[CHERRY-L] Two helpful topics from Rootsweb Review
by Gaila & James Merrington
Hello
I am passing these two articles from Rootsweb Review on because they may be very useful to you.
I would also like to point out that I won't be able to validate email addresses for Spam catchers. Too many spammers are now sending them and then bombarding me with spam, when I have done this for whom I believed was a list member. The articles below are instructive and helpful.
Good hunting,
Gaila
RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Weekly E-zine
Vol. 6, No. 28, 09 July 2003, Circulation: 981,768+
(c) 1998-2003 RootsWeb.com, Inc. http://www.rootsweb.com/
Editor: Myra Vanderpool Gormley, Certified Genealogist
1. NEWS AND NOTES. MAILING LISTS.
1a. HELP! Let Me Off!
Let's say that once upon a time you subscribed to the OHROOTS-D mailing
list in Digest mode at RootsWeb because your 3g-grandfather, Clyde
VonVagabond settled in Ohio for a short time on his way to Indiana,
Illinois and the Oregon Territory. You suspected that he married while
in Ohio and you struck gold in that someone on the list had the
information you were looking for proving that your 3g-grandmother,
previously known to you only as Martha, had a maiden name of Singletary.
So now you want to unsubscribe from this list and move on. Uh oh. You
search high and low for those instructions that were sent in the
"Welcome" letter when you subscribed to the list Did you copy them to
disk on that hard drive that long since failed or did you print them out
on paper that later was used in house training Fluffy, your new Bichon
Frise pup? In either case, you haven't a clue where the information is.
You send an UNSUBSCRIBE request, but get a reply stating that your
address cannot be removed from the list because it wasn't found on
the list. Huh, how can that be? You KNOW you are receiving mail from the
mailing list. What to do next?
RootsWeb's Mailing List software is not capable of removing an address
that it doesn't find subscribed to the list, so there is a problem
somewhere. Check the rotating taglines (those blurbs of information
found at the bottom of the list's messages) to see if the mailing list
has them for removal instructions. The taglines might clue you in as to
what you're doing wrong. Not all lists have such taglines, but many do.
If you don't find the information you need there, pay a visit to
Password Central at http://passwordcentral.rootsweb.com/
and which despite the name, isn't just for passwords.
Password Central also has all of your Mailing List subscription
information and instructions on how to unsubscribe from each.
Make sure you are trying to unsubscribe from the correct mailing list.
Some of the names are quite similar. If you are subscribed to
OHROOTS-D(a)rootsweb.com, sending an unsubscribe request to
OHIO-L-request(a)rootsweb.com or OHIO-D-request(a)rootsweb.com won't get you
removed from the OHROOTS-D list. These are different lists even though
the names are similar, and each list has its own unsubscribe procedure
and address. By the same token, since you are subscribed to the OHROOTS
list in Digest mode (that's what the "D" stands for), sending your
unsubscribe request to OHROOTS-L-request(a)rootsweb.com (note the "L")
won't get you unsubscribed either.
You must unsubscribe from the exact same name list and the exact same
mode -- in this case you need to send your unsubscribe request to:
OHROOTS-D-request(a)rootsweb.com -- for your request to be successfully
processed. Remember when you are subscribing to or unsubscribing from a
mailing list that you are making a "request" and the mailing list
address you send this to always has the word "request" in it. However,
when you are posting messages to a mailing list you use the mailing
list's address (that is the one without the "request" in it).
And, here's what trips up many of us. You must SEND your request to
unsubscribe FROM the exact same e-mail address under which you are
subscribed. You can't unsubscribe from your office or laptop e-mail
accounts (if you have different e-mail addresses there).
If you have changed addresses and you arranged with your old ISP to have
genealogy mailing list mail forwarded to your new address, and you can
no longer send mail from your original address, drop a note to the list
administrator at: LISTNAME-admin(a)rootsweb.com (no -L or -D). Replace the
generic word LISTNAME with the actual list name. In this example it
would be OHROOTS-admin(a)rootsweb.com. Let the administrator know you want
to unsubscribe and that you are most likely subscribed under an old,
inaccessible address (and don't forget to give him or her that full
e-mail address).
In cases where you need to write to the list administrator for
assistance in unsubscribing, it is extremely helpful if you include a
copy of the most recent message you have received from the mailing list
in question with full, expanded headers. Don't know how? See:
http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/listadmins/headersfull.html
for information about obtaining the full headers for the most popular
e-mail programs.
You need not feel trapped like poor Charley on the MTA in the old
Kingston Trio song, when you join a RootsWeb Mailing List. If you
managed to get yourself subscribed, use these tips to get off -- if you
can remember where you've saved them, of course.
* * *
1b. SPAM FILTERS: CURES OR KILLERS?
Sick of spam? Aren't we all? Many of us use various spam filters and/or
our ISP does in a futile attempt to stem the flow of this garbage, but
some of the latter are imposing Draconian methods that are causing more
problems -- at least for genealogists -- than they are solving.
Increasingly, e-mails sent from your favorite genealogy mailing lists
and colleagues are getting bounced or trashed before they even reach
you. In our overzealousness to rid ourselves of one problem (spam) we
are creating additional ones (locking out the information that might be
the key to solving a 100-year-old family history mystery). Additionally,
if you are falling for some of the advertising hype to get the latest
and greatest (so touted) anti-spam filters, especially those requiring
everyone be put on your "white (approval) list before you can receive
mail, you are creating a huge barrier for your genealogy mailing lists
and colleagues.
While we all hate spam, it is unacceptable for anyone who subscribes to
a RootsWeb mailing list to be forced to validate an e-mail address for
some other list subscriber. If you or your IPS has a spam-filtering
program that insists upon only "approved" addresses being able to send
you mail, then you should put the address of "rootsweb.com" in an accept
list. If you have installed some anti-spam filters yourself then learn
the software configuration and fix it so that mail from your mailing
lists does not bounce back to the RootsWeb's listadmins.
Don't rely on the default settings of your ISP or anti-spam filters.
Your genealogical answers may be trapped in a "trash" folder on your
computer now or even worse may never reach you.