[text versions of the list user's reference, and the quick help for printing]
If you want to use a mailing list at missprint.org, you have to know some simple things. Miss Print's here to teach you.
This is a reference guide to using the list so it's a bit wordy; there is a quick help guide at:
Please note that there is now a web-interface to subscribing, unsubscribing from lists, and viewing your subscription options at:
Majordomo is the most widely used mailing list software on the Internet, so it's handy knowing how it works: you'll use it on lots of other mailing lists too. It's very simple to use once you know the basics. The most important thing to remember is that you subscribe, unsubscribe etc. via email messages sent to a special address, majordomo@missprint.org. A section below describes things you can do.
To ask the majordomo to do something for you, you send it a command in the body of an email message. It ignores whatever you put in the subject of your message.
Majordomo will always reply to you, whether successful or not. If you don't get any reply within a few minutes, check the address above, then mail the list owner (see below).
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your subscription etc., you send special commands to the "majordomo" address, which is:
When you send mail to this address, it isn't answered by a human, but by a machine. So you need to send it very specific commands. Remember never to send majordomo commands (e.g. to unsubscribe) to the list address, but use the one above.
So to join a list about dogs called "woof", send the following to majordomo@missprint.org:
subscribe woof
Similarly, to unsubscribe, send:
unsubscribe woof
You just send a mail to the "list address", which is always of the form:
where "listname" is the name of the list you've joined. So if you joined a list about dogs called "woof", you should send emails meant for everyone to the email address:
Remember this will go on to all members of the list. Never send majordomo commands to this address.
A "digest" is a special version of a list, that instead of sending you a message everytime someone mails the list, saves them up and sends lots together a bit later on (how often is decided by the list owner). This means that you get fewer messages, but they're bigger. You might prefer this.
If so, you can join the digest version of your favourite missprint list. If you're currently subscribed to the normal ("main") version of the list, you need to unsubscribe from it first. Do this by sending a mail to:
which says:
unsubscribe listname
in the body of your mail message. You should substitute "listname" for the real name of your list. You can then subscribe to the digest version of the same list, by sending another command to the same address that says:
subscribe listname-digest
So to subscribe to the digest version of "woof", your favourite doggy list, send:
subscribe woof-digest
Yes there is an archive available on the WWW. Just go to:
where "listname" is the name of your list. You can also search the list archives via this link.
Some mailers (like Outlook Express) send mail in "HTML" format unless you tell them not to. This allows you to make your mails look pretty to users of similar mailers, but makes a horrible mess for other users to read. Most mailing list owners ban these types of mails from mailing lists (and Miss Print agrees with them).
It's easy to tell your mailer to send "plain text" messages. The Sinister list has a guide on how to do this that will probably help, see:
Please check your mailer is set up correctly to send plain text messages before you mail your list.
This is almost always because you're on the digest version of the list and you're just sending the command:
unsubscribe listname
Try:
unsubscribe listname-digest
where "listname" is the name of your list.
You need to unsubscribe from your old address and subscribe your new one. Subscribing your new one is easy, just act like you're joining again, see above. If you still have access to your old email account, unsubscribe that in the usual way too, but if not, add your old email address you're trying to unsubscribe to the end of the mail you send to majordomo@missprint.org.
So for instance if you used to have an email address "ilikedogs@growl.co.uk" but you've changed addresses and subscribed your new address to the "woof" list, and want to unsubscribe the old one from your new email address, send the following to majordomo@missprint.org (as always, in the body of your mail, not the subject):
unsubscribe woof ilikedogs@growl.co.uk
The list owner has to "approve" this type of unsubscribe, but it shouldn't take long.
The setting for missprint lists is that a Reply-to field is not set. This means that for most mail programs replies will go back to the sender of the message rather than the list itself. To mail the list, remember to re-address your reply back to the list address.
It's set this way to prevent storms of error messages going back to the list (and therefore your mailbox!) when someone uses a stupid mail program.
The owner of a majordomo list can always be contacted via the address:
where "listname" is the name of the list you are subscribed to. But please don't mail the list owner until you've read through this carefully.
If you're in real trouble and have waited days and days for a response, and it's an emergency, you can mail missprint by mailing:
Please include the name of the relevant list and all details. But please, allow at least a week before pushing this particular emergency button.
[text versions of
the list user's reference, and
the quick help
for printing]
[new: user's web interface]
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