Interacting with the Listorc
...be nice and it won't eat you
Click on a question to see its answer.
- Q. I think something may be wrong with my subscription, with the list, or with listproc. What do I do?
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A. Read through this FAQ. If the answer isn't given here, ask the listowners.
Do NOT fiddle with listproc commands unless you know what you're doing, it's not so much that you can do any damage (you can't), but the result is usually that the listowners get messages from listproc stating that there is a "HACKER ATTACK!!!" or something similar. We don't want to have to check out such warnings.
- Q. How do I subscribe?
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A. Send a message to listproc, with the words
subscribe tolkien <Your Real Name>in the body of the message.
- Q. How do I unsubscribe?
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A. Send a message to listproc, with the words
unsubscribe tolkienin the body of the message.
- Q. The above doesn't work. What do I do?
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A. Ask a listowner. They'll unsubscribe you. Do NOT send your request to the entire list, most of them aren't all that concerned with you going away, and you need the help of a list-owner to get off anyway.
- Q. My address has changed. Do I have to unsubscribe from the old address and then resubscribe from the new?
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A. No. Please don't do that. Send a mail to listproc, with the words
set tolkien address <password> <new address>in the body of the message, from your old address. You should have your password from the message you received when you subscribed to the list. If you do not have it, ask a listowner to find it out for you. If you do not have access to your old account, ask a listowner to change your address for you.
But please, please don't unsubscribe your old address and then resubscribe from your new address.
- Q. The list keeps telling me I'm not subscribed when I try to post. But I'm getting mails! What's wrong?
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A. Your address has changed. That is, the address your mailprogram gives, has changed. Unfortunately, this is not something you can easily fix yourself. Ask a listowner to fix it for you.
- Q. I've got two addresses, and want to be able to post from both. But how do I do this without subscribing both addresses?
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A. Again, the correct answer is to ask a listowner. Ask them to make your second address, the one you don't want to receive mails to, an alias of the primary one.
- Q. I don't think my messages are getting through to the list. Can I check this? What could I be doing wrong?
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A. To check whether messages from you are getting through to the list, send a mail to the listproc with the words
set tolkien mail ackin the body of the message. This will mean that every time you send a message, you get a copy of it back. Please don't send a 'test' message, wait until you've got something you want to say. To switch off acknowledgement of postings, send a message to the listproc with the words
set tolkien mail noackin the body of the message.
Once you've established that mails from you aren't getting through, ask Martijn, the listowner who keeps an eye on most of the error messages generated by the listproc, to keep an eye out for error messages relating to you.
If you think that one of your messages haven't gotten through, while the above test reveals nothing, the problem is probably that listproc pretends to be intelligent. Any message where it thinks the first line looks like something that could have been a command, will be stopped, without warning to anyone. A typical example is a message starting with "sigh", which the listproc will think was meant to be a "signoff", and therefore should have been sent to the listproc, instead of to the list.
- Q. I'm going away for a month, what do I do?
A. DO NOT UNSUBSCRIBE if you mean to return. This will only cause more work for you, and more work for the listowners, when you want to resubscribe. Instead, send a mail to listproc with the words
set tolkien mail postponein the body of the message. This means you remain a subscriber, but receive no mail. The only practical difference between this and unsubscribing, is that all it takes to "resubscribe", is to send a mail to the listproc with the words
set tolkien mailThis sets things back to normal.
- Q. Is it possible to receive the list in digest format?
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A. Yes. Send a mail to listproc with the words
set tolkien mail digestin the body of the message.
- Q. I don't want to receive the list in digest format any more. How can I change it back to 'each post at a time' mode?
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A. Simply by sending a mail to listproc with the words
set tolkien mail ackin the body of the message.
- Q. I have stopped receiving messages from the list. Have I been removed from the list?
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A. Not necessarily. The reason you have stopped receiving messages is that your site has returned some sort of error message on mails sent to you. If the error message was something serious (typically "User Unknown") then yes, you will have been deleted, and must resubscribe. If it was something seemingly less serious (such as "Server Down", or "Mailbox Full", then your subscription has only been postponed, and you can fix things yourself.
To check, send a mail to listproc with the words
query tolkienin the body of the message. If the answer states that you are not subscribed, then you need to resubscribe. If you are still subscribed, you will receive a message listing the details of your subscription. Look for a line marked 'MAIL'. If the word next to 'MAIL' is 'POSTPONE', then to start receiving mail again, all you need to do is send a message to listproc with
set tolkien mailin the body of the message. If you still can't figure out what is wrong, get in touch with a listowner.