Sun, 11 Jun 2006 06:02:37
This administrative posting will be distributed on an
approximately
quarterly basis. Note that if you are not directly
subscribed to the list
(e.g., you are subscribed to a mail reflector or redis-
tribution list),
the commands described below will not have any effect for
you.
Note that this message is also a "probe" for
your subscription to the
ACCESS-L list. You do not need to take any action to remain
subscribed to
the list, and in particular you should not reply to this
message. This
"probe" takes the place of the older
"Confirm" method that required you
to send a command back in order to stay on the list.
LISTSERV commands are all sent in the BODY (not the
subject) of e-mail
messages to LISTSERV PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.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
LISTSERVPEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM to send commands.
To subscribe to the list: SUBSCRIBE ACCESS-L
(may be abbreviated to
SUB ACCESS-L)
To leave the list: SIGNOFF ACCESS-L
(or UNSUB ACCESS-L)
To change your address: (see below)
To set the list to digest mode: SET ACCESS-L DIGEST
To set the list to index mode: SET ACCESS-L INDEX
To set the list to individual
postings mode: SET ACCESS-L NODIGEST
or SET ACCESS-L NOINDEX
To turn mail off for a while
(e.g., vacation, business trip): SET ACCESS-L NOMAIL
To turn mail back on: SET ACCESS-L MAIL
To receive copies of your own
posts: SET ACCESS-L REPRO NOACK
To get only a short acknowledgement
message for your posts (default): SET ACCESS-L ACK NOREPRO
To get a reference card of
LISTSERV commands: INFO REFCARD
To get an index of available
list archive files: INDEX ACCESS-L
To order archive files:
For monthly archives: GET ACCESS-L LOGyymm
For weekly archives: GET ACCESS-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
JOEFOO.COM is the same as JOEUNIX.FOO.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 ACCESS-L-REQUESTPEACH.EASE.LSOFT.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
---------------------
Simply send mail to LISTSERVPEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM from
the <old address>
with the following command in the body (not the subject) of
the message:
CHANGE ACCESS-L your_new_address
for instance,
CHANGE ACCESS-L joe.doakesexample.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.
You can also change your address from the web interface for
this list by
going to the URL
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=ACCE
SS-L
and doing the following:
1. If you are logged in automatically, skip to step #3.
2. To get a password for your old address, simply click
the "get a new
LISTSERV password first" link in the first paragraph
on the login page.
Then, type your OLD address (NOT THE NEW ADDRESS!) into
the "E-Mail
Address" box, and type a new password into the two
"Password" boxes.
Click "Register Password".
This causes a piece of mail to be sent to your OLD address
asking you to
confirm that you are who you say you are. In most cases
this piece of
mail will contain a link to click for that confirmation.
If that is the
case, simply click the link. After you are told that your
password was
accepted, simply go back to the login page from step #1
and log in with
your OLD address and your NEW password.
3. Once you log in, you may be told
You are not currently subscribed to ACCESS-L under your
joeexample.org address.
If this is the case, you've picked the wrong address and
you'll have to
try again from the start. If you've had a number of
different addresses,
you may have to try them all. If you can't get past this
point, you'll
have to contact the list owner and ask him to change the
address for you
manually.
If you DO get logged in, you can now change your address.
Simply correct
the address in the "Your E-Mail Address"
field and click "Update
Options". If the whole point of this exercise was to
unsubscribe or to
turn off mail temporarily, you can do that from here, too.
If you still cannot change the address on your own,
contact the list
owner at ACCESS-L-REQUESTPEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM with
both your old and new
addresses and request that a change be made.
A major problem many users encounter is related to how
your mail client
reads the delivery "headers" of list mail. If
you use Microsoft Mail in
particular (possibly also a package called
"QuickMail"), you should check
to see where your mail is going when you reply to mail
coming from the
list. If your reply is addressed to
"owner-ACCESS-LPEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM", then you
need to change this to
"ACCESS-LPEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM". If you
don't, the mail is referred to
the list owner (me) as an error, since the
"owner-ACCESS-L" address is
where correctly-configured mail servers are supposed to
be bouncing
delivery errors. Please note that I do not even try to
forward these
messages to their respective lists. I get 50 or more of
them a day for
the 30 or so lists I run, and I don't have time to do
this. The fact of
the matter is that if your mail software claims that the
mail is coming
from owner-ACCESS-L, then it is not compliant with Internet
standards for
mail.
Another major problem users encounter is related to how
your mail client
quotes text from the message you are replying to. This is
specifically a
problem with Pegasus Mail and some incarnations of the
Microsoft Exchange
Client, but there are probably others. The problem arises
when your mail
client includes the "Sender:",
"From:", or "Reply-To:" fields that
point
back to ACCESS-LPEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM in the quoted
material and doesn't
quote them correctly. For instance, a reply from Pegasus
with quoted
material would include the following lines:
> Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 17:00:00 -0700
> Reply-to: Microsoft Access Database Discussion
List <ACCESS-LPEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM>
> From: Joe User <JOEUNIX.FOO.COM>
> Subject: Re: 97 Style ToolBars
> To: ACCESS-LPEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM
These would trigger LISTSERV's loop detection functions
because there is
a space between the ">" character and the
"Reply-To:" and the "From:"
headers. Like the owner-ACCESS-L problem noted above, these
messages then
get sent to me as errors. Again, I don't do anything
with them except
trash them, because I simply don't have time to do anything
else.
The correct, netiquette-approved method of quoting these
headers is to
delete them entirely from the body of your message. Quoting
is generally
done for reasons of context and message headers are
not needed for
context. (Pegasus actually lets you toggle this on and
off via the
"Advanced options for replies" dialog. Other
clients don't seem to have
this function.) Note that Eudora quotes messages with no
space between
the ">" character and the quoted text, so
this is not an issue with
Eudora.
Finally, a note about full mailboxes and
"vacation" programs.
#ifdef SOAPBOX_MODE
I used to be nice about full mailboxes and gave people the
benefit of the
doubt for much longer than I should have. When I receive
"mailbox full"
error for more than two days (including weekends), I delete
the user from
the list. Period. It is <your> responsibility to read
your mail and keep
your mailbox down to a point where mail can be delivered.
It is not my
responsibility to have to read all of the "mailbox
full" errors sent back
by your mail system because you have shirked your end of
the deal. Thank
you for your cooperation in this regard.
People who go off on holiday and set up a
"vacation" message for their
mail should do one of two things with <ALL> mailing
lists:
* set the list to DIGEST or INDEX mode; or
* set the list to NOMAIL
This is because most vacation programs are brain-damaged
and do not
understand that mail from a mailing list does not need to
be responded
to. When I start receiving multiple "I'm on
vacation" messages from
users, those users get deleted. (However, if you've
set yourself to
DIGEST or INDEX before leaving, I'm more lenient.) Once
again it is not
my responsibility to deal with your company's,
provider's, or
university's brain-damaged vacation program. A
well-behaved vacation
program should send only one message per day per
correspondent, but few
do. A well-behaved vacation program should send the message
back to the
RFC821 MAIL FROM: address rather than back to the RFC822
"From:" address.
A well-behaved vacation program should be configurable so
that it does
not respond to mailing lists or other "bulk"
mailers. And so forth.
Actually the <best>-behaved vacation program is the
one that is never
used, in my honest opinion.
#endif
The good thing about full mailboxes and
"vacation" programs is that they
only seem to affect small numbers of users. But one or two
"mailbox full"
or "vacation" users over several days can dump
quite a lot of unneeded
mail into my mailbox.
Thank you for your attention; may your sojourn on this
list be filled
with pleasure and delight. 
Nathan Brindle
List owner, ACCESS-L
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