Health Canada
Family Resource Centre Internet Guide

Some Mail List Exercises

Below are links to the majordomo listserver at the Chebucto Community Net. You can practice sending commands to it and see how it responds. Several exercises you should try include:

  1. Send the command lists to majordomo get a listing of the different lists that this majordomo server administers. You will find that it is very long!

  2. Select one that sounds interesting and send majordomo the command info listname to find out some information on what this list does.

  3. A special list has been created for the participants of this project! It is called chp! You should subscribe to it. Send majordomo a command to do this. Make sure you use the full syntax of: subscribe chp youraddress@your.domain.com.

  4. After you have been added to the list send majordomo a who command to find out who else is on the list.

  5. If you have any comments or ideas that you would like to share with other members of family resource centers send a message to the list address chp@chebucto.ns.ca.

  6. Want to find out more? Send majordomo the command help to get a listing of further commands and instructions.

Remember always to be considerate in sending messages to mail lists. Many other people will read what you have to say.

Important Notice!

Above all, if you are a member of a mailing list never use an automated Email utility that autoresponds to incoming messages saying something like:

"I'm sorry I will be away on vacations for the next three weeks. I'll respond to your message when I return."

Such messages will get sent back to the list address where they will be redistributed to every other list member. This will happen for every message that you receive from the list address and will inevitably unleash a firestorm of protest from all the other members who are being needlessly spammed over and over by your robot utility.

If you plan to use such a utility (and some Internet Service Providers provide such features) make absolutely sure that you have unsubscribed from every list you are on. Otherwise you will have made many enemies by the time you return!

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