[prog] [FAQ] programming List questions and help (monthly posting)
LinuxChix FAQs
lcx.faqs at linuxchix.org
Sat Jan 4 20:24:10 EST 2003
Link: home
LinuxChix: programming Technical FAQ
----------------------------------------------------------------------
LinuxChix: programming Technical FAQ
Terri Oda
Mary Gardiner
Copyright (c) 2002 by Terri Oda. This material may be distributed only
subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication
License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at
http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 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 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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?
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)
1.1. How do I subscribe?
There are three common ways:
o The web interface
Go to http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/programming and
follow the instructions given there.
o 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)
o 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:
o 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.
o 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)
o 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)
o 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.
o 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!
2.2. So, if I can't hit 'Reply', how can I reply 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?
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!
3.1. I'm not getting mail from linuxchix anymore. What's wrong?
There are a few possibilities:
o 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/.
o 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.
o 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?
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:
o 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).
o 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.
o Subscribers who have expensive and slow connections. HTML mail is
larger than text mail because of all the extra formatting that
comes with it.
o 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!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
More information about the Programming
mailing list