This is an e-mail automatically sent to the MacGroup mailing list
once per month. It contains some administrivia about list usage. It
is always available at the list's Web page
<http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup/>
Additional questions about list management should be send to macgroup-
owner at erdos.math.louisville.edu.
Here are the questions. To find the answer, search on [n], where n is
the number of the question.
1. How do I unsubscribe from MacGroup or MacGroup-Digest?
2. How do I subscribe to MacGroup or MacGroup-Digest?
3. What's the difference between MacGroup and MacGroup Digest?
4. How do I post messages to the lists?
5. What kinds of messages can be posted to the lists?
6. I just posted to the list. Why did my message not appear?
7. Is there an archive of past messages?
8. Will you give me a list of all subscribers to the lists?
9. How many subscribers are there?
10. Are the lists hosted on a Macintosh?
11. I do not seem to be getting all the list messages. Why?
[1] How do I unsubscribe from MacGroup or MacGroup-Digest?
To do so, you must send a command to, Majordomo, the software that
serves the list. This is done by sending it an e-mail message. If you
are unsubscribing from MacGroup, send your message to
macgroup-request at erdos.math.louisville.edu
If you are unsubscribing from MacGroup Digest, send the message to
macgroup-digest-request at erdos.math.louisville.edu
Sending your message to the standard list address will do nothing. In
either case, the only thing to appear in the message should be the
single word
unsubscribe
Make sure your mailer does not automatically append anything else to
the message, and it's best to send the message as plain text e-mail.
The return address on your message must be in the database of
subscribers, so send the message from the same account you use
to receive mail from the list. You should get an acknowledgement from
the Majordomo software a short time after you unsubscribe. If this
acknowledgement does not appear, something went wrong. More
information about unsubscribe and other commands is available by
sending e-mail containing the single word "help" to
majordomo at erdos.math.louisville.edu.
If you change your e-mail address, please remember to unsubscribe
from your old one and subscribe under your new address.
If you just abandon an e-mail account, please unsubscribe before you
do so. An abandoned e-mail address generates annoying error messages,
and the list's moderator must unsubscribe you by hand. This annoys him.
[2] How do I subscribe to MacGroup.
Anyone can subscribe to the MacGroup or MacGroup Digest lists. To do
so, you must send a command to, Majordomo, the software that serves
the list. This is done by sending it an e-mail message. If you are
subscribing to MacGroup, send your message to
macgroup-request at erdos.math.louisville.edu
If you are subscribing to MacGroup Digest, send the message to
macgroup-digest-request at erdos.math.louisville.edu
In either case, the only thing to appear in the message should be the
single word
subscribe
You should get an acknowledgement from the Majordomo software a short
time after you subscribe. If this acknowledgement does not appear,
something went wrong. More information about subscribe and other
commands is available by sending e-mail containing the single word
"help" to majordomo at erdos.math.louisville.edu.
[3] What's the difference between MacGroup and MacGroup Digest?
Both have the same content. Subscribers to MacGroup get the messages
one at a time, as they are sent. Subscribers to MacGroup Digest get
all the messages since the previous digest as one long message. The
digests are generated whenever the queued messages exceed 80K bytes,
or at 5:15 p.m. daily, whichever comes first.
The digested version of the list is still somewhat experimental.
Because of the dozens of different combinations of character sets and
formatting regularly used in e-mail, it's no easy job to cleanly
concatenate the messages when the digest is created. Many lists solve
the problem by requiring all posters to adhere to a strict set of
rules. We're trying a different approach; we're developing a program
to parse the various formats into a common form. For this reason,
you'll occasionally see unexpected formatting problems on the digest
as we experiment with different ways to mangle the messages posted to
MacGroup into a form suitable for MacGroup Digest. You can help when
you see a possible formatting error by calling it to our attention.
[4] How do I post messages to the lists?
To post a message to the discussion lists, just send an ordinary
email message to macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu. This message
will be automatically distributed to all 150+ subscribers. Only
subscribers are allowed to post messages, so be sure to send the
message from the same email address you use to receive messages from
the list. If the return address on the message is not in the
subscriber list, the message will be rejected.
There is no moderation on the lists, so be careful what you post.
When your message is sent, it will be immediately forwarded to all
list subscribers.
There are a few nuances to posting that are sometimes nuisances.
First, the list management software, Majordomo, is set to look for
certain key words in the subject of messages to avoid administrative
commands being posted to the list. These include words such as
subscribe and unsubscribe. Messages posted with these key words in
the subject are likely to be rejected. Any line containing the string
+++ will not appear in the digest.
Second, only those subscribed to the list may post to the list. All
other messages are rejected. The way Majordomo determines membership
is from the sender's e-mail address. So, if you want to post to the
list, you should probably send the message from the same account at
which you receive mail from the list. (Or set your mail software to
have an appropriate return address.) The reason for this requirement
is to keep the spammers off the list.
[5] What kinds of messages can be posted to the list?
Any message that concerns Macintosh computers. The connection can
even be quite tenuous. This includes computer items for sale and
commercial events and seminars with Macintosh themes. Buying, selling
and trading software is allowed, as long as the transaction is legal.
When in doubt, ask first; the answer will probably be to go ahead and
post it.
The list is closed to general spam mail, and we have gone to some
trouble in our efforts to keep spam off this list. We do not consider
advertising for Mac-related products to be spam, in the context of
the MacGroup list.
[6] I just posted to the list. Why did my message not appear?
The usual reason for this is that the return address on your posting
is not the account at which you are subscribed. Most of the time this
happens because somebody subscribes with their home address and tries
to post with their work address, or vice versa. To cut down on
spammers, only list subscribers are allowed to post.
[7] Is there an archive of past messages?
Creating an archive of this list is an on-going project. There is a
partial archive at the list's Web page
<http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup/>
The archive is still being worked on, and may not be reliable.
There's also no way to search it (yet). If there is demand for them,
features will be added (slowly).
[8] Will you give me a listing of all subscribers to the lists?
No.
[9] How many subscribers are there?
On September 30, 2005, MacGroup had 227 subscribers and MacGroup-
Digest had 21 subscribers.
[10] Are the lists hosted on a Macintosh?
Unfortunately, no, although they could easily be hosted on Mac OS X.
The current hardware is a Linux server with dual Pentium III
processors. The list management software is Majordomo, augmented by
some custom Perl routines due to Jerry Yeager. If someone wants to
donate a Macintosh on which to host MacGroup, we'll be happy to
entertain that idea. Until then, we have better things to do with our
Macs.
[11] I do not seem to be getting all the list messages. Why?
Some Internet service providers have installed spam filters that are
overly aggressive. For some reason, they identify seemingly random
messages from MacGroup as spam. If you're having this problem, you'll
have to complain to your ISP because there's little we can do.
Full mailboxes are another common reason why mail fails to reach
subscribers. We usually let such bounce messages pile up for about a
week before removing an address.
30-SEPT-05
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