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The TFT BBS E-Mail List Administration, Information & Subscriber Options Portal

Contact the site administrators

Overview

This portal provides the following functions and services:

In order to access and manipulate the administrative interfaces, you must have your unique administrator or moderator password available for the list you wish to work with. Only authorised list owners and moderators may use these interfaces. Please note that a list moderator will have reduced access – permitting them the ability to modify only certain list parameters; whereas list owners may modify all aspecgs of the associated list.

Be aware also that this portal is provided merely as a convenience, and may be removed at any time at the soul discretion of the site administrators. If you are a member of one of the below lists, you may also modify your own subscription options using the appropriate URL.

If you are a would-be subscriber to one of our lists, you may also use the Subscriber Options links below to join the list of your choice. If you provide no subscriber password after joining the list, our server will create one for you which you may modify later if you wish. Once subscribed, the unique password will be E-Mailed to your subscribed E-Mail address, along with the welcome message. If the forum you have joined is configured with this function enabled by default, you will receive a reminder of this password on the first day of each month. This is for reference purposes only, you need take no action. This will occur unless the list member disables the reminders option – see the help section below for details.

The help section of this page details all of the commands, plus syntactical examples where appropriate of all of the commands a subscriber may issue to our mail server via carefully formatted E-Mail messages, in order to manipulate their own list subscription options.

Actually, it is technically possible to modify the subscription settings of another list member, or change the subscribed address using this method – but you must be aware of the exact password of the address whose options you wish to modify in order to do this. The help section below will provide further information on this point.

Interface Links

E-Mail ServiceHelp

Below is a detailed list, with syntactical examples where appropriate, of the command set supported by the TFT-BBS.Co.UK E-Mail interface when sending control messages via the SMTP mechanism to modify list subscription options, or query the list server regarding list-specific configurations.

You may insert your commands within either the body or subject line of your message. In general, however, we recommend that you only use the subject line to authenticate your message using your unique password. If you do that, you may find that the message structure is far less confusing and prone to user error.

All command and argument syntax should be in lower case, and the quotes and brackets in the explanations below should be omitted. We will provide you with working examples of each command plus appropriate argument syntax where appropriate

We must stress, however, that we encourage users to take advantage of the dedicated web portal for each E-Mail list. That way, your results are immediate, secured and guaranteed without the worry of mistaken control syntax in your messages preventing your desired action from being fulfilled, and avoiding the frustration that such failure can bring. It also negates the need to contact the support team at TFT BBS. That is always appreciated as there's always lots going on and self-help helps us also.

If you're a client who has a top level domain hosted by us and who currently has active E-Mail lists, you can find your administrative portal for each of your E-Mail lists at the above administration portals. If you are a member of one of the lists we host in any sub-domain, use the appropriate above URL for either list information or to edit your subscription options.

List specific commands, such as "subscribe", 'who' etc. should be sent to the request address for the specific list. For instance, for the Mac-Access.net Accessibility Network "Mac-Access" E-Mail forum, the address would be: mac-access-request@mac-access.net

Note that, in the event that you accidentally insert control commands into a message addressed to the list, the server will attempt to filter these messages out so that they do not appear on list for other members to see. This helps to protect your privacy, and reduces extraneous list traffic. Be aware, however, that your administrative request will not be honoured.

The following commands are valid server syntactical controle commands. Remember not to use brackets, quotes, less than or greater than symbols in the command structure, with the obvious exception of the "@" symbol which forms a part of the actual E-Mail address to or from which your command is being addressed. Where they are used here, they are simply for illustration purposes. For example, an argument for a command will be surrounded by brackets to denote that the enclosed text is an optional argument, whilst the command string itself will be enclosed within single quotes.

Below is a comprehensive and detailed listing of all server-related commands, with a description and, where appropriate, an illustration of the command's usage. In order to make it simpler for those with accessibility requirements to quickly find a specific command, you may navigate by heading between commands – or by list items where there are sub-commands.

confirm [confirmation string]

The "confirm" command is used to confirm an action. The confirmation-string is required and will be generated by our server and sent to you via a mailback confirmation notice. For instance, when you request a subscription to a list, you reply to the confirmation message, using the confirmation string which our server generates for you. You should not modify the confirmation string in any way.

end

The "end" command instructs our server to stop processing subsequent text in a message. Use this if your E-Mail client automatically adds a signature or other text at the bottom of your message which does not form a valid server command or argument syntax. Inserting the "end" command will cause anything below it to be ignored by our server, and not treated as a control string. The "end" command should be placed on a line by itself in the body or subject line of your control message. This is true of most control commands, although those which have arguments may be separated from the argument by one or more spaces.

That said, it is possible that some control strings will work with multiple commands on the same row of text, you may well find that the server tries to interpret your commands as arguments to a previous command. Therefore, you'll find that things work better if you segregate them as suggested. The 'end' command has no arguments and would usually be inserted only in the body of a message.

help

The "help" command causes our server to send you a help message, similar to this description, (but less verbose), as an E-Mail message. Note; you do not need to use a password or be subscribed to a mailing list to generate this text by use of the "help" command. The "help" command requires no arguments, and should be placed on a line by itself in either the body or subject line of your control message.

info

The "info" command returns information pertaining to the specific mailing list whose request address you used when sending the command. For instance, sending a message to the Mac-Access request address with the "info" command in the body or subject line of your message will cause the server to E-Mail you back a short description of the Mac-Access E-Mail forum.

Please be aware that this command will only work properly if the list administrator has defined the appropriate string within the list's configuration. If you issue the "info" command to one of our E-Mail forums and it fails, please contact the list owner, if you're aware of their contact details – or contact TFT BBS Support for further assistance.

list

The "list" command causes the server to E-Mail you a complete listing, subject to various factors, of all of the public E-Mail lists hosted at our server. Note that, in certain cases, lists may not be displayed because they are used for specific purposes and, therefore, not open to subscribers. These are known as private lists, and will never accept commands sent to their request address. So, to all intents and purposes, unless you are a member of one of our private lists, you'll never be made aware of its existence by use of the "list" command.

Password

"password" [old password] [new password] "address"=[address]

"password" Retrieve or change your password. With no arguments, this returns your current password for a specific E-Mail forum. With optional arguments [old password] [new password], you can change your password. This is your password for a specific E-Mail list on our server. So, if you are subscribed, for example, to both the Mac-Access and Techno-Chat E-Mail lists, you will have a different password for each forum by default.

This option can help you to change your passwords on an individual list basis to something more memorable for you. You will need your old password in order to change it, obviously; so you could simply issue the controll command 'password' with no optional arguments to have your current password E-Mailed to you.

The "password" command may be used in either the body or the subject line of your message, provided it has either no appended text, or you use the "end" command to instruct the server to disregard any further text in your message – (see above for details of how to use the "end" command).

So for example, to retrieve your password for the Mac-Access E-Mail forum, simply send a control request message to the Mac-Access request address with the word "password" in either the body or the subject line, (without the quotes). The server will then send you a mailback immediately containing your password for the Mac-Access E-Mail forum. Note that, if you click the above link, the password command will automatically be inserted into your message's subject line for you.

When modifying your password, if your E-Mail client automatically appends signature text to your message, after you've entered the "password" command with any required arguments, append it with the "end" command on a line by itself, to instruct the server that you've finished entering control commands, and to ignore any further text.

If you used our example link above to retrieve your password and then want to change it to something more memorable to you, simply send another message with the "password" command in either the body or the subject line of your message, immediately followed by your old password, one or more spaces, then a new password of your choice. If you are issuing the password control command from an address other than your currently subscribed address, you will need to specify that address with the "address"=[address] argument, where the argument = the subscribed address for the relevant E-Mail list.

Assuming then that your password for the Mac-Access E-Mail forum is currently set to the string "abcdefgh", and you want to change it to the string "hgfedcba", you could use something like the below make the change. Note that this is for illustration only, and won't work for you. But if you click here you'll see a message open in your default E-Mail client with the above example password strings in the subject line.

Please remember that, for security purposes,, the server's response messages are always sent to the subscribed address – irrespective of the addres used to initiate the control request. So, assuming your subscribed E-Mail address is "myname@mydomain.com", and your alternative address, the one from which you're initiating the control address is "myaddress2@mydomain.com", your password commands would work like this:

To initiate the same control request using only the subscribed address, simply omit the trailing address command, plus the subsequent argument, in the password command. Oh – and remember, no quotes or brackets.

set

set [artument] set or view your membership options using the "set" command.