A number of people - I'm not sure what percentage yet - this week received a link to the current issue of TidBITS in email instead of receiving the full issue. I know why this has happened, although I don't yet know what caused it.

Here's the deal. By default, Web Crossing provides the option for people subscribed to mailing lists to receive a single message notifying them of new messages to read on the Web, rather than sending each message individually. I had kept that general capability in place, even though it doesn't make sense with TidBITS issues, where we have our own announcement versions, mostly because of TidBITS Talk and some private lists we run. For reasons I don't yet understand, that option was accidentally turned on for some people this week, causing them to receive the notification rather than the actual issue.

I've disabled the option at the server level now, so anyone who logs into their account (yes, you all have accounts for managing subscriptions; see our Account Help page for details - I plan to say more about account management after a rewrite that's in the works) won't see the notification option at all. Shortly, I'll run the rather simple code that traverses the entire user database and resets this option back to sending full email messages. Everything should be back to normal next week.

My apologies for the confusion and the inconvenience! If you haven't yet read TidBITS #838 yet, you can do so easily on our Web site.