> A lot of people think that listname-request ought to reach a person,
> or at least a message that tells you how to reach a person if you
RFC 1206 says it fairly clearly -- though in the form of "most" and
"usually" rather than "must" or "shall"...
When I ported the comp.os.linux.* digest lists over to majordomo (an
old version, before it had any -request support) I just added a short
(two or three line) hack so that it would *try* to parse -request mail
correctly, since my experience had been that people overwhelmingly
assume an automated responder anyway... and they valued prompt
response over politeness. If it can't parse the message, they get the
normal help bounced back, and figure it out pretty quickly.
_Mark_ <eichin@athena.mit.edu>
MIT Student Information Processing Board
Cygnus Support <eichin@cygnus.com>
User Services Working Group [Page 15]
RFC 1206 FYI Q/A - for New Internet Users February 1991
9. Mailing Lists
What is a mailing list?
A mailing list is really nothing more than an alias that has
multiple destinations. Mailing lists are usually created to
discuss specific topics. Anybody interested in that topic, may
(usually) join that list. Some mailing lists have membership
restrictions, others have message content restrictions, and still
others are moderated. Most large, "public" mailing lists, such as
IETF and TCP-IP, have an additional mail address to which requests
to be added or deleted may be sent. Usually, these are of the
form listname-request.
References:
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