dc-cycles mailing list subscription info

NEWS! New List Management Software!!!

The dc-cycles email list has migrated onto new list management software. For the most part, you shouldn't have to care about the difference until the next time you need to make some administrative action, like subscribing or unsubscribing. All the subscriptions should have been migrated over to the new software, to a digest or non-digest version of the list, as before.

As always, if you run into any trouble, and can't figure out how to fix it, drop a note to dc-cycles-human@dc-cycles.org .

Here are a few major changes that result:

there's now a web-based interface which subscribers can use to manage their subscription. An email-based admin interface still exists, and this works in a similar manner to the old software (e.g. you can send 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' commands to dc-cycles-request@dc-cycles.org), but I think most people will prefer to use the web interface.
while there are still digest and non-digest options, these no longer appear to be separate lists. There's just a single 'dc-cycles' list now, but "digest vs non-digest" is an editable option of your subscription. You can specify your choice when you subscribe, or change back and forth at any time. Note that under the old system you could subscribe the same address to both lists, this is no longer possible, you'd now need to subscribe 2 different addresses, and set the digest parameter differently for each (send a note to dc-cycles-human@dc-cycles.org . If you really want both digest and non-digest, and don't want to use 2 separate addresses, there may be something we can do).
some list administrative actions now require "confirmation" via email, to ensure that an unauthorized person doesn't subscribe or unsubscribe you, etc., without your permission. For instance, when you first subscribe to the list, you'll receive an email that contains a special confirmation code and a web page address (URL). You can either click on that web page or respond to the email to "confirm" the action.
your subscription now has a "password" associated with it to prevent others from messing with your subscription attributes. This isn't very secure, it's just to cut out potential nuisance, please don't use a password that's used elsewhere for something very important to you, as the security of that password cannot be assured. If you were a subscriber at the time of the migration, you were assigned a randomly generated password, which should have been sent to you via email. You can always change this, if you like. If you subscribed after the migration, you can either specify a password at subscribe time, or just get a randomly assigned one.
the new software handles the "two versions of text, one in plain text, one in html" that was rejected by the old software, so users of gmail, yahoo, or exchange who before had trouble posting to the list should be okay now. The new software strips out the html version of the text, leaving only the plain text version.

Posting to the list

To submit a posting to the list, simply email your posting to: dc-cycles@dc-cycles.org .

To respond to a posting you've received, simply use "reply all", or whatever equivalent function your mail client has. Note that a simple "reply" function might, in your mail client, only send your reply to the address listed in the 'From:' field of the message to which you're replying, which would typically just be the poster of that message. You may have to use a "reply all" function to ensure that dc-cycles@dc-cycles.org is one of the recipients of your message, so that the whole list will see it.

For digest recipients, when replying to a digest message, all (non-broken) mail client software will automatically put dc-cycles@dc-cycles.org in the 'To:' field of your reply, which is what you want. It's also a good idea to edit the subject line of your message to match the subject of the message within the digest to which you're referring (the digest itself goes out with a fairly generic subject heading).

When responding to any dc-cycles posting, make sure you trim any "quoted" text down to just a snippet, enough to provide a tiny bit of context. Remember that some subscribers receive a day's worth of postings all in one message, and lots of excess quoting "pads" the digest, making it harder to read.

When responding to any dc-cycles posting, it's generally good etiquette to remove any individual subscriber addresses from the 'cc:' list, so they don't receive separate copies (one from the list and one directly from you).

Don't send postings to any of the administrative addresses, e.g. dc-cycles-request@dc-cycles.org . These addresses are only for administrative requests, these messages won't make it to the list itself.

Posting limited to subscribers

To cut down on junk email (spam, viruses, etc.), only list members are allowed to post to the list. Postings must be sent from the email address you used to subscribe, otherwise they will be rejected.

If you need to receive messages at one email address, yet still post from another, that is possible. The best way to do this is to subscribe both addresses to the list, but configure all but one of the addresses to have "Mail delivery" set to "Disabled". You'll thus be able to post from any of these subscribed addresses, while receiving messages at only one of them.

No attachments!

To help filter out some of the virus-generated junk mail, to keep over-sized messages off the list, and to prevent binary-encoded data from mucking up the digest list, postings that contain attachments are rejected. This includes any kind of binary data, multimedia stuff like images, programs, "winmail.dat" junk, etc. If you want to post an image or video, you'll need to find some place on the web to host that image, and you may then post a URL reference (i.e. the web address) in a posting to the list itself.

I haven't tested this under the new software yet, but a posting that's purely in html would be expected to be rejected. Either configure your mail software for "plain text" or else "plain text and html", but not just "html".

dc-cycles Mailing List Subscription Info

The dc-cycles mailing list is managed by automated software. You can subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your subscription options via a web interface, or by sending properly formatted email messages. We'll only describe the web-based interface here.

To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your subscription options, go to:
http://www.dc-cycles.org/mailman/cgi-bin/listinfo/dc-cycles .

New subscribers

For new subscriptions, go to the above web address, enter your email address, choose a password (enter it twice for verification), specify digest or non-digest, and click subscribe. If you don't specify a password, a random one will be assigned to you. To complete the subscription process, you must "confirm" it. After making your subscription request, an email message will be sent to you that contains a confirmation code, you can confirm your subscription by either clicking on the web address found within, or simplying replying to the email message.

Unsubscribing

To unsubscribe, go to the above web address, enter the email address under which you are subscribed into the box below "Current dc-cycles Subscribers" and click the "Unsubscribe or edit options" button. Enter your password into the box, then click the "Unsubscribe" button. If you don't know your password, then click the "Remind" button, and a new password will be sent to you.

Once the unsubscribe process is kicked off with the proper email address and password, a confirmation email message will be sent. To complete the process, you must either reply to that email message, or click on the web link contained within.

Change email address or password, switch between digest and non-digest, edit Options, etc.

To change your email address, change your password, change between digest and non-digest, switch the digest between plain text and "mime", turn off your monthly password reminders, temporarily suspend delivery, or to mess with any of the other options, you must visit the page listed above and provide email address and password as mentioned above.

At the bottom of the page is a list of editable options. After making your changes, don't forget to click the "Submit My Changes" button at the bottom of the page.

What if I lose/forget my password?

Go to the above web address, enter the email address you used to subscribe to the list into the box below "Current dc-cycles Subscribers", and click "Unsubscribe or edit options". On the next page, just click "Email My Password To Me" under the "Forgotten Your Password" heading. A new random password will be generated and emailed to you.

What if I lose access to the email address I subscribed with?

If you remember your password, you can change your subscription email address via the web admin interface, as described above. This action does require responding to an email confirmation message, but that message will be sent to your new email address, so you should be able to access it.

Getting help from a human

Please do use the automated software for routine actions. If you can't figure out how to get the software to do what you want, or have a special request, please email the list administrator human at dc-cycles-human@dc-cycles.org .