Mail Archives: cygwin/2004/01/28/02:08:14
Wed, 28 Jan 2004 02:07:36
Your message to WINNT-L-request AT PEACH DOT EASE DOT LSOFT DOT COM has been forwarded
to the "list owners" (the people who manage the WINNT-L list). If you
wanted to reach a human being, you used the correct procedure and you can
ignore the remainder of this message. If you were trying to send a
command for the computer to execute, please read on.
Are you trying to access the list's archives on the web and being told
that you do not have permission to access them? Please CAREFULLY read the
information on the page you get when you are denied access. It is most
likely that you have registered a password (which is a server-wide,
one-time operation) but have not actually subscribed to the list (which
is a separate, individual operation for each list hosted on the server).
Alternately you may have signed up for the list under one userid and
gotten your password and tried to access the web archives under another.
If you are new to LISTSERV and need help with LISTSERV commands, you can
download a copy of the "General User's Manual for LISTSERV" at the URL
http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/index.html
Please note that if you wrote to this address asking for instructions on
how to subscribe, I would appreciate it greatly if you would write to the
administrators of whatever resource you used to find out about WINNT-L
and tell them to provide proper instructions. I find it completely
irresponsible for sites not to include complete information for something
as simple as this.
Also please note that if you are attempting to subscribe an account (such
as a Microsoft Exchange public folder, or other redistribution list) to
WINNT-L which contains the string "WINNT" in the userid, you will not be
allowed to subscribe. This is to avoid confusion and help prevent mailing
loops. Please use another userid (such as "NT-LIST") for such purposes.
Note that I will not manually add such accounts to the list. If you
cannot maintain your own subscription I am not going to do it for you.
(If you ran over 30 lists with 80K+ combined subscribers you'd feel that
way about it, too :)
As of 11 December 1999 messages containing MIME attachments are rejected
out of hand and returned to the sender. The policy of the WINNT-L list
has always been to discourage sending attachments to the list,
particularly given the recent proliferation of virii sent as attachments,
and the policy has changed from one of passive discouragement to one of
active rejection. If you have an attachment that you feel must be shared
with other WINNT-L participants, the best avenue for doing so is to
simply provide a link to an FTP site or other resource for downloading
it. This saves bandwidth and keeps other subscribers happy.
The WINNT-L list is managed by a LISTSERV server. LISTSERV commands
should always be sent to the "LISTSERV" address, ie
LISTSERV AT PEACH DOT EASE DOT LSOFT DOT COM. Postings to the list should be sent to the
"list" address, ie, WINNT-L AT PEACH DOT EASE DOT LSOFT DOT COM. Note carefully that
LISTSERV never tries to process messages sent to the WINNT-L-request
address; it simply forwards them to a human being, and acknowledges
receipt with the present message.
The "listname-request" convention originated on the Internet a long time
ago. At the time, lists were always managed manually, and this address
was defined as an alias for the person(s) in charge of the mailing list.
You would write to the "listname-request" address to ask for information
about the list, ask to be added to the list, make suggestions about the
contents and policy, etc. Because this address was always a human being,
people knew and expected to be talking to a human being, not to a
computer. Unfortunately, some recent list management packages screen
incoming messages to the "listname-request" address and attempt to
determine whether they are requests to join or leave the list. They look
for words such as "subscribe", "add", "leave", "off", and so on. If they
decide your message is a request to join or leave the list, they update
the list automatically; otherwise, they forward the message to the list
owners. Naturally, this means that if you write to the list owners about
someone else's unsuccessful attempts to leave the list, you stand good
chances of being automatically removed from the list, whereas the list
owners will never receive your message. No one really benefits from this.
There is no reliable mechanism to contact a human being for assistance,
and you can never be sure whether your request will be interpreted as a
command or as a message to the list owners. This is why LISTSERV uses two
separate addresses, one for the people in charge of the list and one for
the computer that runs it. This way you always know what will happen,
especially if you are writing in a language other than English.
In any case, if your message was a LISTSERV command, you should now
resend it to LISTSERV AT PEACH DOT EASE DOT LSOFT DOT COM. The list owners know that you
have received this message and may assume that you will resend the
command on your own. You will find instructions for the most common
administrative requests below.
LISTSERV commands are all sent in the BODY (not the subject) of e-mail
messages to LISTSERV AT PEACH DOT EASE DOT LSOFT DOT COM. NOTE: Do NOT reply to this
message with LISTSERV commands; they will go to the wrong place and will
not be executed. Please create a new message addressed to
LISTSERV AT PEACH DOT EASE DOT LSOFT DOT COM to send commands.
To subscribe to the list: SUBSCRIBE WINNT-L
(may be abbreviated to
SUB WINNT-L)
To leave the list: SIGNOFF WINNT-L
(or UNSUB WINNT-L)
To change your address: (see below)
To set the list to digest mode: SET WINNT-L DIGEST
To set the list to index mode: SET WINNT-L INDEX
To set the list to individual
postings mode: SET WINNT-L NODIGEST
or SET WINNT-L NOINDEX
To turn mail off for a while
(e.g., vacation, business trip): SET WINNT-L NOMAIL
To turn mail back on: SET WINNT-L MAIL
To receive copies of your own
posts: SET WINNT-L REPRO NOACK
To get only a short acknowledgement
message for your posts (default): SET WINNT-L ACK NOREPRO
To get a reference card of
LISTSERV commands: INFO REFCARD
To get an index of available
list archive files: INDEX WINNT-L
To order archive files:
For monthly archives: GET WINNT-L LOGyymm
For weekly archives: GET WINNT-L LOGyymmw
(where yy= year, mm= month, and w= week. "w" can be A-E.)
NOTE VERY CAREFULLY that the mail message containing the commands MUST
originate from the e-mail address that is actually subscribed to the
list. LISTSERV does not perform so-called "fuzzy matching" to see if
JOE AT FOO DOT COM is the same as JOE AT UNIX DOT FOO DOT COM. Therefore, if your ISP has
changed your e-mail address without telling you, you may not be able to
send commands until we straighten out the subscription. If this happens
to you, please send mail to WINNT-L-REQUEST AT PEACH DOT EASE DOT LSOFT DOT COM and
include any possible alternate addresses that might be subscribed to the
list.
POP mail users should make sure that the return address set in the mail
client is correct. This is the number one problem most POP users
encounter.
Changing your address
---------------------
LISTSERV 1.8d introduces a new CHANGE command which can be used to change
your subscribed address as long as you have access to both the old and
new addresses. Simply send mail to LISTSERV AT PEACH DOT EASE DOT LSOFT DOT COM from the
<old address> with the following command in the body (not the subject) of
the message:
CHANGE WINNT-L your_new_address
for instance,
CHANGE WINNT-L joe DOT doakes AT example DOT com
LISTSERV will then send a command confirmation request to the <new
address>. You send the "OK" to confirm the command from the new address
and LISTSERV executes the change.
If you do not have access to the old mail account, please contact the
list owner at WINNT-L-REQUEST AT PEACH DOT EASE DOT LSOFT DOT COM with both your old and
new addresses and request that a change be made. The CHANGE command is
really intended for people who know in advance that a change is going to
be made and who may temporarily have access to both the new and old
accounts (or who can at least send mail with a From: address pointing
back to the old account).
************************
* FOR MORE INFORMATION *
************************
Write to LISTSERV AT PEACH DOT EASE DOT LSOFT DOT COM and, in the text of your message
(not the subject line), write: "HELP" or "INFO" (without the quotes).
HELP will give you a short help message and INFO a list of the documents
you can order.
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