[Lowfer] LOWFER list reconfig

[Doug Reed]

Hi Everyone.

I'm sure you noticed when the LOWFER list was unavailable last week.
QTH.net had a hard disk crash. The solution was to upgrade the server and
install the latest version of the Mailman software. But not everything was
recovered gracefully. Many membership lists were damaged or imperfectly
recovered. 

There have been a number of people getting bounce messages saying that they
are not subscribed. This may be an old problem that you thought was fixed
but it is back again because the update was lost in the crash. If you get
such a message just go back and subscribe again. If you continue to have
trouble, I've suggested to a few folk that they unsubscribe via the web
page but then subscribe again via the email address. If you are having
problems with your email address, this will let Mailman choose the one it
wants. 

Because this happened just before Dayton, Al and Tim didn't have enough
time to fully reconfigure and tweak all the list default settings. As a
result, HTML and attachments are getting through the list right now. I
tried turning on the default content filtering but the first message that
hit the remailer was discarded and I don't know why. So I turned content
filtering off again. 

Getting content filtering to work as before will be about the highest
priority for Tim when he gets back from Dayton. Until then, don't start any
bad habits (sending attachments) and don't open any message attachments
that come through the reflector. I've already seen one automatic bounce
message that claimed a virus attachment came from the reflector. I doubt it
really did, but I recommend you take no chances. If you really want the
attachment badly enough, contact the sender directly and ask them to send
it to you. If they never heard of what you are asking for, it proves it was
a virus message.... 

And before you start accepting unsolicited email attachments, you should
probably download and install all available patches and upgrades for your
operating system, your anti-virus software, your firewall software, and
your email program. Oh, and make a full system backup.... Good luck.

I hope the ongoing changes will be transparent to you. The intent is to get
the LOWFER list back to normal ASAP. It is going to take a lot of work on
AL and Tim's part before everything is working as they wish. Think of it as
having a second full-time job. If you haven't done so before, please
consider sending Al a contribution for QTH.net and all the other services
he provides to the ham community. If you do it BEFORE May 30 you can be in
the drawing to get a new radio. Go to www.qth.net for info. 

"And now we return to our regular programming, already in progress."

73, Doug Reed, N0NAS.
LOWFER List Admin.