[lug] List status?

[David]

   You might check to make sure that the return address and the hostname of
   the outgoing mail machine all jive in a happy way.  Otherwise, Wayde gets
   to approve by hand.
   
   Hugh
   
   > 
   > Wow.  When I sent this message, I hadn't gotten anything for a couple
   > SNIP


This is a problem that I have run foul of.  It is easy to subscribe to
this list and then not be able to unsubscribe.  That is the condition
under which I am subscribed at present; when I next want to change any
of my options I shall have to ask Wayde to do it for me.

Get-It-Wrong-HOWTO:

1.  Have a machine at home, an ISP, and dynamic IP addresses; i.e., the
    plainest, simplest, cheapest, connection.

2.  Travel at little bit so that you find that a net-based
    re-directable address (NBRD) seems like a good idea.  You go
    somewhere, you send your mail somewhere; you change your ISP, you
    send your mail to the new ISP.  Provided that the net-based
    service provider does not go under (impossible !), or some such,
    it is a very nice system because the people who contact you need
    not know that you move, and you still can use all of the
    advantages of having your mail fielded by someone else - your home
    machine is turned off (otherwise you use .forward).  You do need
    to make sure that the Reply-to field is set to NBRD when you send
    out stuff, or else it goes somewhere, which may, or may not, work.

3.  From home, crank up Linux and the browser, and contact the BLUG
    software and tell it that you would like to subscribe and that
    your address is NBRD - which is the address that everyone gets
    from you, of course.  Note that this message is transmitted to the
    network from ISP, not NBRD.

4.  The request is accepted and you start receiving all the stuff.

5.  One day, months later, you decide to post a listing yourself, or
    to change an option, or unsubscribe.  You get a rejection because
    you are transmitting from ISP, not NBRD.

The BLUG software violates my first maxim of software construction:

"Software should not become confused simply because the user is confused."
   
and so fails mightily in my view.  But it is what we have, and I post
this note in case it helps someone else who may become confused.

I wasted a lot of time, mine and Wayde's, exchanging email in trying
to work out what was wrong.  Bad software is very unkind to dumb
people.