E-MAIL LISTS: QUICK REFERENCE

E-MAIL LISTS: QUICK REFERENCE

Tens of thousands of lists; see www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/Mailing_Lists for several good indices and searchable databases.

LISTSERV List: list name often ends in "-L"; likely to be gatewayed to USENET in alt.listserv hierarchy

Post to listname@address CAVEAT: Do not sub/unsubscribe to this address!!!

Administrative commands go in message body to listserv@address, with blank subject line. A few are (database search is also important for advanced users):

subscribe listname your_first_name your_last_name Join list

unsubscribe listname Leave list (or signoff)

set listname digests Receive messages in digest form only (if available)

set listname nomail Temporarily stop receiving messages

set listname mail Receive messages in usual way (default)

help                                                    Returns a summary of basic commands
info [refcard]                           Returns list of info docs [command summary]
release                                            Returns version of list manager software and who maintains it

index listname                                Returns index of available archive files
get filename filetype                      Returns desired file; case insensitive; filename/filetype syntax
                                                                  from IBM/VM heritage; format options

review listname Returns list of subscribers (options can sort various ways)
stats listname Returns list statistics

Internet "-request" List: has Internet address only; membership handled manually

Subscribe/unsubscribe via short, polite message to listname-request@internet_address

Post to listname@internet_address CAVEAT: Do not sub/unsubscribe to this address!!!

Administrative commands go in subject line to listname-request@internet_address (message body ignored). Variety of list management software so great that no generalization re commands possible, but the following usually work:

help Returns general help

send filename_with_full_path Returns desired file (case sensitive)

Other Lists: Other popular list managers are listproc (actually, Unix ListProcessor), Mailbase, Mailserv, and Majordomo; look at message header to distinguish. Administrative commands go in message body to one-of-these-names@address, with blank subject line. Most of these managers are modeled on LISTSERV; see http://lawwww.cwru.edu/cwrulaw/faculty/milles/mailser.html by J. Milles for details.

CAVEAT: When reading a list message, Simeon's Reply button will post to the whole list!