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Majordomo Mail Lists On The Berklix ServersINDEX
Short Cuts (By Email)Not every possible combination is here, just click on a few & then use your intelligence to string 3 words together for Majordomo, eg:
subscribe/unsubscribe list_name
optional_address_of_a_friend_or_your_alternate_address
What Is Majordomo ?
One of the Internet's most frequently encountered &
classic mail list robots, & well worth the small effort
to learn, many of the basic concepts apply equally well to
other list robots
Why Use Majordomo ?
It's Majordomo that manages lists
on the Berklix hosts. If you
want to subscribe or unsubscribe a list you need to use Majordomo , List owner can't do it
for anyone manually any more, he's got
no more free time for administrative trivia for hundreds of
subscribers.
No Web Interface - YetHow To Use Majordomo
Human Names Do Not Help Majordomo When Unsubscribing
Majordomo has no use for your
human name, only your email name. Mis spell your human name,
& it won't care, misspell your email address, & Majordomo will certainly fail to work
as you want. If you accidentally scramble your name &
address, putting in line breaks or screwing up "quote marks"
or <brackets> etc, Majordomo
may search to delete your human name instead of your email
address, & will fail to find your address. If you don't
understand mail name & address punctuation, simply omit
your human name, & just give your email address without
any surrounding punctuation, keeping any unsubscribe as plain
as you can, EG
unsubscribe gea john@my-old-domain.com
When you subscribe your new address (eg to a list called
gea), it's safe to give your full human name & email
address, EG
subscribe gea "John Smith" <john@my-new-domain.com>
Again, the human name is not essential, but it's nicer to
have it: It helps the list owner & mail recipient sort
things out manually if something goes wrong either end.
If you have problems, use just your email address, & omit your human name. As some people don't know the difference between their human name & their email address (yes really !) Here's some examples. Bear in mind that when mailers send both human & email address, they put the human name in "Quotes" and the email address in <less and greater than signs>.
"John Smith, MicroSoftVirus js@msv.com" <John_Smith@MicroSoftVirus._ERASE_.com.com>
John Smith, MicroSoftVirus js@msv.com <John_Smith@MicroSoftVirus._ERASE_.com.com>
"John Smith, MicroSoftVirus js@msv.com" John_Smith@MicroSoftVirus._ERASE_.com.com
<John_Smith@MicroSoftVirus._ERASE_.com.com>
John_Smith@MicroSoftVirus._ERASE_.com.com
Your irrelevant human name, (that might confuse Majordomo , that you can if you wish omit)
is in this case John Smith, MicroSoftVirus js@msv.com,
The email name you must include is
John_Smith@MicroSoftVirus._ERASE_.com
If You Get Stuck
Anonymous Subscription ? No.
Do not send an anonymous request such as
subscribe gea 123456789012-0001@t-offline.comInstead send such as: subscribe gea "John Smith" <123456789012-0001@t-offline.de>or at least subscribe gea John.Smith@t-offline.deWhy:
Some of the lists need authorisation from a human owner
before you can subscribe. (Spam protection measure, etc).
If you make your subscription look un-necessarily
anonymous, list owners are liable to just delete such
requests. They are not paid to waste their time mailing you
back to ask if you are a real human in good standing, &
have some friends in or knowledge of the list you wanted to
join. The list owner has no way to know you'r not some
spammer , joining just to spam. Other list participants
& owners also like to know real human names. Give a
human name.
You May Be Un-subscribed Without Warning If You Breach Requirements:Format: Ascii is the preferred & reccomended Format.
Avoid Bulky Large Postings
Do not send surplus bulk - EG pictures :
Do Not Send Virus Alerts To Our List
If you want virus alerts, subscribe a virus alert list. If
you don't want viruses, either buy a virus filter, or dump
your inferior virus prone commercial software, & use
higher quality free
software such as FreeBSD that
doesn't suffer from viruses. or Linux that also
generally doesn't suffer from viruses. (Both BSD
& Linux have the capability to avoid viruses totally,
but as Linux has more users & some of them have
markedly lower skills, it's potentially more exposed if
ignorant users choose to run systems insecurely. This is
Not a technical fault of Linux but a problem of user skill/
education).
Do Not Send From An Un subscribed Address
Many people have multiple email addresses. They subscribe
one address, Receive list postings to it, Then later post
to the list from a second address. As they haven't
subscribed the new address, Majordomo@
berklix.org doesn't know they're
not a spammer. Such postings may get silently dumped, or
may be forwarded to a list owner, who is Not paid to waste
time on it. This
author owns many lists on berklix.org. He is too busy to
waste time approving such mail. If he has enough time to do
more than just delete it, he rejects it back to sender with
this standard
reply, to make both sender & others who sender may
complain to, realise he won't do their work of maintaining
their own subscribed address. Note
Protect Our List Address From Spam Address Harvesters
Never include our list address on any Internet scannable
resource. We do not want web crawler robots harvesting our
mail address to be sold to spammers.
Avoid Bounces
Berklix mail list policy forbids all automatic response to
list mail.
Avoid mail bounces & noise back to the Majordomo owner, list owner, or list etc. Bounces might be for many reasons, but Please spare the list owner work to deal with your problems, eg: Failing Address
Some computer en route to you may fail periodically.
Perhaps not your fault but even less is it the fault or
concern of the Majordomo or
list owner, so unsubscribe any problematic address,
& subscribe a less troublesome more reliable
address.
Failure To Unsubscribe An Addresses Scheduled To Later Expire
Unsubscribe old addresses Before they are due to
expire:
Unsubscribing may need a confirmation password returned to your old address. You can't receive it after your address has expired. If you cancelled your address with your ISP or company, but forgot or didn't realise you should unsubscribe first, apologise to the list owner for wasting their time, & ask for manual intervention. (You may be liable to pay the beer or charity>charity charge for wasting Majordomo or list owner's time, as mentioned elsewhere.) If you are too lazy to un-subscribe, you deliberately waste the list site's bandwidth, & waste the list owner's time when he/she realises they need to manually remove a dead address. If you just leave, & let your mailbox at your paid ISP (Internet Service Provider) or ex employer overflow or bounce back to consume the time of the Majordomo & list owners (volunteers, not paid to waste time!). You will force them to waste their time trying to figure out if the bounces are a temporary net failure to be ignored, or a permanent change to be dealt with. If you deliberately waste Majordomo or list owner's time or bandwidth. expect a hostile reaction: Any such address or new replacement address may be published. The list owner &/or Majordomo owner may refuse to authorise your later subscription from a new address Avoid Automatic Responder "Mailbox Full" Responses.
Don't trouble Majordomo
& list owners with your problems ! Configure your
mailbox Not to bleat to mail lists. The list mechanism
is certainly NOT going to "Please try sending again
later." ! Look at the berklix mail list
identification headers available, & particularly
the Sender: string, examine the options your ISP
provides, & configure your mailbox, not to bleat
repeatedly to mail lists or mail list owners, or buy a
bigger mailbox & subscribe that instead !
Avoid Automatic Responder "I'm Away On Business/Holiday" Responders
Such automatic responses may be fine for individuals
humans, but are annoying to list recipients, list
owners & Majordomo
owner. (Auto repliers should not keep replying to every
message , they should probably reply just once per
combination of recipient absent period & sender
first posting after beginning of absence). Don't
trouble us with your noise ! Either teach your mailer
program not to bleat to lists (as per "Mailbox
Full"above), or Subscribe some better address that does
not send such noise. For every message sent to the
list, the list owner personally sees your auto
responder bleat for every message. He gets repeat
notifications when many people are on holiday or away
on business ! A tedious flood that announces clueless
incompetence. Noise he does Not want.
A good auto responder should recognise list mail, & should Not be responding to every posting from mail lists you are subscribed to. Look at your auto responder, & see if it's set to the right preferences, (even if its not currently in use). Look at the fields set in this list mail header, such as eg
Sender: owner-list-name@berklix
Precedence: bulk
Can you configure your auto responder Not to respond to
mail with that ?Do not mail Majordomo or list owner asking eg: "I use WorbleThrobMail Version 1.2.3, After I click on the `Display All Elephants In Pink' button, what do I do ?" The Majordomo & list owner specialises in Unix, (& in particular, in free software ), & does not use anything running on Microsoft, & does not know the settings for most of the many MS mailers on the market, if WorbleThrobMail was your choice (or your company's choice), it's Your job to know how to use , it wasn't the Majordomo or list owner's choice. If you can't control your mailer program, switch to another one, or take lessons on the one you've got. If you have a solution for others such as "For WorbleThrobMail, click in this order to set your auto responder properly" then please mail your advice to majordomo-owner Avoid MX loops
If you create your own new domain, try testing mail
delivery, (perhaps by subscribing to & sending
messages to the demo-list@ list on this Majordomo) before subscribing a live
list with real people.
Avoid Grey Listing - else White list berklix.orgWhat Grey Listing IsPolicy: Automatic responses not allowed.
If your email provider configures his mail system to
enable "Grey Listing", so that for example: "Grey
list rejected," or "Grey listing in action,
please come back in ..." emails get sent to the
owner of berklix.org lists: This is not allowed.
Deliberate errors causing extra automatic junk mail
breaches your subscription. Your subscription will be
terminated if you do not quickly fix Your problem.
Philosophy: Grey listing is a problematic anti spam method:
Grey listing may save you some spam. It may also save
your mail provider some staff costs resolving spam
issues. BUT it works by automaticly bouncing errors
back to the innocent volunteer unpaid berklix.org
list owner's mail box. Grey listing is thus often an
incompetently initiated & badly configured &
irresponsible dirty trick by selfish providers, to
dump their problem on someone else, unpaid. It is not
acceptable.
How Grey Listing Works: Automatically rejects first mail transmissions, relying on non spammer senders to automatically retry, whereas spammers turn off retry to maximise throughput), The error mails penalise innocent senders (unless white listed). Bad enough for 1 to 1 mail, grey listing becomes itself mass spam when loads of list subscribers each grey list excrete individually, back to a list owner, who receives bulk excrement from grey listers, in response to each valid posting. Text for Periodic posting from list-owner to listSubject: Subscriptions terminate if providers grey list berklix.org. Reminder: If your mail provider add "Grey Listing" you must personally ensure they also "White List" berklix.org, else your subscription terminates. Addresses currently breaking the rule will be sent a private mail warning. Grey listing is an unwelcome & problematic anti spam method. http://www.berklix.org/robot/majordomo/#grey_listing Text for periodic private mail from list-owner to individuals with grey listing providers:Subject: Un-subscription if your provider does not white list berklix.org. Warning: Your mail provider has enabled grey listing. This contravenes terms of berklix.org list subscription. Tell them to now quickly either A) Add berklix.org to your white list, or B) Turn Off irresponsible grey listing, or C) You will be forcibly un-subscribed. It's your responsibility to force your provider to fix problems he caused. If they fail to fix your problem, unsubscribe your address (if you haven't already been forcibly un-subscribed), & subscribe yourself from a better address with a different domain. Sorry, but list owners at berklix.org have not created your problem, do not know or want to know your issues, & have neither time nor paid to help on the many issues of many different list subscribers. All that is either the responsibility of your employer, your home mail provider, your software vendor, or yourself personally. More info: http://www.berklix.org/robot/majordomo/#grey_listing Recipient not allowing attachments or embedded images:
Your problem, don't shove your problem back on list
owner, get a better mail account, or be forcibly
un-subscribed !
Avoid Cross Posting Multiple Lists
At least mark all but one of the lists with bcc in header
so we don't risk receiving a storm of replies from other
lists. ( If very occasionally a cross posting is
appropriate, Please post clearly to One list only, Use a
BCC to the other list, & make a clear statement in
body of mail, to direct all follow up discussion to one
list only. )
To clarify, as "cross posting" is likely a new non self evident term to some, Assume:
Keep To Remit Of List
Keep postings relevant to the remit of the particular
mail list you are on.
Keep To Subject
Else change the subject header.
Also Do not allow your mailer to screw up "Subject:" with a wild Germanic non compliant mess of eg "Re: Bzw: Re: Bzw: Original subject"If your mailer fails to recognise "Re." & appends spurious "Bzw" & if you don't know how to fix the Bzw default, then you owe it to list readers to edit the Subject line back to a single "Re." manually yourself. Other readers have mailers that sort by subject, which fails if your Germanic software runs out of control. Avoid Abuse & Flames
If you must be offensive/ critical &/or flame other
list members etc, take it off list as soon as possible to
private mail. Preferably never start it on list.
Criticism Of Organisers
Avoid Time Wasting
Majordomo is a robot, &
infinitely patient if you get things wrong. You are
encouraged to think, then try again. Wasting the time of
the human Majordomo &/or
list owners is highly inadvisable: he is unpaid, too
busy, & has no reason to tolerate waste of his/her
time.
Please Help The Clueless !
Majordomo & list owners
only have time to maintain & improve the list servers
& infrastructure, not to hand hold list members. The
Berklix servers support
mail list for an eclectic mix of different types of
people. Some lists are composed largely of highly
competent people. Some other lists have a high percentage
of clueless people, some of whom are brave enough to
admit the fact, (& some are perhaps incompetent but
don't admit it ;-) ... When you see someone blundering,
or if you know of some clueless friend or acquaintance,
please help them with their subscription problems,
perhaps private mail them some advice, off list, or help
over a beer or coffee or cake that the clueless person
should provide you (point them to this section in
justification of your expected reward
To Unsubscribe An Unknown / Unrecognised Address :
EG
Received: from ****.berklix.com [194.221.32.**]If your employer's office or personal net provider is doing forwarding or address alias changing for you, Majordomo will not know that. It just knows where it sends your mail, it does not know to which name & where one of your employers or providers etc computers might forward it after. Any forwarding you/ your company/ provider arranges, is unknown to Majordomo, but should be visible in your mail header. Normally your last name, lower in the header, is the name Majordomo has you subscribed as. Use that address to unsubscribe: unsubscribe gea jill@the_address_she_long_ago_subscribed_as.com Majordomo - Manual (Documentation)
Bored Reading ? - Give Majordomo@ Berklix.Org A Try Now !Help
Advice Over A Beer
The Majordomo owner may not mind
if you ask advice over a beer, (if you happen to meet
him/her) so you can later yourself cope with Majordomo@
berklix.org but he will Not do
subsequent subscription work for you. Instead Email Majordomo@
berklix.org then apply your logic
& intelligence to the answer you receive.
ComplaintsDo Not Complain !
If You Must (Sigh!) Complain - Do It Politely, Constructively, Intelligently & above all Educatedly !
Don't Complain - Contribute !
Mail List Robots
Archives
Yes Majordomo supports searchable archives.
Server Configuration Options
Skip this section, unless you want to ask for Server
Options to be changed to suit your whim. Server settings
affect either all people on one list, or all lists.
Sensible people try not to get involved. Unfortunately some
few have more of a whim for change, than sense or
sufficient understanding !
General
Reply-To:
You are free to assert Reply-To: on your individual
postings if you want. The list servers don't assert the
Reply-To: field. They could, but I've left that feature
turned off. Sometimes people ask Why : It depends partly
what you'r used to, what you like. Some are used to lists
that do assert. Some are used to lists that do not. The
many prior lists I was & am on (freebsd.org + many
other) did not & do not.
The Majordomo source doc/FAQ reads:
Subject: Prefixes
Subject prefixing is spurious. Of the hundreds of
subscribers on many berklix lists just two I recall
have asked for this. I tried it on one list, & got
numerous complaints. You won't get it on berklix.org lists.
If you want to filter mail lists into seperate mail sub-directories:
Members Only: Majordomo config option: restrict_post (& similar)
This is On, restricting lists to only accept postings
from subscribed addresses. To help protect against
spammers.
Occasionally someone receives on an old address, but posts from a new address. This get bounced to the list owner as potential spam, (as from an unlisted sender). If the list owner knows the human sender, the list owner may choose to forward the mail, embedding headers so the sending human can see which old address they sent from, so the human can unsubscribe, & subscribe their new current address. Headers In Body Headers In Body
Sometimes the list owner forwards a posting with some
headers in the body of the posting, (which looks dead
ugly): Why it's done is explained below:
Mostly the problem ia a regular list member who has failed to coordinate his sender address with his subscription receiving address. Some subscribers do not react when list owners ask them to re-subscribe their proper sender's address. They ignore the requests & continue posting from a non subscribed addresses. That wastes list owner's time with repeat forwardings (& they & list would be inconvenienced if list owner was away & not available to manually keep forwarding on time). Options then are to silently delete bad postings (as some list owners do), until sender learns he Must fix his wrong subscription address, or sometimes to be a bit more lenient for a while, & forward with headers so senders realise:
List owners usually remember to strip the part of the header between the list server & their private routing as irrelevant. List owners may leave headers between wrongly subscribed list members & mail list server as relevant. Sometimes list owner might strip a bit more, but better to strip too little than too much: removing too many clues for sender as to where they sent from & what they need to fix their end. R-DNS - Reverse Domain Name Service (Anti Spam)
Some (later all) Berklix
servers reject mail from non R-DNS compliant senders. (to
reduce spam incoming). Senders to berklix addresses may need to
configure their mailer to use their ISP's mail relay host
for their outgoing mail. (This is the default for most
major ISPs, but not for eg D-Telekom, who charge an extra
3 Euro/month. Any sender who runs mail servers at home,
from behind dynamically allocated IPs that are not R-DNS
compliant, who does not use a smart (relay) host with
fixed IP with valid Reverse DNS (Domain Name Service)
record will get bounced or lost. SASL is a method of
authenticating a client to a remote smart host mail
server. BSD users who have a login on Berklix servers, can ask for a
SASL
password.
Server Bugs
Invisible footers can occur with
MIME Enclosures : Some mail reader
tools (MS-Outlook & Unix-Exmh) will not show the
footer
The next box will be deleted once this issue is resolved/ debugged.
SPAM
We used to get some spam, as lists run as instant
relay, not content moderated or slowed waiting for
human approval. Many lists are now only open for
members to post to. Numerous spammer domains are
blocked, inevitably some others are not. If you are
paying me for internet
consultancy I'll discuss spam prevention, domain
black holing etc.
Forgeries
Spammers & others regularly forge mail senders
addresses. Internet designers are adding secure non
forge-able mail, but it's not commonly available yet
(& there are good technical reasons Not to adopt
some schemes). The openness stems from the way the
Internet evolved: from an open trusting group of
computer scientists & other academics exchanging
technical info, to a net that was later adopted by
business & general humanity including a full share
of spammers criminals perverts lunatics & idiots
etc. It's thus possible for the malign to forge
instructions to, & responses from, Majordomo , you, I, or anyone else.
Including instructions for subscription change requests
etc, & forged responses. That's why Majordomo never trusts your first
request, but always mails you back, with a confirmation
password to be returned, to prove you are really you,
& not some impostor, & that you still want
whatever you previously asked for, actually to be done.
Obviously, if you personally did Not ask for something
to be done, you should Never send a reply quoting an
authorisation password !
German/Deutsch Translation/Uebersetzung ?
Not Yet / Noch Nicht / Sorry ! - Im moment diese Seite
& Welt Weit benutzter
Doku. & Majordomo Robot
Program sind nur in English. Viel benutzer koennen
English lesen, gut genug es zum benutzen.
Falls Sie wollen mehr - Entweder:
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