The recent Call for Help on signing off seems to receive some confusing
replies: signing off from LiSTOWN-L@INDYCMS is not likely to work.  Also,
at least some LISTSERV / LISTEARN s/w is case-sensitive, sometimes only
to the left of the @ symbol in the requester's From: address.  Thus, if
someone signed onto a list as "USER_ID@node_ID" and attempts to sign off
as "user_id@NODE_ID", the case sensitivity in some matching s/w will not
match "user_id" with "USER_ID", even though "node_ID" is matched with
"NODE_ID" (the reason for the latter being that lower-case node_id information
is automatically converted to upper case).  [It would be interesting to know
whether there are any lists with subscriber entries whose email addresses
merely differ in the case to the left of the @ symbol while corresponding to
different email accounts.]
 
The problem may especially occur if either signing on or signing off is
done manually by a list owner.  Furthermore, different mailer s/w may be
used by a subscriber in the two operations.  For example, my node is
HNYKUN53.BITNET and psych.kun.nl on the Internet, but the local address
table identifies me as [log in to unmask] in the From: field if I use
the PMDF mailer rather than the JNET mailer on this VAX/VMS machine.
So, signing on via one, and signing off via another is not likely to work
*unless* the LISTEARN/LISTSERV s/w compares alternative addresses between
BITNET and Internet.
 
In addition, local mailer s/w may convert the destination address of incoming
email, so that the user may not realise that (s)he is addressed differently in
the outside world.  For example, anything arriving here for UGDIST@HNYKUN53 on
BITNET (or for [log in to unmask], etc.) is converted to display
IN%"[log in to unmask]" in the "To:" field: local policy seems to be to phase
out flat BITNET addresses in favour of Internet-style domain addresses.
 
In short, if you cannot unsubscribe, you can (as suggested in a previous
posting) retrieve the list and ask the list owner; however, depending on the
setting of the list's review option, the user may also scan the LIST file to
find out how (s)he is subscribed to the list, and then try to signoff via
the proper mailer on his/her site.  Of course, if an intermediate gateway
in a compound user_id%gateway.domain@node_id subscription address has changed
since signing on, the only solution is to ask the list owner.
 
Confusion galore...
 
Herman J. Woltring, Eindhoven/NL
(moderator, [log in to unmask] / [log in to unmask])