The Subscribe Command: 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 scooters

If for some reason you wish to have the mailings go to a different address
(a friend's address, a specific other system on which you have an account,
or an address which is more correct than the one that automatically appears
in the "From:" header on the mail you send), you would add that address to
the command.  For instance, if you're sending a request from your work
account, but wish to receive "scooters" mail at your personal account
(for which we will use "jqpublic@example.com" as an example), you'd put
the line:

        subscribe example jqpublic@example.com

...in the mail message body.

If you do not wish to receive the introductory welcome documents that are
normally sent to new subscribers, you can send a command like:

        subscribe-nowelcome example

...to supress those documents.  Again, you may optionally including your
address as above.


Confirming Subscriptions
------------------------

Based on configuration decisions made by the list owners, you may be added
to the mailing list automatically, you may be required to perform an
additional confirmation action or you may have to wait for the list owner
to allow your subscription.  If you are required to perform an additional
action, you will be sent a message containing instructions that you must
follow.  These basically amount to visiting a web page or replying to the
message with the single word "accept".

The reason that many lists require additional confirmation is that it isn't
really possible to verify that the address being subscribed to the list
is indeed the person who sent the request.  This fact is frequently
exploited to forge subscription requests which result in hassles for the
victim and all of the list owners.  By sending a message to the subscriber
address and requiring a valid reply, the abuse is limited to the single
confirmation message; the victim does not have to go through the hassle of
being removed from the list.  In addition, Majordomo2 stores information
about the source of the forged requests and if a rejection is sent in
response to the confirmation message, this stored information is
automatically forwarded to various responsible parties.

Upon subscribing, you should (unless you specified otherwise) receive an
introductory message containing list policies and features.  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 scooters

(substituting, of course, the real name of your list for "scooters").