pending amendments to LEPS-L

[Lawrence F. Gall]

Hello LEPS-L subscribers,

Some important information about the list.

I want everyone to have advance notice of changes that will be made to LEPS-L
on Monday 15 April.  At that time, the list will be amended so that (a) only
subscribers to LEPS-L may post, and (b) all subsequent requests to subscribe
to LEPS-L will require a brief confirmatory reply to a piece of email.
Everyone who is a subscriber as of Monday morning 15 April will
automatically be re-subscribed, using their email address of record in
the LEPS-L subscription list from Monday morning.

Basically, LEPS-L for years has had a "wide open door" policy, and this
is being amended now to an "open door" policy for any/all who confirm
their subscription intent.  This is a common configuration for lists, and
should greatly curtail the type of first-time-on-target spam recently
aimed at leps-l at lists.yale.edu   It should not change the gateway behavior
between LEPS-L and sci.bio.entomology.lepidoptera (note that someone
can still post to LEPS-L through s.b.e.l. even if that person is not
a LEPS-L subscriber per se; but recent spam has been directed at
leps-l at lists.yale.edu rather than via the gateway).

Some folks may experience problems after Monday 15 April, as follows.

If your subscription address in LEPS-L after Monday does not
exactly match the reply-to address that you are using in your email
software, you will not be able to post to leps-l at lists.yale.edu, because
of the more stringent validation being made against the list of subscribers.

(You will still be able to *receive* posts, because of the less restrictive
manner in which incoming email to you typically gets validated.  For example,
at many institutions, people have an address jane.doe at university.edu  But
using @department.university.edu or @building.department.university.edu
if often happily accepted as an equivalent by computers that route email at
the institution).

In order to minimize complications, prior to next Monday, please determine
whether your subscription address in LEPS-L -- which we'll call
your "old" address for discussion -- in fact matches your "current"
reply-to address as it appears in your email software:

1. Compose some email to listproc at lists.yale.edu, and in the body of that
    email simply say REV LEPS-L -- you will be emailed the current list of
    subscribers.  It's always best to send plain text email only to
    listproc at lists.yale.edu, and turn off any automatic signature that you
    have in your email software.  Here's what the request might look like:

         from: lawrence.gall at yale.edu
         to: listproc at lists.yale.edu
         subject: review
         --------------------------------(body of email is below)-----
         REV LEPS-L

2. Find yourself in the list of subscribers that is mailed back to you.

3. If your "current" reply-to address matches your "old" address in the
    LEPS-L subscription list, you should be done.

4. However, if these mismatch, then consider unsubscribing the "old"
    address in the LEPS-L subscription list, and immediately resubscribing
    under your "current" address (HINT: set your reply-to address in your
    email program to the "old" address, then do the unsubscribe; then set
    your reply-to address back to the "current" address, and resubscribe)

5. Please seek some local computing help first if you're confused by
    item 4. above.  However, I'm always available for anyone who
    experiences unyielding problems.

I'll repeat this email at the end of this week.

Best regards,

Larry

......................................................................
: Lawrence F. Gall, Ph.D.            e-mail: lawrence.gall at yale.edu  :
: Head, Computer Systems Office &     voice: 1-203-432-9892          :
: Curatorial Affiliate in Entomology    FAX: 1-203-432-9816          :
: Peabody Museum of Natural History    http://www.peabody.yale.edu   :
: P.O. Box 208118, Yale University                                   :
: New Haven, CT 06520-8118 USA                                       :


 
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