Theos-Talk Archives (October 1995 Message tl00538)

hi -

the following are some of the most common errors which can reject
listserv messages (in general):

1) bad subject. it is best to use a BLANK subject field for
your message. If your message has RE:, ERROR, etc the listserver
will ignore it as a message the *listserver* sent which has been reflected
back to itself.

2) Your are trying to UNSUBSCRIBE or SIGNOFF from the wrong computer node.
You must signoff from the same place you signed onto. i.e. smith@comp2.ibm.com
is different from smith@comp3.ibm.com (as it should be!). Usually an error
message from the listserv points out any "similar" addresses of subscribers
to help you catch this.

3) don't add your name in the signoff (or unsubscribe) command. i.e. just say
SIGNOFF THEOS-L

4) Remember that the listserver is a program (interpreter) which can
only recognize predefined commands. If it finds a problem with your
request, it will send you an error message with clues as what it is
having problems deciphering. Hence, for case 1 (above) it usually
tells you that your subject is "suspicious". If "subject:" looks like
requests/commands/errors/RE: then something is weird.
i.e. READ your returned e-mail from the server.

hope this helps -

peace -

john mead

p.s. if you are getting too much e-mail, then you should go to
digest mode. The mail comes in one or two packages a day that
way. kinda like a newspaper. to set this up send to listserv@vnet.net
a message (blank subject) with the line

set theos-l mail digest

you can do this for any of the theos-xxx lists independently.
to return to single-letter mode, send

set theos-l mail ack

(acknowledge letters individually)

John E. Mead jem@vnet.net
[Physics is impossible without imaginary numbers]