As some of you are very well aware, we have the INFO-AFS mailing list set up to allow posting only from addresses subscribed to the mailing list, in order to help avoid spam on the list. Unfortunately, this has largely disenfranchised a number of perfectly legitimate posters, who are not directly subscribed (e.g., reading INFO-AFS via a local forwarding list, bulletin board, or newsgroup gateway). Postings from these individuals get shuffled off to an administrative queue, where someone has to look at them and forward them to INFO-AFS manually. Unfortunately, this often takes a very long times, and some posts have been in the queue for a month or longer before being forwarded by an administrator. To try to fix this problem, we've set up a separate mailing list on our Majordomo server, called "info-afs-post". This is a "fake" mailing list, in that postings sent to it will not actually go anywhere, and nothing will ever be forwarded to any of that list's subscribers. HOWEVER, if you are subscribed to the "info-afs-post" mailing list, you also have permission to post to INFO-AFS. If you are subscribed to this fake mailing list, you will not receive any extra e-mail messages - the only thing you will get by being on the "info-afs-post" list, is permission to post to INFO-AFS. So, if you read INFO-AFS by some means other than being personally subscribed to the mailing list, AND you wish to be able to post to INFO-AFS without any time lag, you should subscribe to the "info-afs-post" list, by sending an e-mail message to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]", with the line "subscribe info-afs-post" in the body of the message (NOT in the "Subject:" line, which is ignored completely). You should also subscribe to "info-afs-post" if you post to the INFO-AFS mailing list from a different address than the one you are subscribed with - for instance, if you are subscribed to INFO-AFS as "[EMAIL PROTECTED]", but e-mail you send comes from "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" (as indicated in the message headers). If you don't fall into one of these categories, or if you never post to INFO-AFS, then you can ignore this message and take no action. If you aren't subscribed directly, AND you do not subscribe to the "info-afs-post" list, then any messages you send to INFO-AFS will still get bounced into the administrative queue to be processed manually. Upon approving your message to be sent to INFO-AFS, we will manually subscribe you to the info-afs-post list, so future postings from you will be forwarded automatically, without administrator intervention. However, it still make take quite some time for your first message to be forwarded, so it is best to subscribe to info-afs-post in advance if you fall into this category. The list will be periodically purged, and you may be unsubscribed from info-afs-post if you don't post to INFO-AFS for a long time, or if no addresses at your site are subscribed directly to INFO-AFS. If this should happen to you, and you still need the ability to post to INFO-AFS, then just subscribe to the info-afs-post list again. If it is any consolation for those who have been affected by this problem, you should know that INFO-AFS receives anywhere from 5 to 10 spam messages per week. Of these, only about 75% are caught by the "old" content filter. The rest are caught by the subscriber posting restriction. So, this really has been an effective anti-spam measure. If you have any questions about this or need further information, please contact me directly. Thanks, --Pat Barron IT Network Integration Specialist IBM Transarc Lab
