Table Of Contents

• What is Rennlist?
  • What is a mailing list?
  • What lists are on Rennlist?
  • Who runs Rennlist?
  • There have been other Porsche mailing lists before. What makes this one better?
• Subscribing and Unsubscribing
  • How do I subscribe to a list using email?
  • How do I unsubscribe to a list using email?
  • How do I change my subscription options using email?
  • How do I subscribe to a list using the Web interface?
  • How do I unsubscribe to a list using the Web interface?
  • How do I change my subscription options using the Web interface?
• Sending messages to a list
  • Can I cross-post to multiple lists at once?
  • If you use digest mode...
  • Consider including the list when you answer questions
  • Don't use Rich-Text or HTML mail
• Miscellaneous
  • What is "digest mode"?
  • Do I get a digest message even if there were no messages sent to the list that day?
  • When does Rennlist send the digests?
  • Who is Lyris and why do I get mail from him/her?
  • Can I post to a list I'm not subscribed to?
  • I got a message from Rennlist saying that my account was "held". Why?
  • Can rude people be kicked off the lists?
• Known Problems
• History

What is Rennlist?

Rennlist is a free electronic mail list service offered to the Porsche community. It was created by a group of people who simply love Porsche automobiles. Rennlist hosts mailing lists for each major type of Porsche automobile as well as a list specifically for those interested in racing Porsches. Read our charter at http://www.rennlist.org/charter.htm for more details.

What is a mailing list?

A mailing list is a group of people who receive electronic mail as a group. Anyone who is a member of the mailing list can submit information to be distributed to the entire group. In this way, a group discussion can take place. For Porsche owners and enthusiasts this can be a very effective way of learning more about the cars we love, getting technical help, and offering advice.

When people want to join a mailing list on Rennlist, they either send a "subscribe" email message to the server, or they fill out the "join" form on the web site, using the Rennlist Web Based Registration Interface. People contribute to the discussion by sending email to the discussion group email address which Rennlist maintains, or by filling out the "create a new message" form on the web using the Rennlist Web Interface. When a new message is contributed, each member of the discussion receives the message in the manner that they specified. Some people receive every message immediately, in their email. Others receive a nightly "digest" of all the messages. Still others elect not to receive any email, and prefer to read the messages on the Web using the Rennlist Web Interface.

What lists are on Rennlist?

Rennlist hosts the following mailing lists which are open to any Porsche enthusiast:

Who runs Rennlist?

Rennlist is professionally administered and maintained. At any given time there is at least one administrator. You can always contact them by sending email to listmasters@rennlist.org or hotseat@rennlist.org.

We have written a charter for Rennlist which you can read by going to http://www.rennlist.org/charter.htm.

There have been other Porsche mailing lists before. What makes this one better?

Read our charter  at http://www.rennlist.org/charter.htm to find out why.

Subscribing and Unsubscribing

Subscribing and un-subscribing to a Rennlist mailing list is super easy. There are two general mechanism you can use. You can either send email commands to special email addresses or you can use the Web based interface. Both mechanisms are functionally equivalent; which one you use is totally up to you.

Note that subscribing is also called "joining" and Unsubscribing is also called "leaving".

How Do I Subscribe to a list using email?

To subscribe (join) a mailing list simply send an email message to lists@rennlist.org with a command indicating what list(s) you want to subscribe to. Any of the following commands will work:

sub listname
subscribe listname
join listname

You can include multiple commands in a single message. For example, to subscribe to both the 911 list and the racing list you would send a message to lists@rennlist.org with a message body containing:

join 911
join racing

How Do I Unsubscribe to a list using email?

To unsubscribe (leave) a mailing list simply send an email message to lists@rennlist.org with a command indicating what list(s) you want to leave. Any of the following commands will work:

unsub listname [optional: email address]
unsubscribe listname [optional: email address]
leave listname [optional: email address]

You can include multiple commands in a single message. For example, to leave both the 911 list and the racing lists you would send a message to lists@rennlist.org with a message body containing:

leave 911
leave racing

If you are subscribed to a mailing list with a different email address than the one you are currently mailing from, you can specify the email address to unsubscribe on the unsubscribe command line.

For example, if you were subscribed to "911" with a different email address than where you are currently mailing from, you could specify that email address in the unsubscribe command to lists@rennlist.org:

unsubscribe 911 jsmith@somewhere.com

If you specify an email address to unsubscribe, and that address is not yours, Rennlist will generate an unsubscribe confirmation message, and send it to the address that is being unsubscribed. You will then need to reply to that confirmation message (from any email address) in order to be unsubscribed. This is a security precaution, to ensure that people do not maliciously unsubscribe other people.

How Do I Change my subscription options using email?

You can change your subscription options by sending a message to lists@rennlist.org with a command indicating which list(s) you want to modify your settings for and what setting you want to change. You use the SET command to change your options:

set listname [option] [option] …

For example, if you subscribe to the 911, Boxster, and Racing lists, and you want to change all of them to digest mode you would send a message to lists@rennlist.org with a message body containing:

set 911 digest
set Boxster digest
set Racing digest

The following options are supported:

Email address:

To change your email address, use the email= option The syntax for this command is:

• set listname email=[new-email-address]

For example, if you are currently subscribed to 911 with the address bob@xacme.com and want to be subscribed as bob@xwidget.com you would send the command:

• set 911 email=bob@xwidget.com

Note: the text after the email= cannot have any spaces in it.

Member type:

One of these keywords:

mail - receive mail as it is contributed.
digest - receive daily digest with all the messages of the day.
index - receive daily index of the subject lines of the messages of the day.
nomail - receive no mail. - receive mail as it is contributed.
digest - receive daily digest with all the messages of the day.
index - receive daily index of the subject lines of the messages of the day.
nomail - receive no mail.

The following example would set your member type to digest. Example:

• set 911 digest

Acknowledgment:

One of these keywords:

ack - when contributing to the mailing list, receive a confirmation message each message was distributed.
noack - when contributing to the mailing list, do not receive a confirmation message that the message was distributed. - when contributing to the mailing list, receive a confirmation message each message was distributed.
noack - when contributing to the mailing list, do not receive a confirmation message that the message was distributed.

Example:

• set 911 ack

Receive Copies of your own posts (repro):

One of these keywords:

repro - receive a copy of messages you contribute to a mailing list when the messages are distributed to list (this is the default)
norepro - do not receive copies of your own postings. - receive a copy of messages you contribute to a mailing list when the messages are distributed to list (this is the default)
norepro - do not receive copies of your own postings.

Example:

• set 911 norepro

Password Setting:

You can set your password with the "pw=password" command. For instance, to set your password on "911" to be "hamburger" if you do not currently have a password, you would write:

• set 911 pw=hamburger

If you already have a password, you need to first specify the current password with the oldpw= keyword. If you do not specify your current password, Lyris will not let you change it. For example, if your current password on "jazztalk" is "flower" and you want to change it to "hamburger", you would write:

• set 911 oldpw=flower pw=hamburger

The quiet modifier:

If you add the word "quiet" to the set command, Lyris will not send a confirming message back, unless the set command fails for some reason. For instance, for a list called "jazz-discuss", you could set your membership to digest with this command:

• set 911 digest quiet

How Do I Subscribe to a list using the Web interface?

To subscribe (join) a mailing list using the Web interface go to the Enter Lists Page and click on the list you want. Then click on the "Join listname" button. You will be presented with a form where you can enter your subscription preferences.

How Do I Unsubscribe to a list using the Web interface?

To unsubscribe (leave) a mailing list using the Web interface go to the Enter Lists Page and click on the list you want. Then enter your email address and then click on the "Click here to enter listname" button. You will be presented with a form where you can modify your subscription preferences.

How Do I Change my subscription options using the Web interface?

To change your subscription options using the Web interface go to the Enter Lists Page and click on the list you want. Then enter your email address and then click on the "Click here to enter listname" button. You will be presented with a form where you can modify your subscription preferences.

Sending Messages to a list

To send a message to a list via email, simply address your message to the list address. Make sure you use a descriptive subject! The addresses for the lists are:

You can also send messages using the web interface. The following links will take you to each of the lists:

Can I cross-post to multiple lists at once?

In general, cross-posting is frowned upon. Unless you really feel you have a good reason to do it, don't!

To post to more than one list at a time simply include more than one list address on the To: line of your message.You must be subscribed to each list you post to. If a member is subscribed to more than one of the lists you post to he will only receive one copy of your message.

If You Use Digest Mode...

Many people use digest mode. With digest mode, you only get one message a day and that message contains all the postings that were made to the list during the day. 

One of the problems with digest mode is that when you want to reply to a message you have to create a new message in your email program and manually type the "Subject" line. If you don't type the exact same subject line that was found in the original post it becomes very difficult to follow "threads" of discussion. So, if you use digest mode make sure that the subject line on the reply is of the form "Re: <original subject>" where "<original subject>" should be replaced with the EXACT text of the original subject line.

Consider Including The List When You Answer Questions

Rennlist is about community. If you have a definitive answer to someone's question, consider replying to the entire list, and not just the person who asked it. This way everyone gets to see the information and the information becomes available online in the searchable archives making them more and more useful over time.

Of course, the converse is true as well: If you are not really sure about your answer, and are just making a suggestion or educated guess, you might want to avoid filling the archives with speculation by only responding directly to the person asking the question.

Another suggestion that will help keep the "signal to noise ratio" high is to hold off on answering the "easy" questions for a 24 hours. This way we'll all avoid having to wade through 20 responses to "How do I turn on the headlights?". If you just can't hold back, reply privately and make sure you tell the question asker that they most likely could have found their answer by searching the archives.

Don't use Rich-Text or HTML Mail

Modern email applications support very rich messaging formats, usually Rich-Text and/or HTML. This is really cool and neat and all that but the simple fact is that a large percentage of the other people out there cannot read mail sent in such a format. To them the mail you send is just a bunch of decipherable garbage. So please, disable HTML mail when posting to the Rennlist mailing lists (or any other mailing list for that matter).

Note that MIME encoding your mail is as "Content-Type: text/plain" is OK.

Miscellaneous

Here's some useful information regarding the Rennlist mailing lists.

What is the difference between being in digest mode and email mode?

There are two principle ways you can be subscribed to a list: digest mode or email mode. In email mode you will receive one email message for every message sent to the list.You will receive these messages as quickly as Rennlist can process them (usually within minutes of them being posted).

Digest mode means you receive a single email message (a digest) containing all of the posts to a list during the day. Digests are sent by the server at 3:01 AM EDST.

When does Rennlist send the digests?

• If there are no posts that particular day to the list, the Rennlist Server will not send an empty Digest or Index.
• The server compiles Digest’s individually, then sent in blocks of 250 messages per second. We are able to maintain this rate as the Rennlist server resides on a permanent T1 link. For 1,000 digests to be sent, the total system utilization is less then 60% of the network capability and total send time is less then 4 seconds. However, if you are logged on to the Rennlist web-site during that very brief time with an ISDN or faster connection, you may notice a slight decrease in page load times. Lower speed connection should not be effected.
• The List Digests are currently compiled at 12:01 AM PST.

Who is Lyris and why do I get mail from him/her?

Whenever you subscribe or unsubscribe to a list, change your settings, or post a message incorrectly you will receive an email message from lyris@rennlist.org. The list software running on Rennlist is called Lyris, and that's why this funny name is used.

Can I send messages to a list I'm not subscribed to?

No. The software is configured to disallow this to prevent spam.

I got a message from Rennlist saying that my account was "held". Why?

Rennlist is configured so that if it tries to send messages to your account, and can't for some reason, it will try multiple times. If, after several attempts it still can succeed your account will be placed in "held" mode. This means that no more list messages will be sent to you and you will not be able to post new messages until you are taken off "hold". Rennlist will try once a day, for 7 days to send you a message telling you that you have been held. After that you will have to resubscribe.

If you are held, and you have fixed the problem that was prevented mail from being delivered to you, you can be taken off "hold" by sending a mail message to unhold@rennlist.org.

Can rude people be kicked off the lists?

Absolutely! Our policy is that people who post inflammatory messages to the lists will be warned twice about their behavior. If they continue to be bad list citizens they will be permanently banned from the lists. Obvious spammers will be banned immediately.

Known Problems

We are constantly trying to improve the way this system works. We currently know about the following problems and are working to address them:

• There are no know problems at this time.

Do you have ideas and suggestions for making Rennlist better? Please let us know by sending mail to listmasters@rennlist.org.