Using the W3 mailing robot

(Subscribe/unsubscribe with our Form )

This robot maintains the W3 mailing lists, and allows W3 documents to be retrieved on request.

You can subscribe or unsubscribe to any of the various WWW mailing lists by sending email to the robot "listserv@info.cern.ch" -- see the commands listed below.

If you have any problems, requests or questions for a human being, mail "www-request@info.cern.ch". You can also find information on WWW (as well as many other things!) by telnetting to info.cern.ch (no username, no password).

If you want to pick up the WWW software, then use anonymous FTP to info.cern.ch and look in directory /pub/www. Subdirectories are src for the latest source packages, bin for executables for various machines, doc for "paper copies" of articles on WWW in PostScript and ASCII form. To read the latest documentation, use WWW !

Everything appearing in [] below is optional; everything appearing in <> is mandatory; all arguments are case insensitive. Only the first 10 lines of requests will be processed.

Commands to retrieve W3 documents

Modified Commands of ListProcessor

help [topic]

Without arguments, more or less this file. Otherwise get specific information on the selected topic. Topics may also refer to requests. To learn more about this system issue a 'help listproc' request. To get a listing of all available topics, generate an error message by sending a bogus request like 'help me'.

subscribe <mailing-list> [-e email] [-p password] <your name>
add <mailing-list> [-e email] [-p password] <your name>

Will subscribe you to a list. The -e option allows you to select another email to receive messages than the one you are sending your email from. The -p option allows you to use a password.

Example:

    subscribe www-proxy -e zorro@horse.org Zorro
    subscribe www-talk -p Barbara Bill C.
    add www-html rintintin@dogs.holywood.com
    (in the last example, as an email (there is a @) was provided
    instead of the expected name, this email will be used INSTEAD OF
    the default address taken from the headers of the mail)

As this modified version of ListProcessor allows very easy unsubscriptions, you may wish to use a password. I think the use of the password will be better explained in a table:

Let us suppose you want to remove your entry A from a mailing list, and you're sending your email from an address B

                        +-------------+---------------+
                        | No password | Password      |
+-----------------------+-------------+---------------+
| A and B are different | A removed   | A not removed |
+-----------------------+-------------+---------------+
| A is the same as B    | A removed   | A removed     |
+-----------------------+-------------+---------------+

Note that in any case a warning message will be sent to A and B.

PASSWORD <mailing-list> [-e email] [-p previous_password] <-n new_password>

If you wish to set a password later.

examples:

    PASSWORD www-talk -n BIGBARBE
    PASSWORD www-html -e barbiche@info.cern.ch -p BARBICHE -n BIGBARBE

UNSUBSCRIBE <mailing-list> [-e email] [-p password]
DELETE <mailing-list> [-e email] [-p password]
SIGNOFF <mailing-list> [-e email] [-p password] .

To unsubscribe!

examples:

    UNSUBSCRIBE WWW-TALK -e zoulou@info.cern.ch -p ZOUZOU
    UNSUBS WWW-HTML bisou@bisounours.tele.fr
    (the -e may be omitted)

recipients <list>
review <list>

Get a listing of all non-concealed people subscribed to the specified list. If you don't know under which email you are subscribed, this will give you the list of all subscribers to this mailing-list that are not concealed. To get concealed, the command is "set conceal yes".

examples:

    REVIEW WWW-TALK
    RECIPIENTS WWW-HTML

CHANGE <mailing-list> [-e previous_email] <-n new-email> [-p password]

To change the mail under which you are subscribed.

examples:

CHANGE WWW-TALK -e barbiche@info.cern.ch -n bigbarbe@info.cern.ch -p BARB
    CHANGE WWW-ANNOUNCE -n zoulou@www.info.cern.ch

(In the last example, the program will take your email from your mail headers)

SET <mailing-list> [-e email] [-p password] <option>

Options are:

ack

your message is sent back to you

noack

your message is not sent back to you

postpone

no messages will be sent to you until you change mode again

digest

your message is not sent back to you. New messages are not sent to you as they arrive, but are accumulated into digests that are periodically sent to you.

conceal

remove yourself from 'recipients' and 'statistics' listings.

noconceal

opposite of previous mode.

ack, noack, postpone, and digest are mutually exclusive;
conceal and noconceal are mutually exclusive

example:

    SET WWW-HTML DIGEST

Original Commands from ListProcessor

information <list>

Get information about the specified list.

lists

Get a list of all local mailing lists that are served by this server, as well as of all known remote lists.

index [archive | path-to-archive] [/password] [-all]

Get a list of files in the selected archive, or the master archive if no archive was specified. If an archive is private, you have to provide its password as well.

get <archive | path-to-archive> <file> [/password] [parts]

Get the requested file from the specified archive. Files are usually split in parts locally, and in such a case you will receive the file in multiple email messages -- an 'index' request tells you how many parts the file has been split into, and their sizes; if you need to obtain certain parts, specify them as optional arguments. If an archive is private, you have to provide its password as well.

view <archive | path-to-archive>] [/password] [parts]

Same as "get" but in interactive mode justs catenates the file on the screen.

search <archive | path-to-archive>] [/password] [-all] <pattern>

Search all files of the specified archive (and all of its subarchives if -all is specified) for lines that match the pattern. The pattern can be an egrep(1)-style regular expression with support for the following additional operators: '~' (negation), '|' and '&' (logical OR and AND), '<' '>' (group regular expressions). The pattern may be enclosed in single or double quotes. Note: . matches any character including new line.

release

Get information about the current release of this ListProcessor system.

which

Get a listing of local mailing lists to which you have subscribed.