[KCDXC] Club reflector - mailman list infomation you can use

[Bob Brown]

Using Mailman Lists at Mailman.QTH.net  - http://mailman.qth.net/

Learn how you can go to a list's information page to subscribe,
unsubscribe, or edit your subscription options;
review general guidelines about posting messages to lists; and access
list archives.

Information for Subscribers

Mailman: User Guide for List Subscribers

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Setting Your Options
Options Explanation
Changing your address and membership information
Using Mailman via email
Frequently Asked Questions


Mailman is a web-based mail list manager, and should make it easier to
subscribe to, and to be subscribed to, lists.

What is a mail list?
An email reflector is a list of email addresses with a name that is an
email address.
When someone sends mail to that name, all the addresses in the list
receive the mail.

A mail list is like a reflector. It has an email address that
distributes the mail sent to it to a list of subscribers,
but a mail list under the control of a list manager is distinguished
from a reflector by the addition of various management functions, such
as:

Limitation of posting to subscribers (or some other criteria) only
Moderation of postings.
A moderator can approve or disapprove each message to the list.
Digesting. Rather than receive a stream of small emails, the
subscriber receives, at a lower frequency, emails containing multiple
messages to the list.

Subscriber publication.
The list administrator can make the list of subscribers available for
public view.

Archiving.
All the messages sent to the list are collected and made available as
web pages.

Subscription suspension.
A subscriber can choose to not receive mail for a period of time.

Address change.
A subscriber can change where he receives the mail from the list.

Getting information from the list server
The Mailman web interface allows you to visit a mail list server and
find out about the lists that the server hosts.
Keep in mind, however, that Mailman will not show you lists that the
managers have opted to keep private.
To access the mail server's directory of lists on mailman.qth.net go
to: mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo

Every mail list on the server, both public and private, has its own
mail list information page.
When you go to the server's main list information page you will see a
listing of the publicly available
lists along with a brief description of each.

To access the information page for a particular list (including
subscription information and the list archives)
just click on the name of the list.

If you want to access a private list that is not advertised then you
need to go directly to its information
page using the following template:
     http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/Name of the list

If, for example, you are trying to reach the Test list, you could
either click on the list's name (on the page reached through the link
above) or go to the URL
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/test

It is important that you understand how to get to a mail list's
information page, as that is the gateway through which all list
features are accessed.
When you join a list or are added to the list membership by the owner
Mailman automatically sends you a note telling you the URL that you
need to go to in order to access the information page. On most lists
the list manager will also send you a monthly reminder with the URL of
the
information page. If you have difficulty finding the location of the
information page for a particular list, you should contact the list
owner.

Doing things with the Mailman list server

This section will detail some of the things that you can do with
Mailman through the web interface.
This assumes that you are able to access your list's information page
either directly or through the directory of lists
(both of these methods were discussed in the previous section).
If you cannot access the list's web interface but still have access to
email, alternate instructions can be found in the
section of this document called Using Mailman without the web

When you arrive at the information page of a list you will see
information divided into sections.
The first section directs you to the list's archives if they are available.
See the archive section below for detailed information.

The list info page also tells you how to post to the list.
Note that the conventional list configuration prevents postings to the
list from people who
have not subscribed: so if you try to post to the list before you join
it the message will probably be rejected and returned to you.

The third section gives you a form to use for subscribing.
One of the features of Mailman-managed lists is that you have to
choose a password.
Besides guaranteeing a higher level of security, passwords make it
possible to allow subscribers to change their email address.

At the bottom of the list information page is a section for people who
are already subscribers.
The first option is a button that allows you to see the people who are
subscribed to the list.
Note that some list owners disable this function in which case it will
not appear on this page.
Other lists make this option available only to individuals who are
members of the list - in which case you will be
prompted for your email address and list password after requesting
subscriber information.

The final item on the page allows list subscribers to change their
configuration information.
Members of the list can type their email address into the box (they
need to use the address that the mail list
delivers mail to if they have multiple addresses) and then click the
Edit Options button.
Details on this feature are in the Setting Your Options section below.

Subscribing
Subscribing to a list is simple and includes safeguards to prevent
abuse of the list.
In the subscription section type your email address and then select a password.
The password will be used later when you want to change your personal settings.

When you fill out the subscription form you also have the option of
receiving mail from the list batched in a digest.
This is convenient if you are a member of a number of lists or if the
list you are joining has a lot of traffic.
If you change your mind you will be able to change the digest option
at a later time.
See Setting Your Options.

After you fill in the subscription form press the subscribe button to
add yourself to the list.
Your addition to the list is not immediate. After you submit the form
Mailman will send an email message to the address you used to
subscribe.
The message that you receive will ask you to confirm your subscription
request (this is to prevent someone from
maliciously adding you to mail lists that you do not want to join).
When you receive the confirmation request just follow the instructions
--
the simplest thing being just to hit the reply button in your mail
program. If you send the message back without altering the
subject line (the 'Re: " added by your mailer is okay) then your
confirmation will be accepted.

After sucessfully confirming your subscription Mailman will send you a
welcome note.

The note will include:

The URL that takes you directly to the list's information page
The URL that takes you directly to your personal settings page
Your password
An email address to contact to get help with the email interface to the list

Please keep this message in a safe place. You will need the
information that it contains if you ever want to modify
your personal settings or remove yourself from the list. For most
lists this information will be mailed to you in a monthly
reminder, but just to be safe you should always keep the original.

Setting your list options
Once you have subscribed to a Mailman list there are a number of
things you can do to administer and customize your subscription.
The most straightforward means of accessing your subscription options
is by going to the URL delivered in your welcoming message.
If you do not have it handy, you can go to the list information page
(for example http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/test) or to the
list directory page (for example
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo) where you would click on the
list's name to get to the list information page.
Once on the list information page, enter your email address at the
bottom of the page, where it says:

To unsubscribe from Test, get a password reminder, or change your
subscription options enter your subscription email address:
You will prompted for your list password before you get to the options page.

Logging out
At the top of the page is a button allowing you to log out after
making changes to your options.
Please use it once you have finished.

Changing your Mailman membership information
Here you can change the address where mail for this list is sent, and
change the name by which Mailman knows you.
When you change your name, it only affects places where Mailman uses
your name on web pages, so will only be seen
by you and the list administrator. The Change globally button applies
the changes you make to your address or name to
all the lists you subscribe to on this server.

Unsubscribing and accessing other lists
Only when you check the phrase "Yes, I really want to unsubscribe" and
click on the 'Unsubscribe' button will you be unsubscribed.
When you click on "List my other subscriptions", you will be taken to
a page containing the names of all the lists you subscribe to.
Clicking on a name will take you to your configuration page for that list.

Password options
The password section of the configuration screen provides you with two
options. First, it allows you to look up your password
if you have forgotten it. Note that for security purposes it will mail
your password to the account you have registered - preventing
unauthorized access to your password.

The second section allows you to change your password. To change your
list password you need to type in your new password twice.
It is a good security habit to change all of your passwords once a
month; it is also a good idea to change your password from the
computer generated random password if you were added to the list by
the list administrator.
There is a "Change globally" checkbox associated with the password
change section. If you check it, your new
password will apply to all the lists you subscribe to.

There are two additional things you should know about Mailman's
handling of passwords. As a convenience to the user,
the list manager is configured to send you a monthly reminder of the
lists that you are subscribed to, the list information URLs of those
lists,
and your personal passwords for those lists. When you receive this
reminder you do not need to do anything, but it is a good
idea to keep the note in case you want to make modifications to your
subscriptions. If you ever forget a password, remember
that you can request that it be sent to you from the list information page.

General subscription options
At the bottom of the configuration screen are the general subscription
options for the list as they are set for your account. When you first
load this page the options reflect your current settings. You may make
changes to these settings and then put them into effect by clicking on
the "Submit" button at the bottom of the page. In some cases the list
adminitrator may have disabled one or more of the options presented
below and removed them from the page.

Here is a summary of the options and what they mean:
Option Availble Settings
Mail Delivery If you "Enable" this option you will receive mail. If
you "Disable" it, you won't.
Checking "Set globally" will enable or disable mail from all the lists
you subscribe to.
Set Digest Mode When you turn digest mode on, you'll get individual
emails bundled together in one large post.
When you turn off digest mode, you may receive one more digest before
resuming normal mail delivery.

Get MIME or Plain Text Digests MIME digests are preferred, but if you
mailer can't handle them, use plain text.
When you set this globally, all the lists from which you receive
digests will send them in the format you choose here.
Receive your own posts to the list Yes or no.
Receive acknowledgement mail when you send mail to the list Yes or no.
Get password reminder email for this list This is the monthly password
reminder, which also contains pertinent URLs for this list.
Notice that this can be set globally, for all the lists you are
subscribed to on this server.

Conceal yourself from subscriber list If you do not want your email to
show up on the subscriber roster, check Yes.
What language do you prefer At the moment only US English is available.
Which topic categories would you like to subscribe to The list
administrator may define topic filters. If he does, you may choose
to receive only a subset of the messages sent to the list.
Do you want to receive messages that do not match any topic filter If
there are topics, and if you have subscribed to one
or more (subscribing to none lets you receive all the email on the
list), you can choose here to receive list emails that do not fit in
any topic category.
Avoid duplicate copies of messages
When a message is sent explicitly to you and to the list, you can opt
to receive only one copy. Notice that this can be set globally.


Participating in the list
Just a few cautionary notes. First, list administrators may configure
the list so that when you reply to a list email the
default "Reply-To" address is the list, or they may configure the list
so that the default "Reply-To" is the person who posted the letter to
the list.
When you reply to a list email, make sure the reply will go to who you
want it to go to.

Second, please keep on topic. If you are unsure whether a particular
email would be appropriate, contact the list owner privately before
sending it.

Mail list archives
Most list managers will choose to activate Mailman's archival features
to make list history available to members.
Mailman makes its archives available through each list's information
page. Keep in mind that the list manager may have chosen
not to archive a particular list to which you belong.
Also keep in mind that it is a general practice to make the list
archive available only to list subscribers.

If the archive is 'open' then you will be able to go straight in from
the information page.
If the archive is for subscribers only then you will be prompted for
your email address and your list password.
Once in, you will be shown a historical listing.

The default setting for the archive is to divide messages by month. Do
not be surprised, however, if you see some
other division of the archive contents: the list manager decides how
things will be divided up.
There are different viewing options for each month:

Thread
separates topics from each other and then displays the messages that
are part of each "thread" following one another in an indented
fashion.
This view is best to use if you want an idea of how conversation on a
particular topic progressed.

Subject
sorts all postings alphabetically by the subject line. This view is
useful for finding a particular topic, but it will not show the
relationships in a visual form as in the Thread view.
Author
sorts all postings alphabetically based on the name of the author.
Date
sorts all postings by the date they were delivered to the list.

The final option allows you to download a gzipped version of the
archive for that month. gzip is a compression utility whose files end
in '.gz'.
Most zip utilities are able to open gzipped files. This option is
useful if you want to search the archive on a particular
term (you can use 'most any word processor or text editor or grep utility).

After you have chosen how you wish to view the archive you will see
the headers of the messages displayed according to your specified
criteria.
To read an individual email, just click on its subject line. When the
email appears there will be additional navigational information
allowing
you to see the previous or next message (as you had them sorted), or
to request the listing of all of the emails again sorted by a
different criteria.

Using Mailman without the web
You can subscribe to lists, unsubscribe from lists, and manage your
Mailman list options via email.
To do this, you need to know the name of the list.

Then use the forms
<name of list>-join at mailman.qth.net or
<name of list>-subscribe at mailman.qth.net
to subscribe or
<name of list>-leave at mailman.qth.net or
<name of list>-unsubscribe at mailman.qth.net to unsubscribe.
For example, the corresponding addresses for the demonstration list would be
test-subscribe at mailman.qth.net
test-join at mailman.qth.net
test-leave at mailman.qth.net
test-unsubscribe at mailman.qth.net

Managing list options using email
The address to use for managing list options is constructed like this

<name of list>-request at mailman.qth.net or

This is the same address that is given to you in the welcome message
the list sends out when you subscribe.
Using this address you can issue commands to Mailman.

For example, if you wanted to disable mail delivery for the test list
you would send your message to:
     test-request at mailman.qth.net

In the body of the message you would send:
     set authenticate yourpassword
     set delivery off
     end


Commands can be in the subject or body of the email message.

Here is a list of the commands:
Command Arguments Explanation
confirm confirmation string Confirmation is only used when Mailman
asks you to confirm an action, and sends you a confirmation string to
return.

end  End can be used to stop Mailman from looking for more commands
lower in the email body. It is typically used to stop Mailman from
attempting to process signatures.

help  Help sends you an email listing the commands and explaining how
to use them.

info  Get information about the list

lists  See a list of the public lists available on this server.

password [oldpassword newpassword] [address=<address>] Retrieve or
change your password. With no arguments, this returns your current
password. With the arguments "oldpassword newpassword", it changes
your password.

If you are posting from an address that is not the one that you have
used to subscribe to the list, you must include "address=<your
subscribed address>". The response will be sent to your subscribed
address.

unsubscribe [password] [address=<address>] Unsubscribe from the mailing list.
If you don't send your password, a confirmation email will be sent to
the unsubscribing address.
If you wish to unsubscribe an address other than the address you sent
this email from, you may specify
it with "address=<your subscribed address>" (with no brackets around
your address and no quotes).
who password [address=<address>] See everyone who is on this mailing list.
The service is limited to list members only, and you must supply your
password to retrieve it.
If you're posting from an address different from the one you subscribe
with, use "address=<your subscribed address>" as above.

set help, show, ... View or set list configuration options. Use 'set
help' to see a list of options you can set, use 'set show' to see your
current settings.

Options you can set using email
Here is a list of options you can set:

Option command Arguments Explanation
set help  Return a detailed help message about the set command.
set show [address=<address>] View your current option settings.
If you are subscribed under an address other than the address you sent
this email from, you may
specify it with "address=<your subscribed address>" (with no brackets
around your address and no quotes).

set authenticate password [address=<address>] To set any of your
options, you must include this command first, along with your
password. Use the address argument as above.

set ack on|off When the "ack" option is turned on, you will receive an
acknowledgement message every time you post to the list.

set digest plain|mime|off When the "digest" option is turned off, you
will receive email as it is sent to the list. Use "set digest plain"
if instead you want to receive postings bundled into a plain text
digest. Use "set digest mime" if you want to receive postings bundled
in MIME format.

set delivery on|off Turn delivery on or off. This does not unsubscribe
you, but tells Mailman not to deliver for now. This is useful if you
are going on vacation.

set myposts on|off Use "set myposts off" to not receive copies of
messages you send to the list. This has no effect if you are receiving
digests.

set hide on|off Use this to conceal your list membership when people
request the membership list.

set duplicates on|off Set this option off if you want Mailman to not
send you messages if your address is explicitly mentioned in the To:
or Cc: fields of the message.

set reminders on|off Set reminders off if you want to disable the
monthly password reminder for this mailing list.

http://mailman.qth.net/

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hope this helps

SM0KE



On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 6:22 PM, Alex, KU1CW <ku1cw at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Smoke,
> Do you have detailed procedure of subscribing to club reflector?
> The kcdxc <kcdxc at mailman.qth.net>?
> Thanks, Alex
>
>
>
>



-- 
Thanks in Advance

 Bob Brown
 In-Building RF Design, Sprint-Nextel
 Custom Radio Communications Ltd.
 10417 W 84th Terr
 Lenexa, Ks 66214
 816-561-4100
 816-561-4148 Fax
 bbrown at crcltd.com

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--
The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary
telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and
it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the
cat.

Albert Einstein