Many people still can't figure out their email address

I've noticed through running several online communities that require email validation that many people either aren't paying enough attention when they enter their email address or they simply don't know what their email address actually is.

I'm leaning toward thinking its more of often the later. I see a surprising amount of people sign up prefacing their email with "www." e.g. www.user@yahoo.com and less often, user@www.yahoo.com.

Another popular mistake is using the incorrect domain name extension. e.g. user@comcast.com When it really is user@comcast.net.

Then you have people that forget the dots in their names in services that use silly naming conventions like, first.last@example.com.

Just ask any US Postal Worker about improperly addressed letters. They'll talk your ear off about it for what seems like hours! All kinds of mistakes are common but the inefficient and haphazardly run post office is still able to deliver these letters more often than not.

No matter how much we attempt to educate users on the proper spelling of their email addresses there will always be many that just can't catch on or will forget it. But, these types of common problems can easily be fixed by the email providers as there is no technical reason why these examples cannot be rerouted automatically.

You'd think we'd have figured this out by now, don't you?