The first thing to understand is that the membership lists (or subscription lists) are handled automatically by a computer. The software used is iMail, and it is to iMail you must send your commands to subscribe or unsubscribe to a list.
Think of iMail as an efficient and quite literal servant. It knows how to do a set number of tasks, and it does them very well. The catch is, you must speak to iMail in a way it can understand, and this is what causes most of the problems when people try to subscribe or unsubscribe to a list.
Let's take a look at an example, then discuss the specifics. Suppose you are interested
in the CS_100_Jerome mailing list and wish to subscribe, or become a member of the
list. iMail is controlled by email, so you must send an email message to iMail requesting
subscription to the CS_100_Jerome list:
iMail will receive your message, and put your email address on the subscriber list.
You will then receive a welcome (CS_100_Jerome used as an example) message with further
information on the specific list you subscribed to.
When you wish to leave the list, the command used is 'unsubscribe.' To unsubscribe
from the CS_100_Jerome list, use the following:
iMail will receive your message and remove your email address from the subscriber
list. You will also be sent a confirmation letter, stating completion of your
command.
Pitfalls:
Remember I said iMail is a literal servant? Well, I meant it! It will only do what you ask, and you must ask in the right way. A key item here is spelling.
You are actually sending commands to a computer, so a misspelled command generates an error. Here are a few commands that will not work:
Here are some other command attempts that will fail:
The only one that will work is:
More Pitfalls:
OK, so now we know how to send the proper command. What else is there? Well, the unseen part of the above command is the email address you are sending from. You are actually telling iMail to subscribe your email address to the list, because your email address is included in the header of your message. The correct email address must appear in the header, or iMail will not know who you are.
Most people these days are sick and tired of spam (junk email). To try to foil the spammers, some people modify their email addresses so the spammers cannot find them. Suppose foo@bar.com wants to join CS_100_Jerome. Foo is tired of all the spam, so he has changed his return address to foo@NOSPAM.bar.com. Great, he can still send out messages, and when the spammers try to send email to him they get an error, because there is no address foo@NOSPAM.bar.com!
Fantastic, Foo has foiled the evil spammers. Unfortunately, he has also foiled iMail. When Foo tries to subscribe to CS_100_Jerome, iMail adds foo@NOSPAM.bar.com to the subscriber list. iMail then sends the welcome message to, you guessed it, foo@NOSPAM.bar.com. Poor Foo never gets the welcome message, or any of the list messages.
The moral to the story is to use your real address when you deal with iMail. Foo should change the return address to foo@bar.com, not foo@NOSPAM.bar.com.
Check these two things if you run into trouble.
Summary:
1. Send all requests to imailsrv@japan.lakeland.edu,
using the commands outlined above.
2. Be sure to send from your real email address, and use the same one to subscribe
and unsubscribe.
The current lists are:
|
|
|
|
cs100-poza |
Intro to Computers Course |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lcwnihon |
LCJ Students in Wisconsin |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
cs100n1 |
cs100 section N1 |
|
CS100_s5_Jerome |
Intro to Computers Course |