So you've been told about a mailing list you should join and given its address, but you're not sure what to do next? This page is here to be a word of caution: don't send subscription requests to the list address unless it has been accompanied by an explicit instruction to that effect.
SubscribingSend a message to the subscriptions address with this in the body of the message (not in the subject line):
subscribe
Do not send this to the publicised address for the list, that address is only for submissions, not subscriptions. |
UnsubscribingSend a message to the subscriptions address with this in the body of the message (not in the subject line):
unsubscribe
Do not send this to the publicised address for the list, that address is only for submissions, not subscriptions. Furthermore, make sure you send it from the address which is subscribe to the list. |
Most mailing lists have several email addresses associated with them, but the one that is commonly publicized is the submissions address. All messages sent to the submissions address are taken to be "for publication"; unless the list is moderated such messages will be broadcast to all the list subscribers. This probably isn't what you want to happen to your subscription request.
So if they only give me the submissions address, how am I
supposed get on (or off) the list?
Use the subscriptions
address.
And how do I find out what that is?
Ahh...
Almost all mailing list addresses are based on a common pattern: if the primary submissions address is list@some.domain then the subscription requests address is list-request@some.domain. If you hit one of the very few lists which don't support this, the worst that will happen is that you get a bounce message saying that the address doesn't exist, which is a lot less embarrassing than having a request broadcast to all the other subscribers. In that case you could ask postmaster@some.domain to help.