administrivia: notes on using this list

[Richard Welty <rwelty@domain.elided>]

              Digest.Net mailing list "Meta FAQ"

These general notes on using Digest.Net mailing lists are posted on
the 1st and 15th of each month. This file may be found on the web
at /general-notes.txt

[last revised 11/13/01; extensive revisions to 1.j, 1.k -- rpw]

   Additional information on Digest.Net's spam policies may be found at
   /email-policy.html and
   /blocked.html

Table of Contents

   1. Why don't my postings go through?
   2. Why can't I unsubscribe?
   3. How do I post to the list?
   4. Where are the archives?
   5. What other lists are on digest.net?
   6. Is there a web subscription form?
   7. Why not move the lists to someplace like (egroups, topica,...)?
   8. How do I contact the server adminstrator in an emergency?
   9. What is Krusty Motorsports, anyway?

The Meta-FAQ

1. Why don't my postings go through?

    There are several things that may interfere with postings
    making it to the list.

   a) Are you a member?

       Some read the ftp archives rather than receiving the list
       in email.  Persons who read the list via email are 
       automatically members, but readers of the FTP archive are not,
       and need to contact me (rwelty@domain.elided) and get
       your name added to the list of "permitted senders".

   b) has your email address changed?

       some of you have had changes in your email address. your old
       address still works, and is still on the list, but your From:
       line shows a new address. this can happen for various reasons;
       you may have changed jobs or ISPs, and left a forward in place,
       or your IT staff may have fiddled with the email system.

       you will need to unsubscribe your old email address and subscribe
       the new one. this may require my involvement, if you can't figure
       out a way to get your old address off the list using the conventional
       majordomo commands. you can use the majordomo "which" command to
       probe for old addresses. send a message to majordomo@domain.elided
       with one or more which commands in the body, one per line. to
       check for potential addresses for Fred Flinstone, formerly of
       bedrock.org, the following commands can be sent:

          which flintstone
          which bedrock

       note that the matches above might return any of the following
       addresses, if they appear in the list (in other words, you can
       use vagueness and incompleteness in your recollection as a tool):

            Fred.Flinstone@domain.elided
            fflinstone@domain.elided
            flintstonef@domain.elided

   c) do you have more than one email address?

       if so, only the subscribed addresses can post, unless you contact
       me (see 1.a) above for relevant information)

   d) are you using (intentionally or accidentially) special "features"
      of your mail client?

	[this section is no longer operative, as the demime software
	now strips html, attachments, rich text format, etc. from
	postings automatically.]

   e) are your posts too large?

       there is a 10,000 character limit on posting sizes; this is done
       for various reasons. you can always split up large postings to
       get mail through.

   f) are you including majordomo commands at the start of your message?

       administrivia control is turned on; this is a trap for things
       like "unsubscribe" at the start of a message. try to avoid obvious
       majordomo commands in the subject and the first 10 lines, or
       misspell them in obvious ways (e.g. unzubscribe, 1ndex, h3lp,
       g3t, etc.)

   g) are you triggering spam traps?

       some things are red flags; for example, the following phrases
       in subject lines are automatically blocked:

            Important Message From
            growth stocks
            free calling card
            direct e-mail secrets
            Merchant Account
            Mass Marketing
            make money fast
            Pediatric advice
            Email ? Million People
            what "they" don't want
            are you being investigated

       the actual list is quite a bit longer; i think you get the idea.

   h) are you using "funky" character sets?

       [7 bit restriction lifted experimentally on 8/2/00 -- film at 11]

       unfortunately, there are "issues" if i permit any character set
       other than old fashioned 7 level ASCII; therefore, you need to
       avoid national character sets that include various accents, umlauts,
       national currency characters such as the British pound symbol, etc.

   i) are you unintentionally including complete digests in your reply?

       You need to check and make sure you cut down replys to the minimal
       size; digests are between 20,000 and 25,000 characters in length,
       and if you include a complete digest in your reply, it clearly won't
       make the 10,000 character limit. By the way, this feature is
       intentional.

   j) Are you using a "bad" ISP or mail relay?

       See /email-policy.html for more information
       about Digest.Net policies about email.

   k) Is the error message you get back "User Unknown"?

       If so, you may be running afoul of spam control severices
       (again, see /email-policy.html)
       When these services register a hit, the error code 550 is returned.
       550 is a generic code that many broken mail systems report as
       "user unknown".  The "rejectlog" entries for the previous day's mail
       traffic on digest.net may be viewed at
       /rejectlog.01
       Some of you may find it useful or instructive to use the telnet
       program to connect directly to port 25 on krusty-motorsports.com
       and see what kind of reply you get; this requires some technical
       knowledge and is not for everyone (you can get out of this at anytime
       after the initial banner simply by typing quit and hitting enter.)

   l) Is SMTP over TLS involved?

       This is a bit esoteric, but as of 8/8/01 the digest.net mail server
       will attempt to use "TLS" (Transport Layer Security) for outbound
       mail if the destination mail server offers it. SMTP over TLS is
       fairly new technology, and a bit buggy. I am monitoring the logs
       on the server, and when I see TLS related problems, I manually
       place the problem destinations on a special exception list; however,
       this may delay email to the destination host until I make the
       exception.
   
2. Why can't I unsubscribe?

   a) are you using the right address?

       send to majordomo@domain.elided, and the command format is

        unsubscribe list-name my-email-address

   b) has your email address changed?

       majordomo has no way of knowing that Fred.Flinstone@domain.elided was
       once fflintstone@domain.elided.  you can check this with the which
       command (see 1.b) above for details)


3. How do I post to the list?

   You may use either one of two addresses: for example, the bmw-digest
   may be reached using either bmw@domain.elided or bmw-digest@domain.elided

   If you are using the correct addresses and your posts don't show
   up, check out the stuff in 1. above.

4. Where are the archives?

   see ftp://ftp.digest.net/ for digest archives. the web archives have
   proven problematic, and are awaiting time for a systematic attack
   on the problems they've been having.

5. What other lists are on digest.net?

   see / for more information.

6. Is there a web subscription form?

   Yes, recently added. go to

    /bin/digest-subs.cgi

7. Why not move the lists to someplace like (egroups, topica,...)?

   The Krusty Motorsports server (aka, digest.net) was explicitly
   to provide for efficient management of the various automotive
   mailing lists, done the way that the owner of the server wanted
   it done. Any migration off of the server (which is already bought,
   paid for, and configured) would create any number of issues.

8. How do i contact the Server Administrator in an emergency?

   If my regular email address (rwelty@domain.elided)
   isn't working for you, you can fall back on rwelty@domain.elided

9. What is Krusty Motorsports, anyway?

   Krusty Motorsports (http:/www.krusty-motorsports.com/) is a
   business which is owned and operated by Richard Welty
   (rwelty@domain.elided). Krusty is an S-Corporation in
   the State of New York. Krusty provides a number
   of Internet related services, such as mailing list, web sites,
   pop3/telnet accounts, and consulting on internet related issues.
   For more information, see the web site.

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