[prog] [FAQ] LinuxChix programming Technical FAQ

Sun Oct 20 18:01:09 EST 2002

LinuxChix: programming Technical FAQ

Terri Oda

Mary Gardiner

Revision History                                                               
Revision 1.2                       October 11 2002                             
Mary divided the FAQ into sections                                             
Revision 1.2                       September 2002                              
Terri added "How do I subscribe?" and "How do I change my subscription email   
address?", and rearranged some other entries.                                  
Revision 1.1                       April 2002                                  
Mary added two questions about replying to the lists, and HTML mail, to Terri's
original FAQ.                                                                  
Revision 1.0                       March 2002                                  

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1. Subscribing, Unsubscribing and Configuring Your Subscription

    1.1. How do I subscribe?
    1.2. How do I unsubscribe?
    1.3. How do I change my subscription address?
    1.4. How do I get my password?
    1.5. How do I turn off mail delivery for an address? ('nomail' option)

2. Replying to the Lists

    2.1. Why can't I just hit 'Reply' in my mail reader and have my reply go to
        the lists? I have to type in the address of the list myself!
    2.2. So, if I can't hit 'Reply', how can I reply to the lists?

3. Problems with the Lists: Missing Mail and Mail Held for Approval

    3.1. I'm not getting mail from linuxchix anymore. What's wrong?
    3.2. My mail got "held for approval" because it said I wasn't a subscriber.
        What do I do?
    3.3. I keep making the mistake of sending from the wrong address. Do I need
        to subscribe my other address(es)?
    3.4. My mail to the linuxchix lists isn't getting through at all!

4. List Etiquette

    4.1. Someone suggested I turn off HTML Mail! Why? How?

The latest version of this FAQ can be found at http://www.linuxchix.org/content
/docs/faqs/technical.html?listname=programming

This FAQ is posted to most LinuxChix mailing lists every month.

1. Subscribing, Unsubscribing and Configuring Your Subscription

1.1. How do I subscribe?

There are three common ways:

  * The web interface

    Go to http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/programming and follow the
    instructions given there.

  * By email

    Send a mail to programming-request at linuxchix.org with the subject "subscribe"
    (or click on this link: mailto:programming-request at linuxchix.org?subject=
    unsubscribe)

  * By asking a list admin.

    If you're having a lot of trouble with subscribing, ask a human. :) The
    list admins' addresses are on the bottom of the pages on the web interface,
    and they can also be contacted using the programming-admin at linuxchix.org
    address.

1.2. How do I unsubscribe?

There are three common ways:

  * The web interface

    Go to http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/programming and enter your
    email address in the "Edit Options" box. From there, you should get a list
    of information about your subscription, including an option to unsubscribe.

  * By email

    Send a mail to programming-request at linuxchix.org with the subject
    "unsubscribe" (or click on this link: mailto:
    programming-request at linuxchix.org?subject=unsubscribe)

  * By asking a list admin.

    If you're having a lot of trouble with unsubscribing, ask a human. :) The
    list admins' addresses are on the bottom of the pages on the web interface,
    and they can also be contacted using the programming-admin at linuxchix.org
    address.

1.3. How do I change my subscription address?

In mailman 2.0.* there is no way to change an address, so you have to do this
by subscribing the new address and unsubscribing the old address. (See above
for how to do each of these.)

If you may still post occasionally from the old address (eg some of your mail
clients may be configured for the old address), you may want to leave the old
address subscribed and set it 'nomail'. For more information, see the question
"How I turn off mail delivery for an address?"

1.4. How do I get my password?

Your passwords are mailed out to you once a month, but if you want it sooner,
go to the listinfo page http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/programming
and enter your email address in the "Edit Options" box at the bottom of the
page. This will bring up a page of information about your subscription, and you
can click on the button marked "Email my password to me"

1.5. How do I turn off mail delivery for an address? ('nomail' option)

  * Go to the listinfo page http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/
    programming and enter the email address in the "Edit Options" box at the
    bottom of the page.

  * On this options page, set "Disable mail delivery" to "On", enter your
    password in the box at the bottom, and press "Submit my Changes"

2. Replying to the Lists

2.1. Why can't I just hit 'Reply' in my mail reader and have my reply go to the
lists? I have to type in the address of the list myself!

The LinuxChix lists do not have the Reply-To header set to the list address.
Hence when you press Reply, the reply goes to the original sender.

There are many good reasons why LinuxChix lists do not have the Reply-To set.
These reasons are explained in Chip Rosenthal's essay Reply-To munging
considered harmful. If you have an argument that is not addressed in this
essay, bring it up on the lists and the LinuxChix admins may reconsider their
decision.

2.2. So, if I can't hit 'Reply', how can I reply to the lists?

Almost all mail readers have a 'Reply All' or 'Group Reply' option, which will
reply to the original author and Cc the list. Most people choose to reply this
way.

If you wish to reply just to the list, you can either put the list address in
the To field manually, or you can use a mail reader that has a 'Reply To List'
function. Some mailers which have a 'Reply To List' function are: KMail and
mutt. Let us know if you hear of any more!

3. Problems with the Lists: Missing Mail and Mail Held for Approval

3.1. I'm not getting mail from linuxchix anymore. What's wrong?

There are a few possibilities:

  * No one has sent any mail to the list(s) you're on for a little while.

    To check if this is the case, visit the archives at http://
    mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/programming/.

  * You were bouncing mail and have had mail delivery (temporarily) disabled by
    the list software.

    If you bounce too many messages, the list software stops trying to send you
    mail. To check if this is the case, go to http://mailman.linuxchix.org/
    mailman/listinfo/programming, enter your email address in the box near the
    bottom where the button says "Edit Options", and check to make sure that
    you are set to be receiving mail. Change it if you're not and your address
    is working again.

    If you didn't know you were bouncing already, you can ask the list admins
    for a copy of the bounced message to help you figure out what went wrong.

  * The mailing list is actually down.

    Try pinging linuxchix.org to see if the machine is up and your machine can
    reach it. If it is, try contacting one of the admins to find out what's
    going on.

3.2. My mail got "held for approval" because it said I wasn't a subscriber.
What do I do?

If you want the mail to go through right away, your best option is to re-send
it from the address at which you're subscribed. If you re-send, don't be
surprised if you see a duplicate copy come through later when a listadmin
approves it without noticing that you've resent.

If you're not in a hurry or don't want to or can't re-send, most legitimate
posts will be approved by an admin when she gets them and has time to deal with
them. This usually takes less than a day, sometimes two, but can take longer if
the list admins are busy.

If this happens more than a few times, please see the question below "Do I need
to subscribe my other address(es)?"

3.3. I keep making the mistake of sending from the wrong address. Do I need to
subscribe my other address(es)?

We prefer that you do subscribe any address you use frequently for posting.
This lowers the workload on our volunteers *and* means that your posts will get
through to the lists more quickly. Since you can subscribe an address without
receiving mail to that address, it's often easier to just subscribe an address
than to remember to switch your From: line!

To do this, subscribe the address (see instructions under "How do I subscribe?
") and then disable mail delivery (see instructions under "How do I disable
mail delivery to an address?").

3.4. My mail to the linuxchix lists isn't getting through at all!

It is possible that there is some error with the machine hosting the
linuxchix.org mailing lists. Check the archives of the list, linked from http:/
/mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo to see if your post has appeared. Check
if there have been other posts to the list in the last few days. Mail the list
admin using the the address made by placing -admin after the list name (the
programming admins' email is <programming-admin at linuxchix.org>) to ask if there is a
problem.

At present, the LinuxChix hosts are using Realtime Blackhole List filtering on
LinuxChix lists. If your mail is originating from a computer that is a known
open relay, then your post to LinuxChix will bounce. If this is the case, and
you are using an ISP account, you should be using their SMTP server to relay
your mail rather than connecting directly - ask their technical support what
the SMTP server's address is and ask them or us how to set up your mail to go
via their server. If no then you might want to investigate how to be removed
from the RBL. You might want to let us know by asking someone to forward mail
to us.

4. List Etiquette

4.1. Someone suggested I turn off HTML Mail! Why? How?

Short answer: Instructions for turning off HTML mail in many clients can be
found at http://www.expita.com/nomime.html

HTML formatting is used to format your mail in the same way that web pages can
be formatted. It is used by default by many mail readers.

However, there are many many people subscribed to the LinuxChix lists (and to
most other lists). A substantial number of those people do not like to receive
HTML mail on lists.

These groups include:

  * Some subscribers who use text-based email clients that can't display web
    pages (please note that most common text-based email clients, including
    Pine and Mutt, can in fact produce a text version of HTML mail, if you
    don't know how to do this with your client, you might want to ask the <
    techtalk at linuxchix.org> list about it).

  * Subscribers who get the digest version of the lists (they receive one mail
    a day containing all the mail to the list that day, rather than receiving
    each mail as it is sent to the list). Your HTML mail is simply bundled in
    with all the text mails and loses the headers that allow most mailers to
    recognise and render your HTML mail properly.

  * Subscribers who have expensive and slow connections. HTML mail is larger
    than text mail because of all the extra formatting that comes with it.

  * Our generous server hosts, whose server must send out hundreds of copies of
    your large HTML mails (if the HTML adds 500 bytes to your email, that could
    mean 100K of extra work for the LinuxChix server!). Our hosts are
    volunteers and their bandwidth is not infinite!