Please read - FAQ/introductory greeting for u2-list


[email protected]
Tue, 1 Sep 1998 00:04:24 -0400 (EDT)


I am making it a policy to send this to the list at the first of
every month because it contains information about topics frequently
asked by members of the list. It is not in FAQ format, and it not
completely comprehensive, but it is fundamental knowledge that
everyone on the list needs to know as a subscriber. This is the
introductory greeting that I send to all people when they first
subscribe. I run several mailing lists so it is impossible for me
to answer all of the questions posed to me every day by the
*thousands* of people on all of the lists. If you ask a question
that is covered in this file, I can't even guarantee that I'll be
able to take the time to tell you to look here. This intro/greeting
supercedes all previous intro/greetings. By sending this to you,
I am assuming that you have read and understood this information.
Things may change from month to month so, in short,

                PLEASE READ AND SAVE THIS INFORMATION

Thanks.

Last updated: Aug 8 11:01

Hello and welcome to the mailing list. I am Joel Abbott, and I
maintain u2-list (or Wire as the subscribers have nicknamed it).
As of Sep 1, 1998, u2-list had 4046 registered subscribers. There
are most likely more recipients of the list since many people are
not subscribed and read the list via one or more web sites. There
is more information on this later. Note that the subscriber lists
for this mailing list is never released to anyone to ensure the
privacy of you, the subscriber. Note that the subscriber lists
for this mailing list is never released to anyone to ensure the
privacy of you, the subscriber. This mailing list is not a commercial
forum.

Please read this entire document!

There has been a rather large increase in mail forgings lately.
If you did not subscribe to this mailing list, send to the
administrative address listed below saying you wish to unsubscribe.
Then contact your mail support people at your site so they know
that this has occurred. They might be able to track it down.
Please be assured that I only intend send this mailing list to
people who request it. However, I have no control over other
people's mail misconfigurations or people forging mail.

This list is not affiliated in any way with anyone in U2, at Island
Records, etc. It is simply a mailing list maintained by a fan for
other fans.

The founder of this mailing list was Rob Bakie
<[email protected]>. From there, the list moved to
its second maintainer, Thomas Jordan <[email protected]>. On
January 20, 1994, wire moved to me, its third maintainer. The list
lives on!

Please read this entire introduction and then save it so that you
may refer to it in the future if you need.

I send this generic introduction out to everyone who requests to
be on the list as sort of a greeting. Feel free to start a topic
of your choice as long your posting contains something pertaining
to U2. There are no moderators on this list, so everything you
send to:

        [email protected]

goes directly to everyone who is subscribed to the list. Before
you post to the mailing list, keep in mind that many people will
be reading what you write. The administrative address for u2-list
is:

        [email protected]

As you may have noticed, it is very similar to the normal postings
address, except that it has a -request appended to it. This is
the way many mailing lists work. Please use the administrative
address for administrative messages (removal from list, change of
address, etc.,). (To change your address, send an unsubscribe
request from your old address and then a subscribe request from
your new address). Do not send list-related mail to my personal
email address as I will most likely not want to or be able to answer
it. And please do NOT send administrative messages to the postings
address, as the rest of the list recipients probably aren't interested
in your request to be removed/changed, etc! DO NOT SEND THESE
REQUESTS TO THE POSTINGS ADDRESS OR TO MY PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESS!
This is one of the worst things a person can do. Please don't do
it.

If you don't know what address you used to subscribe to the list,
wait until Sunday morning for the Address Check message that I send
out every week to test addresses for bounces. The address I use
to send the mailing list to you is inside of this Address Check
message.

Also related to the above, if you wish to unsubscribe, you need to
send your unsubscribe request to

        [email protected]

with the subject, "UNSUBSCRIBE u2-list". This unsubscribe request
must be sent from the same address you used to subscribe to the
list.

If your mail system sends a response to the mail sender when it
successfully delivers mail to you (for example, Microsoft Exchange
Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63), I will have to
remove you from the list. With the number of people on the mailing
lists that I run, that generates too much mail for me to receive.

In general, BE A GOOD CITIZEN! If you are being disruptive, and
this causes problems for the other subscribers, I will be inclined
to remove you from the list. It does seem kind of silly to put a
statement like this in the introductory information, but I have
already run into situations where I guess it just wasn't obvious
that you aren't supposed to make life miserable for other people.

Due to an increase in the amount of subscribers and subsequent
postings which contain non-U2 info content and/or frequently asked
questions, rules are being enacted to help curtail these postings
and make Wire more informative. If you violate a rule, you will
be promptly notified. Subsequent violation of the rules can result
in permanent suspension from the U2 Mailing List. However, I
reserve the right to immediately remove a person for breaking the
rules without warning.

1) Currently your posting will be going to 4046 other people and
will be archived forever! Use a descriptive subject for your
posts!!! If your subject is "stuff" then you should consider your
posting skipped which means that you are likely adding bulk to the
mailing list which is not needed.

2) Don't use misleading subjects like "I found part of Bono's diary"
just so that people will read your posting. Use a good subject
and make it reflect the content of your posting.

3) Post *only* serious U2 related messages to the mailing list.
Please do not make extraneous posts, articles on other bands,
repetitive posts, and other long messages that just fill up the
list. If need be, please create a web page on which to place this
information and then post just the URL to this web page. If you
have a basic question about U2, please consult the U2 FAQ maintained
by Maryann Stump before posting to Wire. The FAQ is at

        http://www.gartholamew.com/MailingLists/u2-list/faq/index.htm

If you want to read postings as they are posted, but you aren't on
the reflector version of the list, I encourage you to read them on
a web site that was specifically set up for this purpose by Darci
Chapman <[email protected]>. Also if you want to make a posting
to the list, please check this web site to see if it has already
been posted. Please do not post duplicate information. If you
don't have access to the web, then you should get it. Many things
on this list assume you have access to it. There is no way I can
provide the entire U2 mailing list experience via email. Darci's
reflector postings website is located at

        http://www.wildheart.org/archives/wire/

4) If you are having problems with the list, *DO NOT* send to the
postings address about your problems. Send them to the administrative
address. I *DO NOT* want administrative mail cluttering the list!
This includes subscribe and unsubscribe requests as well as general
problems or questions!

5) Do not carry on arguments on the list which should be kept to
private email. Arguments directly relating U2 are inevitable, but
if you get out of control then you will be warned or removed as
stated above.

6) Do not post in MIME, HTML, or any other formatted or encoded
format. Please post in regular human-readable ASCII text. I know
this doesn't work for everyone's native language, but most of the
people speak english on this list so I would prefer it if we all
use the same language. Also do not post images, sounds, etc. Put
them on a web page and point people to the web page. Your postings
can get rejected if they are sent in MIME, HTML, or other non-regular
ASCII text format.

7) There is a 3 postings per day limit placed on all subscribers.
If you post more than 3 times, your excess postings will be rejected.
This counter resets at midnight Eastern US time when the digest
gets sent out. Read the intro/greeting for more information on
this.

8) I am attempting to combat some of the mail problems by only
allowing subscribers to post to the list. If you are posting mail
to the list, make sure you are posting from the address under which
you subscribed. Otherwise this is another way your postings can
get rejected. Future plans are for a subscription type which would
allow you to post, but you wouldn't receive the mailing list. This
is for people who prefer to read from the web site, etc.

9) Do not quote an entire message or a large piece of text just to
respond with one line, etc. Keep your quoting to a small, relevant
size. As a guideline, the amount you are quoting should be near
the amount of content your are writing. Obviously don't put in a
bunch of filler just to meet this guideline.

10) If you have a long list of items for buy/sell/trade, ask people
to email you for the list or put it on a web page and post the URL
of the web page. I consider any list over five lines to be long.
Do not repost your list any more often than once per month. Refer
to rule #15 on repeating postings. If the list becomes too burdened
with buy/sell/trade postings, I will not allow them at all so be
good or you will lose the privilege. This list is not an outlet
for commercialism. You abuse it, you lose it.

11) Do not post a piece of mail which is larger than 25000 bytes
or your posting will get rejected.

12) Do not forge mail to the mailing list.

13) Do not promote "spam" activity. This includes chain letters,
etc. I consider virus warning hoaxes to be chain letters so don't
post those either. See http://www.kumite.com/myths/ for more
information on virus warning hoaxes.

14) Don't make postings to the list which are designed to mislead
people. What does this mean? I think it should be self-explanatory,
but just in case it isn't, posting lies and false information is
in my opinion an example of purposely misleading people. Also,
posting from multiple email addresses and not telling people that
you are the same person so that the result is that people think
you are a different person is misleading. I don't want to take up
a bunch of space giving examples of this so I reserve the right to
apply the "no misleading postings" rule liberally.

15) Don't repeat postings. If you feel you need to send a posting
again, wait at least two weeks. If this is an announcement for
items for sale/trade/buy, etc then wait at least one month. Refer
to rule #10 on content of for sale/trade/buy type postings. I
reserve the right to change my mind on this if I feel your posting
is being repeated too often.

16) If you post to the list and for whatever reason it bounces back
to you (you entered the wrong address, the network was down, etc),
do not resend the failed posting to the list. First off, you should
check to make sure the posting really didn't get posted. Some mail
systems lie to you. Secondly, if you repost the failed message,
often it will containt the error messages at the beginning of the
message, and this wastes alot of space besides being rather confusing.

17) Limit your "signatures" to 4 lines or less.

By following these rules, we can make this list more enjoyable for
all!

If you are new to the Internet or just want a refresher, check out
the Internet Rules of Netiquette available at the URL

http://www.gartholamew.com/MailingLists/misc/rfc1855.html

Please be patient if you have a problem with the list. I run this
list in my spare time for free (thanks to SolidSolutions.com for
letting me do so). If you have a problem, send mail to the
administrative address, and I will do my best to help you with your
problem. However, if your question is covered here, I may not be
able to address your issue due to time contraints. Please make
sure it isn't covered here before you send mail to me.

I don't want to alienate new subscribers. The point I am trying
to make is that things have happened in the past that could very
well destroy the list if they happened again, and that would be
really unfortunate. Enough of this topic.

OK, now that the nasty stuff is out of the way, let's get more
informative.

The digest is the only version available to new subscribers. The
reflector version is available only for people who have had to
suffer the digest for 6 or more months. If you want to be on the
reflector version, you must also have a *very* reliable address.
I only move people to the reflector version if they have been on
the digest for 6 months without interruptions and without ever
being dropped due to a bad address check. The reason I am so strict
with this is because bounces and failures to reflector recipients
causes problems for other list members and for me. Do not ask to
be put on the reflector version of the list unless you meet the
above criteria. (For those confused to the terminology used here,
reflector version recipients get postings as they are posted, and
digest version recipients receive one message per day with all of
that day's postings bundled inside.)

If you want to read postings as they are posted, but you aren't on
the reflector version of the list, I encourage you to read them on
a web site that was specifically set up for this purpose by Darci
Chapman <[email protected]>. Also if you are wanting to make
a post to the list, please check this web site to see if it has
already been posted. Please do not post duplicate information.
If you don't have access to the web, then you should get it. Many
things on this list assume you have access to it. There is no way
I can provide the entire U2 mailing list experience via email.
Darci's reflector postings website is located at

        http://www.wildheart.org/archives/wire/

Please note that it is possible to be both on the reflector and
digest versions of the list if you originally subscribed to the
list under the reflector version. A significant number of people
liked this so I made it possible at one time. If you are currently
on the reflector and only want to be on the digest, make sure you
unsubscribe from the reflector.

If you are going to post something to the list that might require
timely responses, keep in mind that the digest only goes out once
per day and is an accumulation of everything posted in the last 24
hours. For example, if you sell some rare vinyl recording, allow
the digest people some time to respond.

If your mailbox has a limit on the size of the messages that can
be delivered to your mailbox, it is possible that you may miss a
digest as I put no limit on the sizes of the digests. For example,
as of the time of the writing of this piece of text, juno.com does
this, and I won't even let juno.com people on the digest because
of the bounced mail I get from all of the rejected digests. I
might change this at some point, but probably not any time soon.
If you miss a digest, you can get it from the mailing list archive.

Excellent compilations has been produced through the efforts of
Wire. One is a five 110-minute tape volume by Bob Reck <[email protected]>
known as the A-Z tapes. The A-Z tapes are no longer available
through Bob, but you may be able to get a copy by posting to the
list. For information on other compilations, ask the mailing list.

Want an official Wire mailing list T-shirt, hat, etc? Check out
the Official Wire Gear Homepage at

        http://www2.magmacom.com/~yearwood/u2.html

for details. A third party company is making everything. Just as
with the list itself, neither I (Wire mailing list maintainer) or
any wire subscriber are making any money from this service, however
the 3rd party company is. :) Wire stuff is being archived at:

        http://www.gartholamew.com/MailingLists/u2-list/

Everything that Thomas Jordan put together, things that have been
contributed by members of Wire, and the things I have found are
all located here. This includes samples, pictures, past postings,
etc. Also the two most recent digests are always available via
the home page in HTML and plain text formats. Getting them off
the web site is the only way to get these items. Please do not
ask me to mail them. I cannot mail anything to individuals. Please
use the web site.

If you want to donate something to the archive, put it in

        ftp://ftp.gartholamew.com/incoming/

but please send me mail and let me know that you have done so. Be
sure to include the name of the file(s) you have uploaded. Doing
this will make sure I get to it before the directory gets cleaned
out. I don't scan /incoming regularly.

I keep a list of U2 WWW sites. If you find one that you think is
stable, let me know, and I will add it to the list. Also, if you
notice that I have one listed that is nonexistent, please let me
know so I can remove it.

Please note: if you send a message to the list, it is possible
that you may get errors. Whenever you send a submission to the
list, it gets sent to EVERYONE on the list. I try to have things
setup so that the errors get sent to me instead of to you, however
that will not always happen. You can ignore these errors. If you
receive an error message after posting to the list, this should
only mean that piece of mail to that member of the list failed.
However, you should always receive a copy of your own submission
to the list (if you are on the digest you should receive it via
the digest). If you don't receive your own posting, this means
the message might not have made it to the list, and you should
contact the administrative address. Please do *NOT* resend your
posting until you are sure it didn't make it to the list. I do
maintenance on the list every day to reduce the occurrences of
these errors, but it is a fact of life that the errors will always
occur, and I apologize. Given the amount of people on the list,
if you receive a couple bounces, that is still a pretty low percentage
of failures.

By the way, this list does not require that people post in a
particular language, but "english" is the most widely used, and it
would be preferred if everyone used "english" since it appears to
be what most people on the list know as a common language.

Please, keep in mind that this list is what you make of it. There
is no charge for this list, and it is worth that much. :) The
content is entirely based on you, the subscriber and poster.

Have a good day.

p.s. If you are an aol.com subscriber, and you are having trouble
        reading the digest, contact aol.com, not me! I have no
        control over how they represent the mail that I send out
        to mailing list subscribers. You pay for your mail service,
        but my mailing list is free! Contact them for mail support,
        not me!



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Mon Aug 31 1998 - 21:08:40 PDT