Monthly B5JMS FAQ

Tue Sep 2 06:09:07 EDT 1997

	     The B5JMS and B5JMS-DIGEST Mailing Lists FAQ Lists
		      Copyright 1996, 1997 B5JMS Poster
				Version 1.5

NOTES:

(1) This message is sent automatically each month.

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### CHANGES FROM LAST COPY SENT:

- Q18, expanding and explaining about the "index" and "get" commands.

### TABLE OF CONTENTS

### Section A: General
Q1  Who are you?  What do you want?  Why are you here?
Q2  What is B5JMS?
Q3  What is B5JMS-DIGEST?
Q4  Is this an open or closed list?
Q5  What is included in these lists?
Q6  What is the structure of USENET posts to B5JMS?

### Section B: Majordomo
Q7  What is Majordomo?
Q8  How do I send requests to Majordomo?
Q9  How do I get general help on Majordomo?
Q10 How do I subscribe to B5JMS?
Q11 How do I subscribe with an alternate email address?
Q12 How do I unsubscribe?
Q13 How do I unsubscribe my old email address from my new job?
Q14 How do I change from one email address to a new one?
Q15 How do I get info on the list?
Q16 How do I find out if I am subscribed, and to which list?
Q17 I still don't know under what email addresses I am subscribed?

### Section C: List Problems
Q18 I lost some mail at my site.  How do I get those posts back?
Q19 I used to be subscribed, and I just verified that I am not.  What gives?
Q20 I'm getting duplicates.  I'm getting duplicates.
Q21 I'm not getting any messages for several days.
Q22 The volume of messages is too much and my quota is full.
Q23 I replied to one of the B5JMS messages but JMS never saw it.

### Section D: Miscellaneous
Q24 How do I send a message to JMS?
Q25 How do I send a message to the moderated newsgroup?
Q26 Where can I find more information about B5?
Q27 I have information from JMS which I'd like to post to B5JMS.
Q28 I have comments on the structure of your script-generated threads.
Q29 What is the history of B5JMS?
Q30 Are you in charge of the newsgroups or other forums?
Q31 I have comments on this FAQ.

### Section A: General

*Q1 Who are you?  What do you want?  Why are you here?

My name is B5JMS Poster, and I am the maintainer of the B5JMS and B5JMS-DIGEST
lists.  My email address for anything related to these two lists is

	b5jms-owner at majordomo.cs.columbia.edu

This is *not* the email address to send un/subscription requests.  See Q10-Q11
below.

What I want is to spread the word of Babylon 5 as much as possible, so as to
see more seasons of the show, new spinoffs and movies based on it.  I
believe that my list helps people get just the right amount of information.
In my opinion there is too much poor quality shows and SF on TV, and Babylon
5 is one shining beacon in that space in need of our help to survive and
flourish.

I am here because the universe has chosen an avid Babylon 5 fan with the
right mixture of technical computer science skills, and sufficient access to
resources, to enable this list to exist.

*Q2 What is B5JMS?

B5JMS is a mailing list which will send you posts from JMS (Joe Michael
Straczynski), the executive producer and creator of Babylon 5).  Messages on
B5JMS are sent as soon as they are available.  See Q10 below for
subscription information.

*Q3 What is B5JMS-DIGEST?

B5JMS-DIGEST is a digest form of B5JMS.  Messages to B5JMS digest are sent
when more than 40,000 characters (bytes) are collected.  Normally this means
one digest on a slow week, or 2-3 digests during busy weeks.

>From this point on, unless otherwise indicated, anything I say about B5JMS
also applies to B5JMS-DIGEST.

*Q4 Is this an open or closed list?

B5JMS and B5JMS-DIGEST are open-subscription lists.  That is, anyone can
automatically subscribe to or unsubscribe from either or both of them, using
the email address they came from.  You cannot, however, un/subscribe someone
else or even a different email address you have.  If you ask for such a
request, that request is sent to me, the lists' maintainer, for approval.
Normally I do simple verification and then approve the request within 24-48
hours.

B5JMS is a closed-posts list.  You cannot post messages to B5JMS, unless you
are an approved moderator of it.  At the moment only the people who collect
messages from JMS can post to B5JMS.  Besides, there's no need for anyone
else to post to it.  Most people who think they want to post to B5JMS really
intend to post their messages to JMS or one of the newsgroups, and that can
and should be done directly from the subscriber's site, not through my
lists.  See Q24-Q25 below on how to post to rastb5 and how to ask JMS a
question.

*Q5 What is included in these lists?

The messages on B5JMS come from various sources:

- I collect JMS' messages from rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (rastb5m,
the USENET newsgroup) and correlate them to the messages he replied to, with
the use of my automatic scripts of course.

- Brent Barrett and John Hardin collect JMS messages from Compuserve (CIS),
and send out "JMS on CIS" digests.

- David Strauss collects messages on AOL when they are available.  Note that
Genie digests do not include the message JMS replied to.  They are posted in
B5JMS because I still think they are useful, and better than not having any.
If you are willing to help in the effort of collecting JMS messages on Genie
(correlating replies to original posts, receiving posting permissions,
dealing with copyrights), please let me know and I will get you in touch
with the right people.

Only the messages I collect on USENET are small and short.  The other ones I
get from CIS and AOL come in digest form, each of them, and are usually
longer.  For mostly legal reasons, and the effort involved, I am unable to
separate these CIS/AOL digests into heir individual messages.  It is through
the efforts of Brent and others, that I am able to post these digests to
B5JMS. (Thanks folks!)

So what happens is that B5JMS gets individual messages from USENET and
CIS/AOL digests.  That oddity causes some B5JMS subscribers to think that
they are on B5JMS-DIGEST.  B5JMS-DIGEST gets everything in digest form, and
since it includes he CIS/AOL pre-made digests, it is in many ways a digest
of digests.

*Q6 What is the structure of USENET posts to B5JMS?

Posts which come from USENET that I've collected using my scripts have a
definite and recognizable structure.  It was designed to be as terse as
possible yet not miss any vital information.  Here is an example:

 Subject: Re: What Do the Shadows want?
 -----+-------------+--------------------------------------------------
  No. | DATE        |  FROM
 -----+-------------+--------------------------------------------------
 s  1: Aug 19, 1996: Steve A. Ustin <super at dom.ain.org>
 -  9: Aug 20, 1996: Martha S. Vineyard <mvine at li.net>
 - 10: Aug 20, 1996: Joe M. Straczynski <jmsatb5 at aol.com>
 + 22: Aug 22, 1996: davegl at netcom.com (David G. O'Lite)
 * 23: Aug 22, 1996: Joe M. Straczynski <jmsatb5 at aol.com>

The above is just the top of the message.  After that you will get a
printing of all the messages which are not marked with a '-' in the first
column of the listing above.  The actual messages include the "From:" field,
the number of lines in each, and then the message itself.  Each mini-message
in a B5JMS message thread is separated by a one-line string of alternating
'-' and '=' symbols.

The header part above means the following:

- the subject of the thread is "What do the Shadows Want?"

- there were 23 messages in that thread.

- Out of 23 messages in the thread, only five of them were selected as
important to the thread.  These include the first message in the thread, all
of JMS' messages, and the messages immediately preceding JMS'.  All other
messages are ignored, but since I actually print the index numbers according
to the thread, you can tell roughly how large is that thread.  In the above
example, there were 11 messages not listed or included between JMS' first
message on the thread and his second.

- the first (start) message is always included, and is marked with an 's' if
it came from a regular user or an upper-case 'S' if it came from JMS.  The
first message is always included because it is the most likely one that
started the thread and best describes what the thread is all about.

- Each message from JMS which is actually included is marked with a '*'.

- Each message preceding JMS' message is also included.  It is very likely
that the message right before JMS' is the one he is replying to, and if not,
it is almost always on topic, and further help to explain the subject of
the thread and JMS' own reply.  Such messages are marked with a '+'.

- Messages which have been seen before in the same thread (because JMS had
replied to them more than once) are marked with a '-' and are not repeated.
Only the authors of these messages are mentioned in the top listing.  This
saves on repeating old messages, and is especially useful when JMS
participates multiple times in a long thread.

- All other messages are not listed or included because they take too much
space and add very little to the thread itself.  Remember that the purpose
of B5JMS is to show only messages from JMS with context, not whole
discussions.  If you want the latter, I suggest you subscribe to the rastb5m
newsgroup.

### Section B: Majordomo

*Q7 What is Majordomo?

Majordomo is a popular mailing list processor written in Perl/C by Brent
Chapman.  It has many commands to assist list maintainers like myself manage
the volume of requests, and configure the list to my liking.  Majordomo is
the list processor software used to manage B5JMS and B5JMS-DIGEST.

*Q8 How do I send requests to Majordomo?

All list related requests must be sent to this address:

	majordomo at majordomo.cs.columbia.edu

Majordomo only looks at the body of the message, not the subject line!  In
the body of the message, you list your requests, one per line.

Remember that whenever you see B5JMS in the next few "how to" questions, you
can use "b5jms-digest" instead.

*Q9 How do I get general help on Majordomo?