Majordomo2 Help
===============

This help message is being sent to you from the Majordomo mailing list
management system at $SITE.

This is version $VERSION of Majordomo2.

If you're familiar with mail servers, information about receiving advanced
documentation on all available commands appears near the end of this
message.

Majordomo is an automated system which allows users to subscribe and
unsubscribe to mailing lists, and to retrieve files from list archives.

You can interact with the Majordomo software by sending it commands in the
body of mail messages addressed to "$WHOAMI".
Please do not put your commands on the subject line; Majordomo does not
process commands there.

You may put multiple Majordomo commands in the same mail message.
Put each command on a line by itself.

If you use a "signature block" at the end of your mail, or if your mail
program appends additional text to your mail, Majordomo may mistakenly
believe that these additional lines are commands; you will then receive
spurious error messages.  To keep this from happening, either put a line
starting with a hyphen ("-") before your signature, or put a line with just
the word:

     end

...on it in the same place.  This will prevent Majordomo from processing
your signature as bad commands.


Here are some of the things you can do using Majordomo:


Finding Out Which Lists Are On the System
-----------------------------------------

  To get a list of lists on this system that are available to you, put the
  following line in the body of your mail message to $WHOAMI:

       lists

  You will receive a reply contain the names of the mailing lists and a
  brief description of each list.

  To get more information about a particular list, use the "info" command,
  supplying the name of the list.  For example, if the name of the list
  about which you wish information is "example", you would put the line:

       info example

  ...in the body of the mail message.


Subscribing To a List
---------------------

  Once you've determined that you wish to subscribe to one or more lists on
  this system, you can send commands to Majordomo to have it add you to the
  list, so you can begin receiving mailings.

  To receive list mail at the address from which you're sending your mail,
  simply say "subscribe" followed by the list's name:

       subscribe example

  Consult the help topic "subscribing" for more information and additional
  options.  See the section "Help Topics" below for instructions on doing
  this.

  Based on configuration decisions made by the list owners, you may be
  added to the mailing list automatically, or you may receive notification
  that an authorization key is required for subscription.  This can be a
  bit of extra hassle, but it helps keep you from being swamped in extra
  email by someone who forged requests from your address.  In this case,
  another message will be sent to the address to be subscribed containing
  the key, and directing the user to send a command found in that message
  back to $WHOAMI.

  You may also get a message that your subscription is being forwarded to
  the list owner for approval; some lists have waiting lists, or policies
  about who may subscribe.  If your request is forwarded for approval, the
  list owner should contact you soon after your request.

  Upon subscribing, you should receive an introductory message, containing
  list policies and features.  Please SAVE THIS MESSAGE for future
  reference; it will also contain exact directions for unsubscribing.  If
  you lose the intro mail and would like another copy of the policies, send
  this message to $WHOAMI:

       intro example

  ...substituting, of course, the real name of your list for "example".


Unsubscribing From Mailing LIsts
--------------------------------

  Your original intro message contains the exact command which should be
  used to remove your address from the list.  However, in most cases, you
  may simply send the command "unsubscribe" followed by the list name:

       unsubscribe example

  (This command may fail if your provider has changed the way your address
  is shown in your mail.)

  To remove an address other than the one from which you're sending the
  request, give that address in the command:

       unsubscribe example $USER

  (The following is currently UNIMPLEMENTED!)
  In either of these cases, you can tell Majordomo to remove the address in
  question from all lists on this server by using "*" in place of the list
  name:

       unsubscribe *
       unsubscribe * $USER


Help Topics
-----------

  Additional information is available from this server in the form of help
  topics.  You are reading the default topic now.  To read another topic,
  send the command

       help topic

  Available topics include (not all of these are written yet):

       admin             Additional information for list administrators
       commands          A complete end-user command reference
       unsubscribing     More info on removing yourself from a list
       subscribing       More info on adding yourself to a list

  There is also a separate help topic for each command containing an
  in-depth description of all possible options.


Getting More Help
-----------------

  To contact a human site manager, send mail to $OWNER.

  To contact the owner of a specific list, send mail to that list's owner
  address, which is formed by adding "-owner" to the list name.  For
  instance, to contact the list owner for:

       example@$WHEREAMI

  ...you would send mail to:

       example-owner@$WHEREAMI

  To get another copy of this help message, send mail to $WHOAMI
  with a line saying:

       help

  ...in the message body.