Post by thread:How to you get off the piclist.

Cameron Palmer wrote: > > How do you get off this merry-go-round? Please save this message for future reference, especially if you are not familiar with LISTSERV. This might look like a waste of disk space now, but in 6 months you will be glad you saved this information when you realize that you cannot remember what are the lists you are subscribed to, or what is the command to leave the list to avoid filling up your mailbox while you are on vacations. In fact, you should create a new mail folder for subscription confirmation messages like this one, and for the "welcome messages" from the list owners that you will occasionally receive after subscribing to a new list. To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, just send mail to spam_OUTPICLISTTakeThisOuTMITVMA.MIT.EDU. This is called "sending mail to the list", because you send mail to a single address and LISTSERV makes copies for all the people who have subscribed. This address (.....PICLISTKILLspam@spam@MITVMA.MIT.EDU) is also called the "list address". You must never try to send any command to that address, as it would be distributed to all the people who have subscribed. All commands must be sent to the "LISTSERV address", LISTSERVKILLspamMITVMA.MIT.EDU (or .....LISTSERVKILLspam.....MITVMA.BITNET). It is very important to understand the difference between the two, but fortunately it is not complicated. The LISTSERV address is like a FAX number, and the list address is like a normal phone line. If you accidentally make your FAX call someone's voice line, the person receiving the call will be annoyed. If you do this regularly, however, your victim will probably get seriously upset and send you a nasty complaint. It is the same with mailing lists, with the difference that you are calling hundreds or thousands of people at the same time, so a lot more people get annoyed if you use the wrong number. You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF PICLIST" command to EraseMELISTSERVspam_OUTTakeThisOuTMITVMA.MIT.EDU (or LISTSERVspam_OUTMITVMA.BITNET). You can also tell LISTSERV how you want it to confirm the receipt of messages you send to the list. If you do not trust the system, send a "SET PICLIST REPRO" command and LISTSERV will send you a copy of your own messages, so that you can see that the message was distributed and did not get damaged on the way. After a while you may find that this is getting annoying, especially if your mail program does not tell you that the message is from you when it informs you that new mail has arrived from PICLIST. If you send a "SET PICLIST ACK NOREPRO" command, LISTSERV will mail you a short acknowledgement instead, which will look different in your mailbox directory. With most mail programs you will know immediately that this is an acknowledgement you can read later. Finally, you can turn off acknowledgements completely with "SET PICLIST NOACK NOREPRO". Following instructions from the list owner, your subscription options have been set to "CONCEAL" rather than the usual LISTSERV defaults. For more information about subscription options, send a "QUERY PICLIST" command to @spam@LISTSERVKILLspamMITVMA.MIT.EDU (or KILLspamLISTSERVKILLspamMITVMA.BITNET). Contributions sent to this list are automatically archived. You can get a list of the available archive files by sending an "INDEX PICLIST" command to RemoveMELISTSERVTakeThisOuTMITVMA.MIT.EDU (or spamBeGoneLISTSERVspamBeGoneMITVMA.BITNET). You can then order these files with a "GET PICLIST LOGxxxx" command, or using LISTSERV's database search facilities. Send an "INFO DATABASE" command for more information on the latter. More information on LISTSERV commands can be found in the LISTSERV reference card, which you can retrieve by sending an "INFO REFCARD" command to TakeThisOuTLISTSERVEraseMEspam_OUTMITVMA.MIT.EDU (or RemoveMELISTSERVTakeThisOuTMITVMA.BITNET).