Re: Removal from list
On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 05:12:00PM -0800, Erik Steffl wrote: brian moore wrote: On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 03:08:15PM -0800, Erik Steffl wrote: brian moore wrote: well, the confusing thing is that the address that I tried to unsubscribe by explicitly listing it in the subject (I have the same problem) is exactly the same as the one listed as similar. And since I explicitly asked for specific address to be unsubscribed I see no reason for SmartList to try to figure out what the address is from headers. Sure there is. For the simple reason that someone -changed- the defaults so that your name would not match. I almost understand what you are saying (here and below) but I would think that it would be a fallback behaviour when EXACT match is not found. I guess that's why I am so puzzled because in my case the EXACTLY EXACT match is found. what defaults can change so that [EMAIL PROTECTED] would not match [EMAIL PROTECTED] You're thinking digital. Don't. The numeric value of matching is a number between -32767 and +32767 of the 'closeness' of the match. It is, effectively, a floating point number between -1.0 and +1.0, non-inclusive (ie, just the fractional part.) Because of the nature of floating point on digital devices, you are HIGHLY unlikely to get an -exact- match. Here's a simple example for your calculator: what is sqrt(2) * sqrt(2)? Is it 2? Logically, yes, it is... but is that the answer your calculator will give? It's not what bc gives: [durin:~] 134 % echo 'sqrt(2) * sqrt(2)' | bc -l 1. Better file a bug against bc since it's just as broken as you contend SmartList is. There is no configuration option to say only do exact matches. There is only an option for how to round the numbers. (ie, round 0.5 to 1 or 'true', but 0.4 would round to 0.0, or 'false'). That is the value that was changed. Effectively the list requires that 'sqrt(2) * sqrt(2)' evaluate to 2... but in the real world, that won't happen. smartlist as a program (or set of program) probably yes. smartlist as a mailing list system (or as particular installation of smartlist) does not. No, the fault lies not in the software, but in the person who changed it. (cf Hamlet) still, why is it that exact match does not take priority over all other approximate ones? I haven't thought much about mailservers but generaly the idea is to use deterministic algorithm first, if that fails try heuristics... 'apt-get source smartlist' and change the source yourself then. When properly set up (and not fucked with), it works great. That someone fucked with it and then it breaks doesn't mean the software itself is broken. Good luck getting anyone to use the 'improved' version, though, when the standard version works fine until someone decides to 'fix' it. or is it not exact match? why wouldn't [EMAIL PROTECTED] (that I want to unsubscribe) be an exact match for [EMAIL PROTECTED] (in the list of subscribers)? Because 0. isn't 1.0 and 'sqrt(2) * sqrt(2)' isn't 2.0 on a computer. -- CueCat decoder .signature by Larry Wall: #!/usr/bin/perl -n printf Serial: %s Type: %s Code: %s\n, map { tr/a-zA-Z0-9+-/ -_/; $_ = unpack 'u', chr(32 + length()*3/4) . $_; s/\0+$//; $_ ^= C x length; } /\.([^.]+)/g;
Re: Removal from list
Now I have the same problem. I tried it several times written the unsubscribe in the subject and in the body. But it doesn't work. Thats the answer I get: You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. What I did find were the following approximate matches: 1745 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 32752 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 822 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 18529 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 432 [EMAIL PROTECTED]18227 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 741 [EMAIL PROTECTED]18227 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 623 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17202 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 791 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17202 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1197 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 16631 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 704 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 15460 [EMAIL PROTECTED] What I find really interesting is that my e-mail adress is contained 9 times! And this problem must be new. I have subscribed and unsubscribed several times already. And evertime it worked. Marco Herrn - Original Message - From: Eileen Orbell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Cc: Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 8:09 PM Subject: Re: Removal from list Yes Colin I tried that as well. Only 48 hours till I fly too. Im trying though to get off this list as quietly as possible.. At 04:54 PM 12/20/2000 +, you wrote: Eileen Orbell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So following the instructions provided at the bottom of the debian email: To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. I did just that. But oh dear here is the reply: You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. What I did find were the following approximate matches: 1121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 32752 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 25797 [EMAIL PROTECTED] But wait those are my email address's h Confused ? Yes I am... Have you tried specifying your e-mail address explicitly, that is using the subject line unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED]? I thought the unsubscription failure mail normally suggested that. At least, it did the last time I unsubscribed from a Debian list: # If you recognise one of these addresses as being the one you # wanted to unsubscribe, send in a new unsubscribe request # containing the text: unsubscribe the_address_you_meant. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] Eileen Orbell Software Internet Applications Capitol College mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] This is Linux Country. On a quiet night you can hear Windows 98 reboot! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Removal from list
Marco Herrn [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Now I have the same problem. I tried it several times written the unsubscribe in the subject and in the body. But it doesn't work. Thats the answer I get: You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. What I did find were the following approximate matches: 1745 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 32752 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 822 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 18529 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 432 [EMAIL PROTECTED]18227 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 741 [EMAIL PROTECTED]18227 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 623 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17202 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 791 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17202 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1197 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 16631 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 704 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 15460 [EMAIL PROTECTED] What I find really interesting is that my e-mail adress is contained 9 times! And this problem must be new. I have subscribed and unsubscribed several times already. And evertime it worked. I'll ditto this. I need to unsubscribe from the list during the next week because of a holiday shutdown and I had a similar experience to Marco and Eileen. I'm also no newbie. I've subscribed and unsubscribed several times in the past with no trouble. If this happens to you be sure to send a complaint to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and explain what's happening. Gary
Re: Removal from list
On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 10:53:45PM +0100, Marco Herrn wrote: Now I have the same problem. I tried it several times written the unsubscribe in the subject and in the body. But it doesn't work. Thats the answer I get: You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. What I did find were the following approximate matches: 1745 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 32752 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 822 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 18529 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 432 [EMAIL PROTECTED]18227 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 741 [EMAIL PROTECTED]18227 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 623 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17202 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 791 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17202 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1197 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 16631 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 704 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 15460 [EMAIL PROTECTED] What I find really interesting is that my e-mail adress is contained 9 times! Because it found 9 'similar' things and wasn't sure which you were talking about. The left hand side is 'addresses on the list', the right hand side is 'I think it matches this address-like-thing I found in your mail'. Admittedly SmartList isn't exactly clear about the meanings there, but I've played with SmartList for years and know it well. :) SmartList uses some weird logic to find address-like-things in mail headers because, well, people suck and are subscribed based on all sorts of things other than their 'From:' header (it could be their 'reply-to' or their 'envelope-from' or 'sender:' and even then it may or may not include a hostname like mail.example.com instead of just example.com handling mailing lists sucks when so many clients and users are broken). And this problem must be new. I have subscribed and unsubscribed several times already. And evertime it worked. Someone changed the thresholds in SmartList (those funny numbers in the 3rd column). The defaults (from ~list/.etc/rc.init on a Debian machine): match_threshold = 30730 # for close matches to the list medium_threshold= 28672 # for not so close matches to the list loose_threshold = 24476 # for loosely finding your name auto_off_threshold= $medium_threshold # for auto-unsubscribing bouncers off_threshold = $loose_threshold # for unsubscribing reject_threshold= $match_threshold # for rejecting subscriptions submit_threshold= $medium_threshold # for permitting submissions Clearly the first line in your quote above is more close (32752 30730) than is needed in a stock install of SmartList and is the -only- one that is above the 'off_threshold', so it should remove you just fine. It should have matched your address, removed it and been done here: if $multigram -b1 -l$off_threshold -x$listreq -x$listaddr $remov $dist \ 2/dev/null then $echo $echo You have been removed from the list. Instead it fell through to: else $echo You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. if test ! -z $unsub_assist -a 0 != $unsub_assist then $echo What I did find were the following approximate matches: $echo $multigram -m -b$unsub_assist -l-32767 -x$listreq -x$listaddr $dist \ $tmprequest (etc) Note that it opens the limit (-l) on the second part to show you everything, even things far looser than what would normally match. The numbers shouldn't be tweaked casually, but aparrently someone did that. They should undo that tweaking. -- CueCat decoder .signature by Larry Wall: #!/usr/bin/perl -n printf Serial: %s Type: %s Code: %s\n, map { tr/a-zA-Z0-9+-/ -_/; $_ = unpack 'u', chr(32 + length()*3/4) . $_; s/\0+$//; $_ ^= C x length; } /\.([^.]+)/g;
Re: Removal from list
brian moore wrote: On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 10:53:45PM +0100, Marco Herrn wrote: Now I have the same problem. I tried it several times written the unsubscribe in the subject and in the body. But it doesn't work. Thats the answer I get: You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. What I did find were the following approximate matches: 1745 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 32752 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 822 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 18529 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 432 [EMAIL PROTECTED]18227 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 741 [EMAIL PROTECTED]18227 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 623 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17202 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 791 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17202 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1197 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 16631 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 704 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 15460 [EMAIL PROTECTED] What I find really interesting is that my e-mail adress is contained 9 times! Because it found 9 'similar' things and wasn't sure which you were talking about. The left hand side is 'addresses on the list', the right hand side is 'I think it matches this address-like-thing I found in your mail'. Admittedly SmartList isn't exactly clear about the meanings there, but I've played with SmartList for years and know it well. :) SmartList uses some weird logic to find address-like-things in mail headers because, well, people suck and are subscribed based on all sorts of things other than their 'From:' header (it could be their 'reply-to' or their 'envelope-from' or 'sender:' and even then it may or may not include a hostname like mail.example.com instead of just example.com handling mailing lists sucks when so many clients and users are broken). well, the confusing thing is that the address that I tried to unsubscribe by explicitly listing it in the subject (I have the same problem) is exactly the same as the one listed as similar. And since I explicitly asked for specific address to be unsubscribed I see no reason for SmartList to try to figure out what the address is from headers. one way or another, I cannot send email from subscribed address (so that all from/reply-to match) and I cannot unsubscribe (not sure if there is causal relationship between the two). erik And this problem must be new. I have subscribed and unsubscribed several times already. And evertime it worked. Someone changed the thresholds in SmartList (those funny numbers in the 3rd column). The defaults (from ~list/.etc/rc.init on a Debian machine): match_threshold = 30730 # for close matches to the list medium_threshold= 28672 # for not so close matches to the list loose_threshold = 24476 # for loosely finding your name auto_off_threshold= $medium_threshold # for auto-unsubscribing bouncers off_threshold = $loose_threshold # for unsubscribing reject_threshold= $match_threshold # for rejecting subscriptions submit_threshold= $medium_threshold # for permitting submissions Clearly the first line in your quote above is more close (32752 30730) than is needed in a stock install of SmartList and is the -only- one that is above the 'off_threshold', so it should remove you just fine. It should have matched your address, removed it and been done here: if $multigram -b1 -l$off_threshold -x$listreq -x$listaddr $remov $dist \ 2/dev/null then $echo $echo You have been removed from the list. Instead it fell through to: else $echo You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. if test ! -z $unsub_assist -a 0 != $unsub_assist then $echo What I did find were the following approximate matches: $echo $multigram -m -b$unsub_assist -l-32767 -x$listreq -x$listaddr $dist \ $tmprequest (etc) Note that it opens the limit (-l) on the second part to show you everything, even things far looser than what would normally match. The numbers shouldn't be tweaked casually, but aparrently someone did that. They should undo that tweaking. -- CueCat decoder .signature by Larry Wall: #!/usr/bin/perl -n printf Serial: %s Type: %s Code: %s\n, map { tr/a-zA-Z0-9+-/ -_/; $_ = unpack 'u', chr(32 + length()*3/4) . $_; s/\0+$//; $_ ^= C x length; } /\.([^.]+)/g; -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Removal from list
On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 03:08:15PM -0800, Erik Steffl wrote: brian moore wrote: well, the confusing thing is that the address that I tried to unsubscribe by explicitly listing it in the subject (I have the same problem) is exactly the same as the one listed as similar. And since I explicitly asked for specific address to be unsubscribed I see no reason for SmartList to try to figure out what the address is from headers. Sure there is. For the simple reason that someone -changed- the defaults so that your name would not match. one way or another, I cannot send email from subscribed address (so that all from/reply-to match) and I cannot unsubscribe (not sure if there is causal relationship between the two). There is. Again, this is how it works: SmartList sees a name to remove and looks it up against the list. It -always- has a certain fuzziness it allows (to allow for things like capitalization oddities: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] are almost certainly the same address and making people play guessing games to get case right is stupid). So it gets your request and goes through the subscriber list to find who it could be. If there is one match with a value the 'off_threshold', which is, by default, 24476, then that address is assumed to be correctly matched and it is removed. If there is more than one or none, there's a problem: either the person simply isn't on the list with an address at all like they're mailing from, or they may need to insert or remove a hostname to make it closer. In the post I responded to, there -was- one and precisely one address with a 'closeness' of more than 24476. It should have removed that person happily then but it didn't. Now, add in a bit more info: it used to work for some people, and then 'something changed somewhere' and now they can't get off any of the lists at debian. The only thing that matches that behavior is that someone has either changed ~list/.bin/unsubscribe and broken it completely or they have changed the 'match_threshold' values in a misguided effort to 'fix' something. (The per-list settings are hardlinked to ~list/.etc/rc.init, so changing the 'master' file will affect all the lists.) SmartList is working fine. It is doing -exactly- what it was supposed to. In this case, it's being asked to either be so picky about 'exactness' of the match that it isn't possible (which is greater, 0.99.. or 1? -- ask a mathemetician and ask a floating point chip heck, ask a fpu what '1/3 + 2/3' is, and it won't be 1) or so loose that damned-near-anything matches, and it doesn't know who to remove when it could be any of a thousand people. (The 'do you mean..?' mail only lists the top contenders... it deliberately does not list all potential matches.) The problem is simply that someone has changed these settings and needs to change them back. -- CueCat decoder .signature by Larry Wall: #!/usr/bin/perl -n printf Serial: %s Type: %s Code: %s\n, map { tr/a-zA-Z0-9+-/ -_/; $_ = unpack 'u', chr(32 + length()*3/4) . $_; s/\0+$//; $_ ^= C x length; } /\.([^.]+)/g;
Re: Removal from list
brian moore wrote: On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 03:08:15PM -0800, Erik Steffl wrote: brian moore wrote: well, the confusing thing is that the address that I tried to unsubscribe by explicitly listing it in the subject (I have the same problem) is exactly the same as the one listed as similar. And since I explicitly asked for specific address to be unsubscribed I see no reason for SmartList to try to figure out what the address is from headers. Sure there is. For the simple reason that someone -changed- the defaults so that your name would not match. I almost understand what you are saying (here and below) but I would think that it would be a fallback behaviour when EXACT match is not found. I guess that's why I am so puzzled because in my case the EXACTLY EXACT match is found. what defaults can change so that [EMAIL PROTECTED] would not match [EMAIL PROTECTED] one way or another, I cannot send email from subscribed address (so that all from/reply-to match) and I cannot unsubscribe (not sure if there is causal relationship between the two). There is. Again, this is how it works: SmartList sees a name to remove and looks it up against the list. It -always- has a certain fuzziness it allows (to allow for things like capitalization oddities: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] are almost certainly the same address and making people play guessing games to get case right is stupid). So it gets your request and goes through the subscriber list to find who it could be. If there is one match with a value the 'off_threshold', which is, by default, 24476, then that address is assumed to be correctly matched and it is removed. If there is more than one or none, there's a problem: either the person simply isn't on the list with an address at all like they're mailing from, or they may need to insert or remove a hostname to make it closer. In the post I responded to, there -was- one and precisely one address with a 'closeness' of more than 24476. It should have removed that person happily then but it didn't. Now, add in a bit more info: it used to work for some people, and then 'something changed somewhere' and now they can't get off any of the lists at debian. The only thing that matches that behavior is that someone has either changed ~list/.bin/unsubscribe and broken it completely or they have changed the 'match_threshold' values in a misguided effort to 'fix' something. (The per-list settings are hardlinked to ~list/.etc/rc.init, so changing the 'master' file will affect all the lists.) SmartList is working fine. smartlist as a program (or set of program) probably yes. smartlist as a mailing list system (or as particular installation of smartlist) does not. It is doing -exactly- what it was supposed to. In this case, it's being asked to either be so picky about 'exactness' of the match that it isn't possible (which is greater, 0.99.. or 1? -- ask a mathemetician and ask a floating point chip heck, ask a fpu what '1/3 + 2/3' is, and it won't be 1) or so loose that damned-near-anything matches, and it doesn't know who to remove when it could be any of a thousand people. (The 'do you mean..?' mail only lists the top contenders... it deliberately does not list all potential matches.) The problem is simply that someone has changed these settings and needs to change them back. still, why is it that exact match does not take priority over all other approximate ones? I haven't thought much about mailservers but generaly the idea is to use deterministic algorithm first, if that fails try heuristics... or is it not exact match? why wouldn't [EMAIL PROTECTED] (that I want to unsubscribe) be an exact match for [EMAIL PROTECTED] (in the list of subscribers)? erik
Re: Removal from list
Eileen Orbell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So following the instructions provided at the bottom of the debian email: To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. I did just that. But oh dear here is the reply: You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. What I did find were the following approximate matches: 1121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 32752 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 25797 [EMAIL PROTECTED] But wait those are my email address's h Confused ? Yes I am... Have you tried specifying your e-mail address explicitly, that is using the subject line unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED]? I thought the unsubscription failure mail normally suggested that. At least, it did the last time I unsubscribed from a Debian list: # If you recognise one of these addresses as being the one you # wanted to unsubscribe, send in a new unsubscribe request # containing the text: unsubscribe the_address_you_meant. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Removal from list
An alternate solution, since I assume you want the mail once you get back from your trip, is to use a filter program to send all mail to this list to /dev/null. procmail, mailagent, and filter can do the job. HTH, -D On Wed, Dec 20, 2000 at 10:28:50AM -0500, Eileen Orbell wrote: Hi all, I read a few weeks back the many attempts the Professor had made to be removed from this list and through his final frustrations he GOT a little mad. Anyway, I am leaving the country for 3 weeks tomorrow and felt it was better to unsubscribe rather than come back to 3 thousand plus emails. So following the instructions provided at the bottom of the debian email: To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. I did just that. But oh dear here is the reply: You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. What I did find were the following approximate matches: 1121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 32752 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 25797 [EMAIL PROTECTED] But wait those are my email address's h Confused ? Yes I am... Eileen Orbell Software Internet Applications Capitol College mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] This is Linux Country. On a quiet night you can hear Windows 98 reboot! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Removal from list
Yes Colin I tried that as well. Only 48 hours till I fly too. Im trying though to get off this list as quietly as possible.. At 04:54 PM 12/20/2000 +, you wrote: Eileen Orbell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So following the instructions provided at the bottom of the debian email: To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. I did just that. But oh dear here is the reply: You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. What I did find were the following approximate matches: 1121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 32752 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 25797 [EMAIL PROTECTED] But wait those are my email address's h Confused ? Yes I am... Have you tried specifying your e-mail address explicitly, that is using the subject line unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED]? I thought the unsubscription failure mail normally suggested that. At least, it did the last time I unsubscribed from a Debian list: # If you recognise one of these addresses as being the one you # wanted to unsubscribe, send in a new unsubscribe request # containing the text: unsubscribe the_address_you_meant. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] Eileen Orbell Software Internet Applications Capitol College mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] This is Linux Country. On a quiet night you can hear Windows 98 reboot!
Re: Removal from list
On Wed, 20 Dec 2000 at 14:09:58 -0500, Eileen Orbell wrote: Yes Colin I tried that as well. Only 48 hours till I fly too. Im trying though to get off this list as quietly as possible.. OK - in that case I think my best advice is to mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] and ask them to unsubscribe you manually. They've been pretty responsive any time I've dealt with them. Regards, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Removal from list
Colin Watson wrote: Yes Colin I tried that as well. Only 48 hours till I fly too. Im trying though to get off this list as quietly as possible.. OK - in that case I think my best advice is to mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] and ask them to unsubscribe you manually. They've been pretty responsive any time I've dealt with them. It's been taken care of. Cheers, Remco.
Re: Removal from list
Eileen Orbell wrote: Hi all, I read a few weeks back the many attempts the Professor had made to be removed from this list and through his final frustrations he GOT a little mad. Anyway, I am leaving the country for 3 weeks tomorrow and felt it was better to unsubscribe rather than come back to 3 thousand plus emails. So following the instructions provided at the bottom of the debian email: To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. I did just that. But oh dear here is the reply: You have not been removed, I couldn't find your name on the list. What I did find were the following approximate matches: 1121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 32752 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 25797 [EMAIL PROTECTED] But wait those are my email address's h Confused ? Yes I am... Not confusing at all. Look at this: From the subscription notice: To unsubscribe from this list, send unsubscribe in the message body (the subject should be blank) to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and you will be removed. And from the footer: To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] So which is correct? It's no wonder ppl get confused about unsubscribing, and maybe even a little mad about such contradictory advice.. John P Foster