick update: Josh has told me he now understands I just meant to let us edit the code word part and the whole thing.

Thus he (hopefully) plans to let us edit it eventually.