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An Introduction to the PAGEMAKR Mailing List’s Listserv Commands

by Cindy Stone and Peter C.S. Adams

This should answer some of the most common questions regarding how to take control of your part of the PAGEMAKR list, and could save you public embarrassmentI We promise to use plain English wherever possible.

Q. WHAT IS A MAILING LIST?

A. Generically, it is a discussion list that uses email to send the messages. It is also called an electronic discussion list or an email distribution list, but not a "listserv." Listserv® is a commercial software product from L-Soft which this list uses to distribute posts to subscribers. Posting to the list has the effect of sending mail to everyone on the list but generates far less traffic and does not require you to know who is subscribed. A computer running a "mailing list manager" such as Listserv® or Majordomo takes care of that. The mailing list manager also handles subscription requests and other commands by email.

In the examples below, commands are hyperlinked to send the right command to the right address. Note that some mail programs will not properly parse the URL and you will have to manually type (or move) the command into the body of the message. Note too that in most cases, a confirmation email will be sent to you to ensure that you sent the command, not someone trying to mail bomb you. Reply to the confirmation with the single word OK.

Commands (like subscribe) and posts are sent to different addresses. It's usually a good idea to add the two addresses to your address book so you don't forget them.

Q. WHERE DO I SEND MY LIST REQUESTS AND MESSAGES?

A. There are three addresses to keep in mind when dealing with the PAGEMAKR list, one address to send messages to all the subscribers of the list, the other to send a message to the computer that serves the list to you. (If you need to write to a human list-owner, our addresses will be listed at the end of this message.)

Who	Internet Addresses
Everyone subscribed to the list	pagemakr@listserv.iupui.edu
Server (for commands)	listserv@listserv.iupui.edu
Moderator (List Owner)	pagemakr-request@listserv.iupui.edu

ALL the helpful messages listed below need to be sent to the SERVER, not your fellow list subscribers. Most of your fellow subscribers are polite and will ignore your mistakes and let the list owners help you out. A few of us are extra-helpful and will send you a helpful note to straighten you out when you need it. However, some of us are rude and sarcastic and will send you messages to match if you make a mistake. (Watch those headers!)

Q. HOW DO I SUBSCRIBE?

A. To subscribe, send the command SUBSCRIBE PAGEMAKR Your Name (replacing "Your Name" with your name, of course) to the SERVER.

You will be asked via return email to confirm your subscription. Reply with the single command OK. If you have any difficulty, please write to one of the list-owners. Our addresses are listed at the bottom of this page.

Q. WHAT SHOULD I DO BEFORE POSTING A MESSAGE?

A. You should be familiar with the list's posting guidelines and general e-mail rules of etiquette, or "netiquette." Ylou should also see below for examples of forbidden topics. Finally, you may check the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and search the list archives if it is a common question or one you know has been asked before.

Q. I WANT OFF THIS LIST. HOW DO I DO THAT?

A. Send this message to the server address listed above: SIGNOFF PAGEMAKR. (UNSUBSCRIBE will also work.) Do not include your name, your address or any other information. Occasionally, this doesn't work for one reason or another. If you have tried unsuccessfully to leave the list, please don't complain to the list's subscribers; instead write a note to one of the list-owners. Our addresses are listed at the bottom of this file.

Q. HOW DO I REPLY TO A MESSAGE?

A. Just using the "reply" function in your email program will work in most cases; however, when replying to a message in a digest, don't leave the subject as "Re: PAGEMAKR Digest...." Change it to match the thread you are responding to. Most mailers allow you to select some text in the message before hitting reply and then the program will include only that text in the message composition window. You can then copy the subject of the message and paste it into your subject line. Make sure to delete any part of the original post that you are not replying to to save space, and make sure it is marked as a quotation. For instance:

So and so <soandso@somewhere.com> wrote: > This is some quoted text that someone will needs to reply to

Then type your reply under the quoted text. Note that posts are limited to 125 lines, including all the lines in the header. If you reply to a digest without editing your message for length, that would make your message the length of the digest plus what you added, making for a VERY long post. That is the main reason for the length limit.

Q. I KNOW MY QUESTION HAS BEEN ASKED BEFORE. HOW DO I SEARCH FOR RELEVANT POSTS?

A. The easiest way is to use the web interface. However, you can also submit searches by email. Send a search request to listserv at the address above. The syntax of the command is:

SEARCH (a or b) and (c or d) IN PAGEMAKR SINCE yy/mm/dd WHERE SENDER CONTAINS address

SINCE and WHERE SENDER CONTAINS are optional. You could use them to search for posts by specific people or since certain dates. For instance, you could search for posts by Peter Adams since 1997 with the command search * in PAGEMAKR since 97/01/01 where sender contains adamsp.

A more common search request might be to see how TIFF and EPS files compare with the command

search tif and eps in pagemakr

There is an excellent search tutorial at http://www.brainyday.com/jared/search.htm.

Q. I NEVER SEE ANY OF MY OWN MESSAGES ON THE LIST. HOW DO I KNOW THEY ARE GETTING THERE?

A. To receive copies of your own posts, send this message to the server address listed above:
SET PAGEMAKR ACK

Q. I'M TIRED OF GETTING MY OWN MESSAGES AND HAVING TO DELETE THEM. WHAT TO DO?

A. Send this message to the server address listed above:
SET PAGEMAKR NOREPRO

Q. I WANT TO RECEIVE ALL THE MESSAGES FOR A DAY IN ONE CLUMP. WHAT DO I DO?

A. Send this message to the server address listed above:
SET PAGEMAKR DIGEST

Q. I'M TIRED OF THE DIGEST. HOW DO I GET MAIL AS IT IS POSTED?

A. Send this message to the server address listed above:
SET PAGEMAKR NODIGEST

Q. I'M GOING AWAY FOR VACATION AND DON'T WANT THE MAIL TO CLOG UP MY MAIL BOX. WHAT TO DO?

A. Send this message to the server address listed above:
SET PAGEMAKR NOMAIL

Q. I'M BACK. HOW DO I START GETTING MESSAGES AGAIN?

A. Send this message to the server address listed above:
SET PAGEMAKR MAIL

Q. I'M CHANGING TO A DIFFERENT EMAIL HOST. HOW DO I FORWARD MY PAGEMAKR MAIL?

A. There are two ways. First, from your OLD address, send the command change pagemakr newaddr to the SERVER. (This command must be confirmed from both your old address and your new address.) The second way is to UNSUBSCRIBE from your old address and re-subscribe from your new address. If you no longer have access to your old account, write a note to one of the list-owners whose address is listed below and we'll be happy to delete your old subscription (if you remember the exact address of our old subscription). Please don't trouble the list's subscribers with administrivia stuff.

Q. I CAN'T HANDLE ALL THIS EMAIL! IT'S TOO CHAOTIC! HOW CAN I DEAL WITH IT?

Or. "There is a lot of really good info on the list, but it is difficult to tell who is responding to what, and in what order!"

A. This is a generic problem with e-mail discussion lists -- by their very nature they are organized chronologically, rather than by subject. This can be alleviated by using a mail client that can "thread" discussions. Another way is to have your mail client sort incoming list mail into a special folder, and sort that folder by subject instead of date. (Both of these require you to receive mail live, rather than digested.)

Another way is to read postings from the web interface. Connect to the PAGEMAKR Archives and search on a topic of interest (or all topics since a particular date) and you can walk through all the matches by topic, by sender, or by date. (You can do this even if you are not subscribed, but you will not be able to post. If you want to do this, you can subscribe and then set yourself to NOMAIL. That way you can post but will only see other people's postings by visiting the web page.)

Q. IT'S NOT SO CHAOTIC, BUT THERE'S TOO MUCH OF IT!

A. If you are having trouble dealing with the amount of email the list generates, you can change your subscription options in several ways:

HTML INDEX is is list of message titles hyperlinked to the actual message in the archives.
DIGEST is a clump of all the day's messages in one.
MIME DIGEST is a an easier way to use digests, but only if your email program can handle it.
NOMAIL is a way to stay subscribed without receiving mail -- so you can post, e.g. Then you can check recent mail whenever you want via the web interface at <http://listserv.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?S1=pagemakr>. Just enter a search request link "since yesterday."

You can activate any of these options by sending the appropriate command to the SERVER: e.g. SET PAGEMAKR MIME DIGEST.

Q. WHY HAVE MY SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS BEEN CHANGED?

A. Administration for a list this large (over 1,000 subscribers) is rather complicated. Any time there is trouble with somebody's E-Mail system, an error message goes back to the list administrators. If that message is in an unusual format, an error message might even go back to the person who sent a message to PAGEMAKR or it could get broadcast to all PAGEMAKR subscribers (these occurrences are thankfully rare). Listed in most- to least-drastic action order are some situations and how we deal with them:

Delete the user's subscription: If your EMail host is telling the listserver that your username doesn't exist on your system, we'll just delete your subscription because you can't receive mail from us anyway. This usually happens when somebody uses a WWW page somewhere to subscribe to the list and enters a typographical error in his or her EMail address. Set NOMAIL for the user: Most EMail systems place some sort of limit on how much mail your personal mailbox can hold. If your mailbox fills completely, every new message sent to you will result in your system sending back a message saying that the message went undelivered. When PAGEMAKR goes over 50 messages per day, that means over 50 error messages from you get dumped in poor list owner's mailbox!
Set DIGEST for the user: Occasionally your E-Mail host may go offline or have some trouble communicating with the internet. Messages might not get received by your host on the first attempt, but by default, our server will retry sending its messages hourly for the next 30 days until a connection is made. When the server can't get a message through for five hours, an error message is sent to the list owner's mailboxes. This message is usually ignored. After 24 hours and once daily thereafter, another error message is sent. At this point, the listowner might ignore the error along with the other five-hour messages or they might set your subscription to DIGEST mode so that they only get one single error message per day instead of one error message per message sent to the PAGEMAKR list.

Q. I USED TO WORK WITH GOOD OLD SMIRDLEY AND SHE REALLY RAN PAGEMAKER THROUGH ITS PACES. IS THERE ANY WAY I CAN FIND OUT IF SHE IS ON THIS LIST?

A. To help prevent spammers from "harvesting" email addresses, we have disabled the "Review" command. If you're trying to find a subscriber, contact one of the list owners at the addresses below.

Q. I'VE DONE EVERYTHING I AM SUPPOSED TO DO BUT NOTHING IS HAPPENING. WHAT NOW?

A. Write a message explaining the situation and, if possible, forwarding the correspondence you sent to and received from listserv to one of the list owners at the addresses below.

Q. SINCE THIS IS A PUBLISHING LIST ANYTHING GOES, RIGHT?

A. WRONG. Mac vs. PC wars help no one -- Don't start! Further, unsolicited advertisements will be flamed mercilessly. It is certainly acceptable to put a line or two in your .signature block describing your wonderful services and where people can write for more information, but a 125K text file with ASCII graphics and VT-100 animation to tell everyone you want to sell them PAGEMAKR at 20% over retail will be considered an invitation to rude responses. Incidentally, if someone DOES mention something that you want more info about, please send your request directly to that person. The other subscribers to the list don't really care that you'd like to have more information, and they probably don't have it to give to you.

Cascades headers and .signature lines for three or four screens running and then tacking-on nothing more constructive than "I agree" or "that's stupid" will usually result in a message from someone whose time and money you've wasted. Please remember that many of our users pay for their EMail services and don't stuff their mailboxes with trivia.

Some topics are not well appreciated because they've been talked to death and back. Of course my personal opinion may be different from yours regarding WHICH topics these are, and even my opinion will vary over time. This week, I don't care much for: the religious war of Mac vs. Windows, more gripes about prices, and more gripes about the quality and price of telephone tech support worldwide. Next week other things may bother me. If I see someone beating a dead horse, I'll send them a PRIVATE message of reasonable politeness. I hope you'll treat me just as politely if and when I torment you. 8-) We don't want to dampen spirits or impose constraints. We just ask that some sense of decorum be maintained. The listowners will send private warning notes to people who use offensive or abusive language, or engage in ad nauseam attacks. These are obviously subjective calls, and we promise to be as fair as possible. If you don't know how to behave politely online, there are a number of "netiquette" and usage guides available publicly. Read them.

Please don't attach files to your messages (even short ones). Many mail programs can't handle file attachments, and since we support both Mac and Windows platforms on the PAGEMAKR list, a file is certain to be useless to a good portion of the list's subscribers.

Q. THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS MESSAGE. WHO MAINTAINS IT?

A. Peter Adams (see below for his address)

Q. WHERE DID YOU GET THIS COOL ADMINISTRIVIA MESSAGE?

A. This message has been slightly edited from (in other words, shamelessly stolen from) Gregory Singleton, owner of REHU-L (the religious humor list hosted by listproc2@bgu.edu) by Cindy Stone.

Q. I NEED TO ASK A HUMAN LISTOWNER ABOUT SOMETHING. TO WHOM SHOULD I WRITE?

A. The list owners are Peter Adams, Gordon Woolf, and Cindy Stone, any of whom will be happy to help you.

Peter Adams' address is: ADAMSP@CS.UMB.EDU
Gordon Woolf's address is WORSLEY@WORSLEYPRESS.COM
Cindy Stone's address is: STONEC@INDIANA.EDU

Or you can send mail to PAGEMAKR-Request@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU, which will always reach a human being.

STEPPS -- Stop Tax Exempt Private Property Sprawl -- Framingham