[FARC] Hints on Posting to the Reflector

[Bob Moroney]

 From time to time inquiries come in about how to post to the FARC 
reflector.  They typically are from folks who have successfully 
subscribed to the list and are thus able to read postings by others, but 
who find that they can't make their own contributions to discussions.  
Instead of seeing their comments on the reflector, they'll get a 
"bounce" notification from the list management software, or they get no 
feedback at all.

Here are a couple of tips to successful posting to the FARC reflector:

- You *must* post from the same email address that you used to subscribe 
to the list.  If you change your email and can't use the old one at all, 
you can go in and re-subscribe with the new one, then notify one of the 
list administrators (me and/or Eric N8AAY) to delete your subscription 
under the old email address.

- Your postings should be in *plain text*.  Most email programs allow 
you to specify the formatting for your outgoing emails, and some allow 
you to do so individually by addressee.  You can have some simple html 
tags (the hidden info that is used to format web pages) in your emails 
to the reflector, but if there are too many or the wrong kind, your 
emails will be rejected by the management software.  Best to just use 
"plain text".

- The management software will reject emails that have the FARC 
reflector address (farc at mailman.qth.net) as a "blind" recipient among 
other "blind" recipients.  "Blind" addressing (Bcc:) is used to hide 
multiple addressees from one another, often as a courtesy so a huge list 
of addressees doesn't clutter up the beginning of an email, but it's 
also much-used by spammers, so Bcc: emails are simply filtered out by 
the reflector software.

- Try not to use "bad" language.  I can't tell you exactly what the 
reflector management software considers "bad", but if you were to use 
one or more of the words that get folks like Howard Stern or the 
Greaseman (remember them?) thrown off the air, your posting to the list 
will probably bounce.  We all know you wouldn't do that, but more benign 
words, are also on the reflector Nanny list, if they tend to appear in 
spam email.  Last year I had a posting about a Frederick County 
hazardous waste drop-off day bounce two or three times until it dawned 
on me that the list of things accepted at the event included 
"p-h-a-r-m-a-c-e-u-t-i-c-a-l-s".  Once I deleted that awful word from 
the list, the posting went through, no problem.

There are no doubt other gotchas that will keep folks from getting a 
posting up to the list, but these four seem to crop up most often.  If 
you know of any others, or have other suggestions, please post them to 
the list!

The reflector software is a little bit primitive by today's standards, 
but it definitely gets the job done effectively - it gets the notices, 
questions, answers, etc. out to a wide audience quickly and simply by 
email, rather than requiring web access.

73, Bob K9CMR