Framingham E-mail Lists: Technical Questions FAQ

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Framingham E-mail Lists: Technical Questions FAQ

What other technical things would be good for me to know?

Can I remain anonymous?

You may subscribe to the list anonymously. Upon subscribing to the list, you will be asked for contact information by one of the list moderators, which is used to resolve technical issues (like having e-mails from the list bounce back.) Other than your name, your contact information will not be available to the list in general. If you choose not to provide the contact information, and you accidentally identify FRAMBORS as "spam" or your e-mails bounce, you risk having your subscription shut-off if we cannot contact you via e-mail. As long as you remain a lurker (someone who never posts), you can remain anonymous. Your identity as a member of the list is almost a secret. The list software allows other list members to know who is a member of the list, and only by e-mail unless you provide a name.

If you really don't want subscribers to see your email address, see these instructions

However, you may not post anonymously. When you choose to post to the list, you must provide provide some contact information to the moderator for verification of your identity, and your name will be available to list members in association with your e-mail address. In addition, you must identify yourself by your first and last name in the body of the text of your post. Your full name in the "From" line is not enough because some people have mailers that won't display the full name. (Forgetting to sign your post is only considered a minor violation, if you have sent in your contact information to the moderators.)

The identity verification process should prevent people from posting anonymously. Anonymous postings are considered a major violation of list rules, especially when such posts are made using a false name, and can result in your being supervised and/or permanently removed from the list. All posts made by an anonymous poster may be removed from the archives. It is unfortunate that we have to have this rule, but, unfortunately, it has been an issue on occasion.

What is the privacy policy of the list?

Here is the current privacy policy of the list. It describes your rights to your postings, the way the list software handles your private information such as your e-mail address, and the topic of anonymity.

Definitions:

List owner: the person who runs the list, plus anyone who is designed to run the list while the list owner is on vacation or otherwise unavailable.
Lurker: one who subscribes to the list but has never posted a message. Post:" to send a message to the whole list by e-mailing the message to a syslang.net list
Subscription: your voluntary agreement to receive list messages Subscription information:" your e-mail address and certain preferences such as whether you receive individual messages or digest messages

You have the right to remain a lurker	Until you post a message to the list, your identity as a member of the list is almost a secret. The list software only allows other list members to know who is a member of the list.
You have the right to subscribe anonymously	The only personally identifying information the list software stores about you as part of your subscription is your e-mail address and some preference settings such as whether you prefer individual messages or digest messages. The list software does not store personal information such as your name, unless your name is part of your e-mail address. There is no policy that requires you to provide your real name as part of your list subscription except if that list requires it (e.g., tmm), and as long as you never post a message, you will never be asked for your name. If you post a message anonymously, you should expect that fellow list members will ask you for your name, because there is a general expectation among the list that providing your real name makes your words more credible and adds to the level of civility and community that we expect from each other. You will never be removed from the list by the list owner solely because of your anonymous status, but you may be removed from the list without prior notice if you anonymously post messages which violate list policy or otherwise cause harm to the list in the judgment of the list owner.
Personal information retained by the list software	The list software retains your e-mail address, a number of non-identifying personal preferences such as whether you prefer individual messages or digest messages, and the contents of all messages you post to the list. No other information is retained. All messages you post to the list are archived and available to anyone who subscribes to the list. The archives are protected from access by the Internet at large, but anyone may subscribe to the list (except for tmm) and then access the archives. Information in the archives may not be modified.
Access to your subscription information	Access to your e-mail address and your preferences is password protected, so others are prevented from accessing it. Only you and the list owner are allowed to access this information. This information will never be shared with anyone without your prior permission.
Risks of spam	If you never post a message to the list, there is no way for anyone, whether a member of the list or not, to obtain your e-mail address, so there is no risk of getting spam as a result of your list membership. If you post a message to the list, it is possible, though unlikely, that another member of the list will use your e-mail address to send you spam, or will forward your message to someone else who use your e-mail address to send you spam. If you join the cast of characters, a public web page, you expose your e-mail address to the public, and your e-mail address may be obtained for the purpose of sending you spam.
Ownership of your postings	By posting a message to the list, you retain your copyright but grant (1) a non-exclusive license to all list members to forward that message by e-mail to anyone, and (2) a non-exclusive license to the list owner to maintain an archive. These two rights you grant by posting to the list constitute the only exceptions to the normal protection afforded by the copyright you retain to your words, so any other use of an e-mail you send to this list requires your prior permission. Any use of your posting without your permission, beyond the two licenses granted here, is a matter between you and the person who uses your posting improperly, and you agree to hold the list owner harmless.
After you leave the list	Your subscription information is destroyed when you leave the list. Archived messages previously posted by you are retained indefinitely and continue to be subject to the above "ownership of your postings" policy.
Best efforts of the list owner	The list owner makes best reasonable efforts to enforce the above policies. However, the list software may contain bugs which compromise your privacy, and the password protection of secret information may be compromised by a determined attacker. You agree to hold the list owner harmless in the event that your privacy is compromised.

Your privacy is mostly under your control. Note that you do not have to provide your real name to subscribe to the list, but you are required to sign your postings with your real name. Messages must have your name in the body of the message. Your full name in the From line is not enough because some people have mailers that won't display the full name.

The list owner <majordomo DASH owner AT syslang DOT DATATATA net> would like you to provide your name, address and phone number for the purpose of being able to make contact if there are problems with mail delivery. This information is not given out.

People are allowed to see the list of subscribers by executing a who command. You are allowed to prevent people from seeing your name in the list of subscribers by setting the hide attribute.

No one else on the list can see your e-mail address or discover that you are a member of the list until you post a message to the list.

"Why do my posts have question marks in random places?" or "Is it OK to post html ("rich text") messages to the list?"

The list software filters out all the formatting and delivers only the plain text part of your message. This keeps the digest version from becoming cluttered with HTML, and prevents viruses from being transmitted via the list. When you compose your messages using characters that do not map to plain text, the result is that you will see such characters translated to something that you might not have intended. (Usually, that can be a question mark.)

If you want to know in advance exactly what it will look like before you send it, your best bet is to configure your mailer so that it just sends plain text.

Can I get a virus from these lists?

No. It is absolutely impossible for a virus to be transmitted via a message sent through these lists. This is because the list software delivers only plain text, and filters out attachments and scripts, which is how viruses are delivered.

However, you can get a virus from any individual with whom you correspond by e-mail. So if you correspond with is an individual on a list, you may receive a virus from that person. And there are viruses which pretend to be from people who are in the address book of the infected person. So you may receive a virus which appears to be from someone you know from a list, but is really from someone whose address book contained that person. In the same way, other people can get a virus which appears to be from you but is really from someone with whom you've corresponded.

It is also possible to get a virus from a web site, so if you click on a link contained in an e-mail, and you visit the web site that the link points to, and that web site is malicious, you may get a virus that way.

The bottom line: if you subscribe to a list but never correspond with anyone on the list or post to the list, and you never click on any links in e-mails posted through the list, there is no way you can get a virus either from the list or from anyone on the list.

Everyone should take measures to prevent virus infection: running virus-scanning software is one good way to do this.

Another good way to not have to worry about viruses is to run Linux.

How can I look at message archives? I want to catch up!

Welcome to the club! It felt like that to just about everyone who wasn't one of the "founding members". The easiest way to catch up is to read the messages regularly for a while and then jump in.

If you are interested in reading back issues of the list, go here and enter your email address and password, go to the Unsubscribe or Change Settings and then click on the info button to the right of the name of the list. From there you will see a list of choices. Click on the one that says Message Archive and you'll be able to read them month by month. If you have forgotten your password, please see above instructions on how to get it.

How many subscribers are there?

As of September 1 2009, there were exactly 1238 subscribers on both frambors and on framcom. There were 1005 who were on both.

frambors had one special person, Bob Moore, who was designated with the special status of weekly columnist. This meant that whatever rules all of the rest of us have to follow do not apply. Bob could say anything he wanted about any candidate who's running or any topic that may or may not apply to the list. If you don't want to read it, just hit the Delete key. You may or may not agree with his views but you have to respect his perspective.

Bob is retired from writing, but anyone who would like to take over the job of being the official frambors columnist should let us know.

You can read all of Bob's past columns here.

How do I see the list of subscribers on the list?

Send the who command in the body of your message to majordomo <major do mo AT ATATAT syslang DOT net>.

For example:
who frambors

If you really don't want subscribers to see your email address, you have some account settings to assist beyond the default nohide setting.

You can set your account to be in hideaddress mode where your name will be visible but not your email address. You can also set hideall mode where no one will be able to see you from the who command at all except for the list owner.

How many posts a day are there? Who posts the most? How many people subscribe and unsubscribe?

No idea. These things change depending on what the hot topic is.

How can I add to these questions and make them better?

If you see a question that needs to be answered and it's not in here, or if you see information that is wrong because of different municpal relevance, or any other reason at all, please let me <frambors DASH owner AT THE HAT syslang DOT net> know so we can fix it, or just go ahead and fix it yourself.

What email addresses do I need to know?

Here's how it works. Every list has three addresses.

The first is listname@syslang.net and that is the email address that you send to for the purpose of sending a message to the millions of subscribers. For example, to send a message to all of the subscribers on frambors, just send to <fram bors AT sys lang DOT net>
The second is listname-request@syslang.net and that is where you send a message to the Majordomo2 robot to ask it to do something for you. For example, to put yourself in digest mode on the frambors list, you would send a message to <fram bors DASH re quest AT sys lang DOT net> and in the body of the message give the command to be placed in digest mode.
The third address is listname-owner@syslang.net which is a guaranteed way to reach the owner of the list in question.

FramFAQ/TechnicalStuff