Communications

Discussion List for this class

A discussion list (also known as a listserv or listprocessor) is a program which:

	immediately distributes e-mail, which has been sent to one single mailing list address, to a list of recipients who subscribe to the list
	automatically handles subscribing to and unsubscribing from the mailing lists
	responds to basic information requests about the lists

Introduction to list processors and mailing lists at UT-Austin may be found at: http://www.utexas.edu/cc/mailinglists/intro/

Subscribing: (see ACITS Mailing Lists - Answers for additional information)

Send to listproc@lists.cc.utexas.edu the command:

     subscribe GRG305 firstname lastname

in the body of a mail message (with no subject line). Here, firstname, and lastname represent your actual first name and last name.

Read these "DO's and DON'T's" ...

DO keep the welcome message sent to you when you subscribed to the list. It contains important information, including how to remove yourself from the list.

DON'T send the exact same message twice. The list processor will think this is due to a mail-forwarding loop and reject the second message.

If you need to send an identical message a second time (say, a periodic information file), put the date at the end of the message. The list processor will then recognize it as a different message.

DO send all subscription-information and other list processor commands to the address
```
     listproc@lists.cc.utexas.edu
```
and not to the list itself. And similarly, DO send all messages intended for the list to the list's address, NOT to listproc@lists. And DO put the command in the body of the message, not on the Subject: line.

DON'T put a listproc command on the first line of your messages to a list. The list processor will consider it to be a command mistakenly sent to the list instead of to listproc@lists. To see a list of listproc commands, send the command
```
     help
```
in the body of a message to listproc@lists.cc.utexas.edu.

DO use plain ASCII text format for list processor commands. MIME and HTML messages might not be properly interpreted by the list processor.

Posting:

Any e-mail you send to the list address gets sent out to everybody subscribed to this list.

One other thing: if you aren't a subscriber, your message will not go out by sending it to class list. Any message sent there by someone who doesn't
subscribe gets rejected by the software, automatically.

Unsubscribing:

Similarly, if (or more likely when) later you want to unsubscribe from the list, send mail to the administrative address:

Send, in the body of a mail message to listproc@lists.cc.utexas.edu, the command:

     unsubscribe GRG305

It is a common mistake to put your personal name at the end of this command. Use ONLY the list name.

Also, be sure to send your request from the same e-mail address that you used to subscribe to the list, since the process is automated.

Archive Retrieval

First, you need to get a list of the names of the archived files for your mailing list. To do that, send to
the list processor the command:

        index GRG305 /password

The list processor will send back, by return e-mail, a list of filenames. For example, a list that is
archived monthly may return filenames in the form

          listname.yymmdd

where yymmdd is the year, month and day. Thus, GRG305.010802 might be the archived file of old messages for August 2,2001.

Now, request the particular archive you want by sending another command to the list processor. This time, use the command (in the body of the mail message). Password given in class is required.

     get listname filename /password

For example,

     get grg305 grg305.010802 /password

The list processor will then send back the archive file of old messages.

Other Commands:

Here's a list of the things you can tell discussion list to do. You send it these commands by sending mail to listproc@lists.cc.utexas.edu, leaving the subject line blank, and including each command as a separate line of text.

Discussion or Mailing List Commands

What the body of the e-mail to mailing list says:	What mailing list does when it receives the e-mail:
help	Replies with a list of commands
subscribe or join	Subscribes the sender to the named list
unsubscribe or signoff	Unsubscribes the sender from the named list if the sender sent the mail from exactly the address s/he was subscribed to.
which	Replies with a catalogue of the mailing lists the sender is subscribed to.
lists	Replies with a catalogue of the mailing lists it handles at that site, with a half-line description of each list.

Getting in touch with:

The instructor

Table of Contents:

Discussion List for this class

Read these "DO's and DON'T's" ...