What's equally as strange, this list is a standard listserver. Every list I've ever been on uses the same method to unsubscribe, it's not like PICLIST uses non-standard commands. Also, as is the case on every list I've ever subscribed to, the first thing you get when you subscribe is instructions for, among other things, unsubscribing! What do people do with these things? Sigh... Oh well. Martin R. Green elimar@bigfoot.com ---------- From: Ian Cameron[SMTP:I.A.Cameron@OPEN.AC.UK] Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 1997 3:29 PM To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: Re: suggestion as to Re: UNSUBSCRIBE > Is there some way to set up a filter so everyone in the world doesn't > get messages from the list with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line? This > seems to me to be the one biggest source of noise from the list. Maybe > a filter with UNSUBSCRIBE cut out to those on the list and an automated > response that told the sender how to unsubscribe? > > I don't know how much control the users have on MIT's list server, so > if this is impossible just ignore it. It should be possible to do something like this using procmail as a front end on the list server address, using it to forward all legitimate mail on to the list, and do something else with subscribe and unsubscribe requests. It should be possible to configure procmail in such a way that you could: 1 Delete subscribe and unsubscribe requests. 2 Reply to the sender with a help text on subscribing/unsubscribing. 3 Silently do what the sender originally intended. If you are getting really tired of these messages, you could filter mail locally using procmail, or a reasonable Windoze mailer which allows mail filtering. I use procmail to delete junk mail here, and it works reasonably well. At the moment I do not delete the subscribe/unsubscribe requests but maybe I will soon ! What I find incredible is that after a flood of messages on the topic of how to deal with these requests which get sent to the list, three messages have subsequently appeared on the list requesting unsubscription ! No wonder these people are unsubscribing, they obviously don't read the list, either that or they're brain dead :-) Cheers, Ian.