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 December 31, 2003, MacGroup had 193 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.
31-DEC-03
| The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will
| be October 26. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>.
| List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu>
| List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
