"It's not working!" -- a troubleshooting guide for list subscribers 1. Help! I'm trying to subscribe but ... 1a. I get an error message telling me that "No name given to SUBSCRIBE" Listproc takes two arguments when you want to subscribe to a list; the name of the list (in this case, MERCEDES-LACKEY) and your name. The name you give need not be your real name -- there's nothing to stop you using some kind of usename -- though it's sometimes easier for me to fix problems if I have a real name. It's not vital. Fix: give your name, or something like it, when you're subscribing. 1b. Listproc tells me that I am already subscribed, though I'm not getting mail. Did you set your options to POSTPONE at some time in the past? If not, it is possible that your subscription has been set that way due to an excessive number of errors as we try to send mail to you (perhaps your mailbox became full, perhaps you went over your quota, perhaps the machine to which your mail was sent was offline for a while). Fix 1: send mail to listproc@herald.co.uk, leaving the Subject line blank or using "No Subject", and in the message body write set mercedes-lackey mail ack or set mercedes-lackey mail digest depending whether you'd rather receive individual messages or digests. Fix 2: if fix 1 doesn't work, write to lackey-owner@herald.co.uk and give details of the problem. 1c. Listproc tells me that I am already subscribed, and I am getting mail. Then you don't need to resubscribe, do you? :) 1d. Listproc is ignoring me -- I never get a response. Fix 1 -- check your return address. (This applies particularly to people who have typed in their own return address at some point, such as most Netscape users.) Make sure that the address points to you, and that you haven't transposed letters, used commas instead of full stops, etc. etc. Fix 2 -- if you're on AOL, you _must_ put something in your subject line, or you can't send the mail -- don't use "Subscribe", "Unsubscribe", "test" or variations thereon. If "No Subject" seems too boring, use "Chocolate Cake" if you must :) (This may apply to other email packages as well. If it tries to use the first line of your message as a subject line, you should use "No Subject".) 1e. Listproc doesn't seem to understand my mail, and sends back an error message. This is usually caused by mail programs which insist on putting in either some headings showing the sender of the mail, or which encode even plain text as a MIME message. Listproc needs to find its requests in the first line of a message, and will give up if it can't. Fix: turn off the headings or the MIME encoding (speak to your local tech staff if you can't do this). 2. Help! I'm trying to unsubscribe but ... 2a. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but nothing else. I'm still getting mail. Has your mailing address changed since you subscribed? If it has, and you can still send mail from the old address, try unsubscribing from there, instead. If you can no longer send mail from the old address, send mail to lackey-owner@herald.co.uk saying what the old address was and you will be removed manually. If you don't think your address has changed, send mail to lackey-owner@herald.co.uk to unsubscribe -- the chances are good that something has been changed along the line which is causing your system to show a different address. (This happens more often than you would believe.) 2b. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but nothing else. I'm not getting mail. Either (a) you already unsubscribed successfully, or (b) you were never on the list in the first place. No action needed. 2c. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but something that looks like my address is. Your setup has changed, or you're sending from a different machine. If you can send mail from the machine named in the address Listproc sends back, do so; if you can't, or if that doesn't work, send mail to lackey-owner@herald.co.uk to be removed. 2d. Listproc is ignoring me -- I never get a response. See 1d above; same problem. 2e. Listproc doesn't seem to understand my mail, and sends back an error message. See 1e above; same problem. 3. Help! I'm trying to post to the list but ... 3a. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but nothing else. I don't get mail from the list. You need to be a member of the list to post to the list. Either (a) subscribe to the list, (b) stop trying to post to the list, or (c) (rare cases only) send the article you were trying to post to mel@herald.co.uk and have her post it for you. Note that (c) applies only to _very_ Lackey-relevant articles and people who have reasons for not being on the list. 3b. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but nothing else. I do get mail from the list. Same problem as 2a above. If your mailing address has changed since you subscribed, try sending the article from the old address, if you can. If you can't do that, it is probably worth unsubscribing from the old address, and resubscribing from the new address (this may involve mail to lackey-owner@herald.co.uk as in 2a). Then send your article again. 3c. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but something which looks like my address is. Same problem, and similar fix, to 2c above. If you're in a place with a lot of different machines and the address from which your mail appears to come reflects this (often the case in universities) it may be worth sending mail to lackey-owner@herald.co.uk to have your various machines added to the 'aliases' list. 3d. Listproc is ignoring me -- I never get a response. See 1d above; same problem. 3e. Listproc returns a message which starts, "We are sorry, but ..." This is usually the case if Listproc spots a word like "test" or "subscribe" in the first couple of lines of your message. (Don't complain about it _too_ loudly; it stops a lot of misplaced requests getting through to the list.) Fix: rewrite your message to move or delete the word concerned. 3f. I get some junk about "unknown mailer" What this actually means is "the machine was too busy to process your mail right now, try later". It's just not an especially friendly way of saying so. Luckily this doesn't happen especially often these days. 3g. Listproc doesn't seem to understand my mail, and sends back an error message. See 1e above; same problem. 4. Help! I hate computers. Why can't this be simple? Computers are very literal-minded creatures, and as such they can only do what they're told. This means, for example, that if you're told to write subscribe mercedes-lackey Jane Smith in the body of a mail message, the following things will not work; a) writing "subscribe mercedes-lackey Jane Smith" in the subject line of your mail message; (wrong place) b) writing "Please subscribe me to the Mercedes Lackey mailing list. Thanks, Jane Smith" in the body of your mail message (wrong format) c) writing "suscribe mercedes-lackey Jane Smith" in the body of your mail message (wrong spelling; if you can't spell 'subscribe', it may be abbreviated to 'sub') d) writing "subscribe mercedes_lackey Jane Smith" in the body of your mail message (wrong spelling, again; it's a hyphen, not an underscore) Computers are not people. Computers will not (necessarily) recognise what you meant if it's "close enough". Your faithful listmistress does not read through every piece of mail sent to Listproc to see if people have been making errors (life is too short). All you really need to do is _follow the instructions_ -- and if you don't understand them, you may ask for help after reading through the list above and seeing whether any of it applies to you. Any additional questions for the list should be sent to Mel at mel@herald.co.uk or lackey-owner@herald.co.uk.