FFII Mailing Lists FAQ & HOWTO
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How to Subscribe
There are two and a half ways to subscribe to a List:
Log into our participation system at https://www.ffii.org/ffii-cgi/aktiv
- For mailing lists with no associated project, choose "Subscribe to Mailing Lists". The remaining steps should be self-explanatory ....
- Most mailing lists (almost all ending with -news, -parl, -help, -resp) are associated with a project, so you choose "Project participation" and select which level of participation you want. Normal discussion lists (-parl) are "I want to participate in discussions".
Go to http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/ and choose your list, then follow the instructions to subscribe. Don't be irritated by the fact that it reads !description available for most lists - you will find Information once you click on the list name.
Attention: If you have subscribed via the participation system, you must use it to unsubscribe. Else you will found yourself resubscribed the next day.
How to unsubscribe
Unsubscribing is sometimes the harder part. This is not intended - some things in our Mailman system are simply broken, and nobody has so far had time to fix them. Please have some patience and follow the instructions below.
If you subscribed via the participation System...
... log into the participation system at http://www.ffii.org/ffii-cgi/aktiv?lg=en and cancel your subscription there. Note: Due to a small bug, your subscription status will probably read "not subscribed" for all lists even if you are subscribed. However, you can unsubscribe this way.
Many language lists part of your participation in projects (see "Project participation" in aktiv), so you have to change your participation level to get unsubscribed.
It is not sufficient to unsubscribe via the Mailman interface - you will find yourself back on the list the next day. (see below to find the reason why)
More detailed instructions in German can be found here or here.
If you subscribed via the Mailman interface ...
The unsubscribe function is a bit hard to find for those not familiar with Mailman. To unsubscribe, follow these steps:
- Choose your list. (Read the text at the top of the page carefully if your list is not mentioned on this page!)
- Enter your mail address on the bottom of the page.
- Have your list Password mailed to your Mail account. It will usually arrive within a few minutes.
- Use that password to unsubscribe from the list (upper left of the page).
You might get a server error after you unsubscribed. Usually, this is meaningless, and the unsubscription succeeded anyway. Just watch your inbox for the confimation mail.
Easy, isn't it?
You can also send a mail to *<listname>-**request**@ffii.org* from the mail address you want to unsubscribe, with the subject "*unsubscribe*". This will do the job as well and is maybe even easier.
But Mail from the list starts coming again the next day after I unsubscribed!
Solution: Log into the participation system at http://www.ffii.org/ffii-cgi/aktiv?lg=en and cancel your subscription from there, as described above.
In most cases, this happens when you subscribed via the participation system, but unsubscribed via Mailman only (see above about how to do it right). Mailman is synchronized with the data from the participation system every night. If you unsubscribed via Mailman only, but are still listed as a subscriber in the participation system, you will find yourself back on the list the next day.
If you subscribed via the participation system and then changed your address in the wrong way, you might not be able to unsubscribe at all. In this case, please read the next paragraph:
Help! I can`t unsubscribe at all!
Try this Workaround:
- Choose your list. (Read the text at the top of the page carefully if your list is not mentioned on this page!)
- Enter your mail address on the bottom of the page.
- Have your list Password mailed to your Mail account. It will usually arrive within a few minutes.
- Use the password to temporarily disable mail delivery in the menue on the lower half of the page.
This is not how it is meant to be, but it will stop mail from coming.
List Naming System
FFII Mailing Lists typically appear in groups of three, named like this:
"!XX-news@ffii.org" is the news list: Announcements only, i.e. low traffic, but no way to write.
"!XX-parl@ffii.org" is for discussions, i.e. the "main" list
"!XX-help@ffii.org" is for support
where "XX" (usually a countrycode) indicates the subject of the list.
Example: de-news, de-parl and de-help (Country-related:Germany)
"!XX-admin@ffii.org" should be forwarded to the list administrator.
Who is in charge?
One thing ahead:
Please do not waste our active member's time with administrivia unless you absolutely need to do so! In particular, do not send "Remove me from this list!" mail to the list you want to be removed from.
List administrator
On the Mailman page for your list, you will find the mail address of your list administrator on the bottom left. At http://plone.ffii.org/Members, you can search for a name matching the mail address.
Generally, you can use <Listenname>-!owner@ffii.org to send mail to the List administrator.
Mailman administrators
Look for the mailman project at http://www.ffii.org/proj/#mailman to find out who is in charge of the mailman system and how you can help.
Aktiv administrators
Look for the AKTIV project at http://www.ffii.org/proj/index.en.html#aktiv to find out who is in charge and how you can help.
