Lois Bujold Mailing List - Administrivia FAQ

Last-Modified: 28 October 2002
Version: 3.0.2
Compiled and maintained by: Michael Bernardi and Nancy Barber (lmb-faq@dendarii.com)

1. What is this list anyhow?
   
2. How do I subscribe to the list?
   
3. How do I unsubscribe to the list?
   
4. I forgot my password! What do I do?
   
5. How do I send messages to the list?
   
6. Is there any way to cut down the amount of mail from the list?
   
7. I'm going on holiday, how do I pause the list?
   
8. Who is the list owner, anyway?
   
9. Where are the archives for this list?
   
10. How can list mail be filtered from the rest of my mail?
    
11. How can I get help on setting other list options?
    
12. I see lots of extra header lines in each e-mail. What can I do?

Other Lois Bujold FAQs

Lois-Bujold Mailing List FAQ (list etiquette and conventions, links, merchandising)
Plot FAQ (plot questions, pronounciation guides)

This mailing list is for the discussion of the works of Lois McMaster Bujold, the award winning science fiction and fantasy author. It is currently unmoderated.

2. How do I subscribe to the list?

You can do this in two ways. You can either:

• point a web browser at the Lois-Bujold Mailing List Web Page and follow the instructions there,

  or

• send mail to lois-bujold-request@lists.herald.co.uk and in the subject or the body of the message, put the word subscribe .

Both of these options will require that you confirm your subscription by replying to a mail that will be sent to the address you give.

If you have problems with this, contact the list owner.

3. How do I unsubscribe from the list?

You can do this in two ways. (Do you sense a pattern here?) You can either:

• visit the list configuration web page.

  Enter the e-mail address under which you are subscribed at the bottom of the page where it says Lois-Bujold Subscribers, and click the Edit Options button. Enter your list password in the appropriate box and click the Unsubscribe button.

  Or,

• send a mail message to lois-bujold-request@lists.herald.co.uk with the following in the subject line or in the message body:

  unsubscribe <yourlistpassword>

  Do not include the "<>"s in the e-mail.

  If you are not sending this e-mail from the address you are subscribed under, use this format:

  unsubscribe <yourlistpassword> <subscriptionaddress>

Again, if you have problems with this, contact the list owner.

4. I forgot my password! What do I do?

One option is to wait. Your password will be e-mailed to you in a reminder message about once a month.

The other method for getting your password is to visit the list configuration web page. Scroll to the bottom of the page where it says Lois-Bujold Subscribers. Enter the e-mail address under which you are subscribed, and click the Edit Options button. The next page has a button to have your password sent to your e-mail address.

5. How do I send messages to the list?

Messages for the list at large should be sent to lois-bujold@lists.herald.co.uk

There is no requirement to follow any threads that may already be in progress. Feel free to start discussion on anything you like, as long as it's at least vaguely relevant, (or even if it isn't). Off-topic posts should be marked with the off-topic marker of "OT:" (all three characters are required). See more dicsussion of off-topic posts in the Lois-Bujold Mailing List FAQ.

Flaming, and rudeness in general, is strongly discouraged.

6. Is there any way to cut down the amount of mail from the list?

Assuming that you do not want to leave the list altogether, you can switch to digest mode. You will receive a few large e-mails each day which bundle the individual messages. Digests can be sent in plain text or MIME format.

You can set your subscription to the digest mode in two ways.

• Visit the list configuration web page and enter the e-mail address under which you are subscribed at the bottom of the page where it says Lois-Bujold Subscribers, and clicking the Edit Options button.

  Use the radio buttons to set Digest Mode to On, and also to select the format you prefer for the digest messages. Enter your list password in the box at the bottom of the page, and click the Submit My Changes button.

  Or,

• Send e-mail to lois-bujold-request@lists.herald.co.uk with the following in the subject line or in the message body:

  SET DIGEST ON <yourlistpassword>

  Do not include the "< >"s in the e-mail.

To return to individual messages, use mail from either of them, use the command

SET DIGEST OFF <yourlistpassword>

You may also choose to receive no mail, and read the list archives on the Web. See the FAQs for how to stop incoming mail, and for accessing the list archives.

7. I'm going on holiday, how do I pause the list?

If you are going away for a SHORT period and do not want a massive buildup of list mail in your mail box, but you don't want to permanantly resign from the list, you can disable mail delivery from the list. You might also do this if you want to read the list on the Web, but still want to be able to send messages to the list.

You can set your subscription to nomail in two ways. Either:

• Visiting the list configuration web page, entering the e-mail address under which you are subscribed at the bottom of the page under Lois-Bujold Subscribers, and clicking the Edit Options button.

  Change the radio button under Disable mail delivery to On, enter your list password in the box at the bottom of the page, and click the "Submit My Changes" button.

  Or,

• Sending e-mail to lois-bujold-request@lists.herald.co.uk with the following in the subject line or in the message body:

  SET NOMAIL ON <yourlistpassword>

When you get back, reset to normal by sending an e-mail to the same address:

SET NOMAIL OFF <yourlistpassword>

8. Who is the list owner, anyway?

The list owner is Mel Harper. She owns the computer the list runs on and any technical problems or queries about the running of the list should be directed to her. Any queries about joining or leaving which cannot be answered using the help available from the mail server should also be addressed to Mel.

Any question about list etiquette, the FAQs, and the Web site should be directed to Michael Bernardi (mike@dendarii.com), who was responsible for the initial creation of the list in October 1994. FAQ updates are now handled by Nancy Barber (nancy@dendarii.com).

Do NOT send problems about your subscription or complaints about the list administration such to the list at large.

9. Where are the archives for this list?

The messages sent to this list are automatically archived. This is particularly useful if for some reason you miss some postings.

In December 2001, the list changed from one listserver software (Listproc) to another (Mailman). The archives of the older listserver will be integrated into the new archives shortly. In the meantime, the older archived digests can be accessed on the Web.

10. How can list mail be filtered from the rest of my mail?

As of December 2001, e-mail from the list is tagged with [LMB] in the Subject: line. You can sort all mail containing that string into a dedicated mail folder if your e-mail program supports this.

If your e-mail program doesn't support filtering, simply sorting your inbox on the Subject: will help, but as some mailers insert Re: before the list tag and others after (and some mailers use Sv: as a reply marker), this solution is not ideal.

In more sophisticated e-mail programs, you can set your mail program to sort on the header field To: or Reply-To:, both of which will be lois-bujold@lists.herald.co.uk.

11. How can I get help on setting other list options?

Send e-mail to lois-bujold-request@lists.herald.co.uk and put the word Help in either the subject or body of the e-mail.

12. I see lots of extra header lines in each e-mail. What can I do?

The mailing list software inserts a number of header lines into each post, such as:

List-Help: <mailto:lois-bujold-request at lists.herald.co.uk?subject=help>
List-Post: <mailto:lois-bujold at lists.herald.co.uk>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.herald.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/lois-bujold>,
    <mailto:lois-bujold-request at lists.herald.co.uk?subject=subscribe>
List-Id: Discussion of the works of Lois McMaster Bujold. <lois-bujold.lists.herald.co.uk>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.herald.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/lois-bujold>,
    <mailto:lois-bujold-request at lists.herald.co.uk?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.herald.co.uk/pipermail/lois-bujold/>

If you are using a UNIX mail program, you can probably tell the mailer to ignore all headers beginning with List-.

If you are using Eudora for the PC, you can edit the TabooHeaders line in your eudora.ini file to hide these headers. First shut down Eudora. Copy the line below to the clipboard. Open your eudora.ini file in Notepad, and check to see if there is a TabooHeaders entry already. If not, paste in the line below, and edit it if necessary to make it all one line with no spaces. (A good place to put it is near ShowAllHeaders, which is very close to the top of the file.) You can, of course, add or remove headers from this list to suit your personal preferences. [Thanks to Pat Swan for the instructions.]

TabooHeaders=Content-Transfer-Encoding,Thread-Index,X-MIME-Autoconverted,Errors-To,X-BeenThere,X-Mailman-Version,Precedence,List-Help,List-Post,List-Subscribe,List-Id,List-Unsubscribe,List-Archive,X-RBL-Warning,X-UIDL,X-RCPT-TO,Status,Received,X-Authentic

If you are using Eudora for the Mac, you must have installed the Esoteric Settings plugin. [It is located in the Extra Plugins folder--install it by quitting Eudora, then moving the plugin to the Eudora Stuff folder in the Eudora application folder. Now restart Eudora.] Go to Special | Settings | Esoteric Settings, and type in the identifiers for the headers you want removed, without the colon, exactly as they show up in the message. Look at the headers in a list message for examples. Possible headers to hide:

X-Authentication-Warning
Mail-Followup-To
User-Agent
Mime-Version
X-BeenThere
X-Mailman-Version
Precedence
List-Help
List-Post
List-Subscribe
List-Id
List-Unsubscribe
List-Archive

Suggestions for material to be included in this document should be sent to lmb-faq@dendarii.com.

This file may be freely distributed provided that it remains unedited from its current form. Sections may be quoted for reference providing its source is given. It may be printed out for personal use.

© 1994-2002 by Michael Bernardi

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Last updated: November 20th 2002