From FAQ-Maintainers@consensus.com Tue Jan 21 00:19:58 1997 Received: from MIT.EDU (PACIFIC-CARRIER-ANNEX.MIT.EDU [18.69.0.28]) by bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU (8.7.6/2.3JIK) with SMTP id AAA10590; Tue, 21 Jan 1997 00:19:55 -0500 Received: from mail2.zocalo.net by MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA20700; Tue, 21 Jan 97 00:15:24 EST Received: from lists.consensus.com (lists.consensus.com [157.22.240.8]) by mail.zocalo.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id VAA16230 for ; Mon, 20 Jan 1997 21:23:39 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 21:23:39 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: From: "FAQ Maintainers" Subject: Re: POLICY: faq-maintainers/faq-maintainers-announce FAQ To: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU No action was taken on your mail by this listserver. Your address is not listed as a subscriber, and no commands were found in your message. MAILING LIST HELP FILE Please read the list guidelines (see below) before engaging in discussion. In addition, familiarize yourself with how the list operates, especially if you've never participated in an Internet email discussion group before. It's a good idea to save this message somewhere so you know how to unsubscribe. When dealing with a listserver, there are two types of messages, namely, COMMANDS and POSTS. Unlike traditional listservers which require the use of numerous email addresses, we have simplified the process by allowing for both both COMMANDS and POSTS to be sent to the same address. COMMANDS These e-mail messages are intended to cause some action to occur, such as subscribing the FROM address to a mailing list. Commands are usually one or two word phrases which should be entered in the SUBJECT field of the message. Any other fields are ignored... it doesn't matter what you put in them. The following commands are accepted: subscribe adds your e-mail address to the list of subscribers you will then receive all posts you are then allowed to post from that address unsubscribe removes your e-mail address from the list of subscribers you will no longer receive any posts you are no longer allowed to post subscribe digest switches you to digest mode you will then receive one message per day which lists all posts to switch back, send a "subscribe" command digests returns a list of digests for the past 30 days along with instructions for retreiving them via e-mail help this message will be returned POSTS Email messages which don't match any commands are distributed to everyone on the list. Every time you post a message, hundreds of other people on the list receive a copy, just as if you sent it to them personally. As a member of the list, you will receive a copy of every message anyone else sends. On this list, only members of the list can post to it. To correspond directly with a person, write to listmaster@consensus.com -------------------- Original Message Follows -------------------- Subject: Policies for faq-maintainers/faq-maintainers-announce X-Version: $Id: mailing-lists-policy,v 1.30 1996/12/02 22:53:55 joanna Exp $ Welcome to the faq-maintainers or faq-maintainers-announce mailing list. This document explains the purpose of the lists and some administrative details. In addition to being sent to all new subscribers, it is sent to the lists themselves approximately every ninety days to refresh people's memories. [A recent copy of this document can be obtained via anonymous FTP as rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/faq-maintainers/mailing-lists-policy If you do not have access to anonymous FTP, you can retrieve it by sending email to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the command "send faq-maintainers/mailing-lists-policy" in the message.] ******** How to unsubscribe To unsubscribe from the faq-maintainers mailing list, send email to faq-maintainers-request@consensus.com with the subject "unsubscribe" (without the quotes). Do NOT send email to the list itself asking to be unsubscribed. If you have problems with the list server software, email faq-maintainers-request@mit.edu for help. To unsubscribe from the faq-maintainers-announce mailing list, send email to faq-maintainers-announce-request@mit.edu; it will be read by humans. ******** What are these mailing lists? The faq-maintainers and faq-maintainers-announce lists are primarily intended for discussion among (faq-maintainers), or announcements for (faq-maintainers-announce), people on the net who maintain FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) or other kinds of periodic informational postings. However, subscribers are not required to maintain FAQs; i.e., anyone interested in issues related to maintaining FAQs is welcome to subscribe. Issues discussed on the faq-maintainers list in the past have included: formatting FAQs; how to handle comments about specific commercial products in FAQs; and using software to assist in the posting and maintenance of FAQ postings. Although a wide variety of topics are discussed, using the list for discussions which do not specifically pertain to FAQ maintenance is discouraged. The maintainers of the list may occasionally request that a discussion be moved elsewhere, when they feel that it has strayed too far from the theme of the list. The faq-maintainers-announce list is for announcements only. For example, announcements which would be appropriate include the creation of a new mirror site from which archived *.answers FAQs can be obtained, or the release of a software tool which is particularly useful for FAQ maintainers. The faq-maintainers-announce mailing list has been moderated since April 1994, to prevent unnecessary traffic which doesn't qualify as announcements. Anything sent to the faq-maintainers-announce list also goes to faq-maintainers. ******** How busy and how large are these lists? The faq-maintainers list has several hundred subscribers. Traffic tends to come in bursts -- it averages 3-4 messages per day, but during a burst there may be as many as several dozen messages within a few hours, and in between such bursts, there may be a week of no messages at all. The faq-maintainers-announce list also has several hundred of its own subscribers; in addition, anything approved for it will by default be sent to the faq-maintainers list as well. Traffic on it is very, very low (e.g., it is not unheard of for six months to pass with no messages sent to the list except for a periodic copy of this document). **** Archives All messages sent to the list after December 31, 1993 are publicly available, since recent changes in our handling of the lists have made it possible for us to offer a public archive. You can access the archives in rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/faq-maintainers via anonymous FTP. See the README file for details on archive format. ******** Where to find help with maintaining a posting This section doesn't really "belong" here, but since the question keeps coming up, perhaps this will help. If you want to ask questions specifically of the moderators of *.answers, please send the question to news-answers-request@mit.edu and not to these mailing lists. Two World Wide Web sites which maintain lists of FAQ maintenance tools and information resources are David A. Lamb's page of FAQ Maintenance Aids, at http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/FAQaid/ and Infinite Ink's Finding and Writing FAQs and Periodic Postings, at (primary) http://www.jazzie.com/ii/internet/faqs.html (mirror) http://www.best.com/~ii/internet/faqs.html More information about submitting postings to *.answers, and about auto-faq, post_faq, and the mail-to-news server run by the *.answers moderators, can be found in the "*.answers submission guidelines" at rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/news-answers/guidelines ******** Administrative addresses Please DO NOT send administrative messages to either of the mailing lists themselves. For faq-maintainers: faq-maintainers-REQUEST@consensus.com Mailing list software understands "subscribe", "unsubscribe", "help", amongst other commands. For faq-maintainers-announce: faq-maintainers-announce-REQUEST@mit.edu E-mail to this address processed by human beings; any reasonable "command" will be understood. List owners: news-answers-request@mit.edu For help with mailing list software: faq-maintainers-operators@consensus.com Please do not send email to this address unless you are having problems with the mailing list software. If you recommend the lists to people, make sure to give them one of the administrative addresses, so that they do not send an administrative request to one of the lists themselves. Administrative requests sent to the lists rather than to the administrative request addresses will probably be ignored. Since subscription and unsubscription requests to faq-maintainers-announce are currently handled by people (rather than being handled by an automated mailing list processor), you should not expect an immediate response to requests. Furthermore, there is an an unavoidable delay of approximately one day (and sometimes more) between when we process a request and when the changes propagate to the mailing list servers. **** Addressing email to the mailing lists Address email for faq-maintainers to faq-maintainers@consensus.com. Only subscribers to faq-maintainers will have their messages distributed by the mailing list software. Address email for faq-maintainers-announce to faq-maintainers-announce@mit.edu. When you send email to faq-maintainers-announce@mit.edu, we will either approve it and distribute it for you, or reply to you explaining why we feel it is inappropriate for that mailing list. You do not need to be a subscriber to either mailing list. Note that since the faq-maintainers-announce list implicitly includes the faq-maintainers list, you should never address an email message to both mailing lists; if you do, subscribers to faq-maintainers may receive duplicates. **** Policy concerning removal from the lists The administrators reserve the right to remove individuals from the lists under extraordinary circumstances. It is difficult to anticipate every reason why someone might be removed from the lists; in general, behavior which is substantially disruptive to the list and which is known by the perpetrator to be inappropriate may lead to removal. An individual who is removed from the lists will be notified of the removal by the administrators. If he or she wishes to appeal the removal, a poll will be taken of the current membership of the faq-maintainers list. If 10% or more of the current membership supports reinstatement, the individual will be returned to the lists. -- The faq-maintainers and faq-maintainers-announce list administrators: pshuang@mit.edu (Ping Huang) jik@cam.ov.com (Jonathan I. Kamens) [Emeritus] ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Koenig) nancym@mit.edu (Nancy McGough) buglady@bronze.lcs.mit.edu (Aliza R. Panitz) pgreene@optics.rochester.edu (Pamela Greene) schulman+@pitt.edu (Christina Schulman) tittle@mit.edu (Cindy Tittle Moore) emhavens@mit.edu (Emily Havens) foley@mit.edu (Joe Foley) justom@mit.edu (Tom Giordano) joanna@mit.edu (Joanna Yun)