On Tue, 15 Oct 1996, Ben Parker wrote:
 
> All that needs to come back to LISTSERV is the 2 words CONFIRM <listname>
> so the > reply-quoting flag should be irrelevant.  If they don't know how
> to compose a new msg with 2 words in it, or how to edit a reply to remove
> extraneous material, they have a more basic problem.
 
Nope; empirically, the three lines in the instructions
 
/job
confirm xxx
/end
 
or whatever *must* begin in column 1 to be recognized. Regarding "if they
don't know", some people who followed instructions are pretty
knowledgeable. The fault is in the instructions not applying to all
mailers, and LISTSERV not accommodating how some mailers handle Forwarding
(adding the ">", which surprised me). Mostly, the fault is the mechanism
being different from and less robust than the initial subscription
confirmation via Reply.
 
> The established mechanism is to send the 2 word command string noted
> above.
 
I know what the established mechanism is,
it doesn't work with all mailers.
 
> If LISTSERV.AOL.COM is running Ver 1.8c (they may not, it is not
> officially released yet, but some sites are still testing it.)  Then you
> can use the new SubjectHdr option which puts your listname on the Subject
> Line of all posts (very helpful for people who subscribe to several
> maillists for mailbox sorting).  If you can't do this yet, you will soon
> be able to.
 
It is running 1.8c but I haven't made the global change yet. Recognizing
the list name was only part of the problem. Some people didn't understand
the instructions, some didn't think they'd be dropped, some couldn't get
Forward to generate input LISTSERV would accept, etc.
 
> >Has anyone tinkered with the renewal messages to make them more
> >meaningful?
>
> The RENEW1 and RENEW2 template messages are in the Mailtpl file which you
> can edit to suit your own needs.  See Section 9 of the List owners
> manual.  Just remember, you can't change the underlying renewal
> mechanism, so your message changes will have to say essentially the same
> thing, but you can simplify it as much as possible, incl instructions to
> remove the > put in by their mail pgm.
 
That doesn't answer the question of whether the changes will stick or
vanish at each LISTSERV upgrade. I've had other replies indicating that
the problem is hardly unique, so the change in mechanism and messages
should be in LISTSERV, not by each list owner. And (IMHO) SubjectHdr
should be default, so people better understand what's generating email
they receive.
 
--
Gabriel Goldberg, Computers and Publishing, Inc.     Voice: (703) 556-9121
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