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RE: ** IMPORTANT -- SWPROGRAMS LIST CHANGES **
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S. Finlayson
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Mar 22, 2004 07:49 PST
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Richard:
Will it be possible to read the list just on the web, or is it now
strictly email based?
Sandy
Richard Cuff wrote:
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IMPORTANT -- PLEASE READ AND SAVE THIS E-MAIL REGARDING THE SWPROGRAMS
DISCUSSION LIST --
The swprograms list is changing hosts, effective sometime this coming
week. We will be hosted by Risto Kotalampi, who hosts the Hard-core-dx
website, the hard-core-dx e-mail list, and other hobby related e-lists.
Many of us know Risto from the Winter SWL Fest, as well.
You will receive an invitation at your e-mail address of record to join
this new list; you'll need to confirm your membership to participate.
This invitation will have the subject line 'confirm' plus a long random
string of characters. If you have belonged to lists running the Mailman
list management software, you'll feel right at home here. The user
interface is different than Topica's, but it is pretty easy to use.
Here, in Q&A format, is some additional information you might find
useful.
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Q. Why are we doing this?
A. Two important reasons:
1. Topica continues to move towards a fee-based business model,
focusing on e-newsletter management for business. The discussion list
activity is increasingly less interesting to them. They have announced
plans to add text-based advertisements to discussion list e-mails; while
they claim these ads will be identifiably separate from posted text, the
ads would have to be intrusive enough to be, well, noticed.
2. Since Topica's primary business is e-mail management, their domain
is frequently blocked by ISPs or individual users who rely on blacklists
as part of their e-mail management. This has been a problem for me and
for others who want to be on the list.
Additionally, Topica has generally been reliable, but there are periods
of preannounced downtime lasting for hours, which runs counter to the
philosophy of rapid information exchange. I am hopeful this will not be
a problem at our new home; my own test posts to the new list have been
visible almost immediately.
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Q. Will this cost me anything?
A. No. Risto advises me that he has plenty of capacity on the server
which hosts these lists and websites. This might change later, and
we'll explore that issue only when necessary.
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Q. What list functionality will I lose? What functionality will I
gain?
A. The biggest issue is list archives -- for now, we'll keep the Topica
list open as an "announce-only" list so that archives up until the
cutover time are available for viewing. I will change the information
text at the Topica site to refer newcomers to the new list location.
A list archive will be available at the new site; we are planning to
restrict archive viewing to list members, in order to minimize the risk
of e-mail address pilfering by wanna-be spammers.
If you are used to using only the web interface, you will be slighly
inconvenienced -- because there is no web form, per se, to post to the
list.
If you do not wish to receive e-mails in your in-box, you can subscribe
to the list and set your delivery option to "no delivery". This can be
done either via the web interface
(http://dallas.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/swprograms) or via
e-mail (issue the command 'set delivery off' in the body of a message to
swprogram-@hard-core-dx.com, once you are subscribed to the
list).
You can also specify to receive the list in digest mode as well.
There are other options, settings, and choices you can make, but for
most folks, the default settings should be fine.
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Q. What do I have to do in order to join the list?
A. You will receive an e-mail invitation from the list software with a
subject line of 'confirm' plus a long random character string. If you
wish to join the list, simply reply to that e-mail or visit the web URL
contained in the invitation message.
Once you've joined the new list, I recommend you leave your Topica
subscription active for now; this might mean you get some posts at both
locations (from people who ignore this message), but thse will stop once
the old list is converted to announce-only.
If you don't want to join the new list, do nothing.
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Q. When will I no longer be able to post to the Topica list?
A. I plan to switch that list off for user posting sometime next week,
perhaps as early as Monday or Tuesday. A message sent after that will
bounce back to you, from Topica Customer Support.
Up until the time of cutoff, each message sent to the Topica based list
will have a special header inserted reminding you to subscribe to the
new list.
I will also modify the information shown at the Topica website:
http://lists.topica.com/lists/swprograms to show the new URL for the
swprograms list.
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Q. Where can I find reference information to manage my subscription?
The list will be using the Mailman list software; an online users'
manual is available here:
http://www.list.org/mailman-member/mailman-member.html
You can mange your list membership and options using exclusively e-mail
commands; to receive the list of commands and syntax via e-mail, send an
e-mail to swprogram-@hard-core-dx.com, with the word 'help' (no
quotes) in either the subject or body of the message.
You can also manage your subscription via a web interface at the
following URL:
http://dallas.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/swprograms.
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Q. I've tried to figure things out with the new list system and I'm
stuck. Is there someone I can contact for help?
A. You can contact me at this address:
swprogra-@hard-core-dx.com. I might not be able to address your
question right away, but I'll do my best to point you in the right
direction.
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Sorry for the inconvenience with this. Topica has been a good home for
the first 5 years (egad!) of the swprograms list, but we're hopeful the
new list will bring added enjoyment to your shortwave radio and
international broadcast listening.
Richard Cuff / List owner, swprograms
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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