STAY CALM!


Problems facing list owners...

Sooner or later a list owner will encounter difficulty with a mailing list... either technical with mail loops or a flood of bounced mail or problems with a list that has lost it's direction and taken on a life of it's own.

Unsubscribing the problem address

If you start getting a flood of bounced mail try unsubscribing the address that seems to be causing the trouble. Sometimes this is difficult to identify because a subscriber may be forwarding their mail to another address... Depending on how serious the problem is you might be forced to unsubscribe all list members (save the list) and then re-subscribe members a few at a time...

Lists that go 'Off-Topic'...

These are potentially very difficult situations. If a list member appears to be harassing another individual, transmitting inappropriate information or otherwise acting in a manner that is not consistent with the Victoria Telecommunity Network user agreement a list owner should immediately consult the system administrator, a board member or a senior VTN volunteer.

In some instances a list owner may not be able to consult with Victoria Telecommunity Network before taking action. In these instances the list owner should take the minimum intervention necessary to stabilize the situation until it is possible to consult with Victoria Telecommunity Network. This minimum intervention might include temporarily converting the list to moderated, or perhaps temporarily unsubscribing a member from the list (effectively imposing a cooling-off period).

Changing the list configuration

Changing the list to 'moderated' will require making a change to the list configuration and should not be undertaken lightly! The configuration file is meant to be self documenting, but will require care to make changes correctly.

First you should retrieve the current configuration file...

config <listname> <password>
retrieve a self-documenting configuration file for the list <listname>.
After making the necessary changes you should submit the revised configuration file.
newconfig <listname> <password>
Validates and installs a new configuration file. It reads everything after the "newconfig" command to end-of-message or the word "EOF" on a line by itself as the new info for the list. The config file is expected to be a complete config file as returned by "config". Incremental changing of the config file is not yet supported. As soon as the config file is validated and installed its settings are available for use. This is useful to remember if you have multiple commands in your mail message since they will be subject to the settings of the new config file. If there is an error in the config file (incorrect value...), the config file will not be accepted and the error message identifying the problem line(s) will be returned to the sender. Note that only the error messages are returned to the sender not the entire config file, so it would be a good idea to keep a copy of your outgoing email message.
If you make a mistake you can re-set the list configuration be sending mail with the following command.
writeconfig <listname> <password>
Write a new config file in standard form. Writeconfig forces a rewrite of the config file with all comments and default values in place. It is useful to use after an upgrade of majordomo since it will add the new keywords for people to change. It also updates the documentation in the file if that has changed.
This will re-set the list to system defaults which may be different from the configuration that existed previously.
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