Before I go any  further I want to make it clear that  spoofing mail to a
list without  leaving traces is  not difficult  if you know  LISTSERV and
e-mail well  enough, so lack  of evidence proves nothing.  Similarly, the
fact that  Melvin would know  how to do that  doesn't imply he's  done it
either,  and   I  will  have  no   gratuitous/unfounded  UK-tabloids-like
mudslinging on this list.
 
This being said I  will now inform you that it does  look like someone or
something sent what was originally a  private message to the list. Normal
messages go  through MAILER@SEARN,  whereas this  one came  directly from
[log in to unmask] If Melvin had done it and  didn't care to have all the clues
point to him, this  is what it would have looked like.  On the other hand
Melvin  could  just  as easily  have  made  it  look  like it  came  from
MAILER@UGA  to MAILER@SEARN,  at which  point  we'd have  logs that  look
perfectly  normal  and  your  word/expertise  vs  his.  Given  the  oopsy
situation, you'd have  a hard time convincing the crowd  that you did not
in fact send the message to the  list, that your mailer did not screw up,
that  your fingers  did  not slip  to  the wrong  key  in your  emotional
outburst and that Melvin is such an  evil person. You'd know the truth of
course but  nobody would believe  you and  it would be  very frustrating.
Looks like a much better retaliation than just retagging the file :-)
 
With that  in mind  I conclude  that either  the problem  is due  to some
unfortunate technical/computer screwup, or that  Melvin did it but had no
desire to leave no traces and to hide  this fact from us, in which case I
suppose he will speak up soon.
 
As for the lynching, if think it is inappropriate to forward private mail
to a mailing  list when it is  obvious from the contents that  it was not
meant for  the list,  but I don't  see that as  a capital  offense, maybe
because the newspapers and politicians do  that all the time where I come
from. It  has happened  to me more  often than I  can remember.  When you
insult  someone in  private, it  is a  good idea  to weigh  the use  your
private  communication may  be  put  to by  your  antagonist  vs the  bad
impression  they would  be making  if they  forwarded your  message to  a
mailing list. I  once received a pretty explicit death  threat via e-mail
from a bozo (living in Sweden) and posted it to a public list to show the
kind of cretins that certain political  parties produce. Guess who said I
should have asked  for permission to repost a private  message? :-) Well,
that's admittedly a rather extreme example, but you get the picture.
 
  Eric