| Complete.Org: Mailing Lists: List Information |
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First Edition, 1996
Second Edition, January 3, 1997
Third Edition, October 23, 1998
Complete.Org has been around in various forms for some time. At present. Complete.Org hosts approximately 50 mailing lists, web-based archives for some of those, and various online services for Open Source projects running under GNU/Linux, such as the Air Capital Linux Users Group .
You may always receive the latest version of this document by checking the World Wide Web at http://www.complete.org/mailinglists/ . This web page contains a typeset version suitable for printing, an online HTML version, and a plain text version that is sent to new list subscribers.
Mailing lists (or just "lists") are ways to have group discussions over the Internet. Lists can be open to the public or can be private. Or there are some ones that fall in-between. In the 50 lists hosted at Complete.Org, there are lists of almost every type, but the majority are public lists. Most lists let you join by sending a computer a simple command.
I will give a brief overview of the various functions of a mailing list below. More in-depth explanations of many aspects of lists are discussed later.
Once you are part of a list group, here's how everything works. It is important to understand this, but it is a very simple process.
If you look at step 3 above, you notice that the message is sent to everyone in the group. That brings up a question: how do you become part of the group?
The procedure is very simple!
Details on how to send the computer your request, etc. are below.
If you ever want a leave a list, it is very simple.
Again, see the later sections in this manual for more information about sending the computer your request.
Some Complete.Org mailing lists have archives of all past and present posts that have been sent to the list. These are useful for checking to see whether your comment has been discussed before, and also provides an alternative interface to reading messages in a mail client. To access these archives, point your Web browser to http://www.complete.org/mailinglists/archives/ .
This section will get you up and going quickly with complete.org's mailing lists. Later on in this manual are in-depth instructions for communicating with mail software at complete.org.
Throughout this section, we will use a fictitious list called listname as a sample. For instance, there will be a reference to listname-request@complete.org. If the list you actually want to act upon is called qwerty, you would use qwerty-request@complete.org. If the list you actually want to act upon is called qwerty-discussion-digest, you would use qwerty-discussion-digest-request@complete.org.
Send an e-mail to listname-request@complete.org. In the body of that e-mail, put the single word SUBSCRIBE. You will shortly receive an acknowledgement from the complete.org computer indicating that it has processed your request.
Send an e-mail to listname-request@complete.org. In the body of that e-mail, put the single word UNSUBSCRIBE. You will shortly receive an acknowledgement from the complete.org computer indicating that is has processed your request.
After you have joined a list, all messages send to the list will be automatically e-mailed directly to you. There is nothing special you need to do to read messages on the list.
To post a message to the list, simply e-mail your message to listname@complete.org.
If you have a problem, question, or a comment, you may write to listar-owner@complete.org (for generic list system questions) or to listname-owner@complete.org.
If you are just interested in the basics of mailing lists, you don't need to read any more information in this manual. The other information is for users that want to use Listar's more advanced functions, such as list digests.
Sometimes you may be subscribed to a list with high volume (that is, there are lots of posts to it). Such a list may place a lot of messages in your mailbox. This is where list digests come in handy. A list digest will take a bunch of messages, combine them all into one large message, and deliver that message to you. You get exactly the same messages from a list digest as you would from a normal list -- they are just delivered to you differently.
Using a list digest is simple. Write to listname-request@complete.org as before. However, this time, in the body of your message, put the line:
SET DIGEST
You will receive a confirmation by return e-mail.
If you ever want to turn off digest mode, write to listname-request@complete.org, and put this line in the body of your message:
UNSET DIGEST
Remember, replace "listname" with the real name of the list; for instance, if your list is aclug-L, you'd write to aclug-L-request@complete.org. If you need help, please feel free to write to listar-owner@complete.org.
Listar is a system that handles join and leave requests for the Complete.Org mailing lists.
Listar is a computer program that runs on the computer at complete.org. It takes commands and acts accordingly. Since it is not a human, you have to word commands in certain precise ways. But it's very easy!
This is easy! In your e-mail program, you send a message to the e-mail address listar@complete.org. You can set the subject to anything you want. The commands that you have for Listar will go in the body of your message.
In the summary of Listar commands, you will see that many of them require you to use a listname with the command, for instance, "SUBSCRIBE listname". Another, possibly easier way to send a "SUBSCRIBE listname" command is to send your message to listname-request@complete.org and then omit the "listname" parameter from the command line. For instance, to subscribe to a list called qwerty-discussion, you would e-mail qwerty-discussion-request@complete.org and put just the word "SUBSCRIBE" in the body of your message. This command works with all commands below that ask for a listname on their command line. This is the method detailed above.
In the body of your message, you will supply one or more commands for Listar. Each command is a request for a certain task to be performed. Each command goes on one line. Listar will continue looking for more commands until it reaches the end of your e-mail, the command QUIT or it seems to recognize a sig. If you have a sigfile, either put the command QUIT before it in your message or turn it off -- otherwise, you may confuse Listar.
The Listar commands are too numerous to list here. You may, however, request a summary of them by sending a message to Listar@complete.org and putting the command HELP in it.
| September 9, 2008 | jgoerzen@complete.org |