Youth Guardian Services uses software called Listproc to handle the subscription (and mailing) processes of the YOUTH Lists. Listproc has a limited vocabulary - it can only understand a few key phrases and words. Anything else submitted to it will generate an error message.
If you submit a request to the Listproc, and it doesn't understand what you submitted, you will get an email back with the subject saying:
"Error Condition Re: Invalid Request"
Upon opening the message, there will be the following:
>Do You Yahoo!?
Unrecognized request "DO"
If you wish to contact a person, please send mail to
list-admin@Youth-Guard.Org.
To get general help on Listproc, please send the command:
HELP
in the body of the message to listproc@Youth-Guard.org.
PS: Any subsequent requests you might have submitted in the same
message have been ignored.
You may not recieve an error message exactly like this one - the line beginning with the ">" indicates the line in your email that caused the Listproc Error. There are several errors you may receive. The most common ones are listed below. You can click on the one that is most similar to the one you received to read a more detailed explanation.
1. ><HTML><FONT
FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
FACE="Arial"
LANG="0"><B>subscribe youth17-21
</B>Adam</FONT></HTML>
Unrecognized
request "<HTML><FONT"
2. >This is a
multi-part message in MIME format.
Unrecognized
request "THIS"
3. >subscribe
youth17-25
SUBSCRIBE:
Unknown list name YOUTH17-25
4. >unsubscribe
UNSUBSCRIBE:
Missing list name
5. >suscribe
youth13-17
Unrecognized
request "SUSCRIBE"
6. >Do You
Yahoo!?
Unrecognized
request "DO"
7. >__________________________________________
Unrecognized
request "__________________________________________"
8. I got an error
message, but it doesn't look like any of the ones above.
This error message is generated mostly from AOL users who have
defined various colors and fonts to use with their AOL e-mail. However,
in order to do this, AOL uses HTML in the email, and that in turn
confuses the Listproc software. The Listproc is trying to interpret the
HTML code, but it cannot. Please note, however, your subscription
request has been submitted to the Subscriptions Manager, and will be
processed in the next few days. There is no need to resubmit your
request.
This error message is generated because the email client you're
using (Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape Messenger, Eudora, Opera,
etc) has been set to send outgoing mail as HTML or Rich Text mail. MIME
is the standard format used when sending e-mail - it allows other email
clients to interpret what you've sent. But MIME format confuses
Listproc and it generates an error message. Your request has been
submitted to the Subscriptions Manager and there is no need to submit
it again.
>unsubscribe
UNSUBSCRIBE: Missing list name
In order to be subscribed or unsubscribed from a YGS email list, Listproc has to know which list to perform the action upon. Misspelling the list name will cause an error like the first one; leaving out the list name will cause an error message like the second one. Valid list names are:
If you receive an error message like
this one, your request has not been submitted to the Subscriptions
Manager. You must resubmit your request in
order to be subscribed to a YGS email list. If
you wish to be subscribed to a YOUTH list (YOUTH13-17, 17-21, 21-25 or
STR8), please visit our
subscriptions
page. Using this page will ensure that your email is in the correct
format and will not cause any errors to be generated by ListProc.
This error message is also a very important one to take note of -
Listproc is unforgiving of typographical errors. The word 'Subscribe'
must be spelled correctly; capitalization has no effect, but the letters
must be in the correct order. The same goes for 'Unsubscribe'. Once
again: If you receive an error message like this one, your request
has not been submitted to the Subscriptions Manager. You must
resubmit your request in order to be subscribed to a YGS email
list. If you wish to be subscribed to a YOUTH list (YOUTH13-17, 17-21,
21-25 or STR8), please visit our subscriptions
page. Using this page will ensure that your email is in the correct
format and will not cause any errors to be generated by ListProc.
>__________________________________________
Unrecognized request "__________________________________________"
These error messages are usually generated by the use of web-based
email systems, such as Yahoo.com or Hotmail.com. Yahoo and Hotmail both
insert line at the bottom of every email you send - even if you don't
know it. Yahoo inserts the 'Do you Yahoo?' line, and Hotmail inserts
the '_____________________________' at the end. In either case, these
errors may be ignored. Your request has been received by the
Subscriptions Manager and will be processed normally.
For example, you can get an error message like this:
>Hi! My name is Jack and I'd like to be subscribed to the youth
13-17 mailing list. My birthdate is
Unrecognized
request "HI!"
Listproc is trying to make sense of what you wrote - but it
can't. Notice it will only pick up the first word - that's because as
soon as a space appears,
Listproc stops, tries to process what came before and sees if it's
valid. If the command is valid, it will move on to the next word and
continue on its way.
But if the word before is invalid, it grinds to halt and sends off the
error message, never processing anything after the first word. That's
why in the error message
email, it says:
PS: Any
subsequent requests you might have submitted in the same
message have
been ignored.
This prevents Listproc from generating an error message for every
word in your email.
Each error message is also sent to a real person at Youth Guardian
Services - that person will get in touch with you if the error requires
intervention.
If you have tried to submit a request to Listproc, but can't seem to get it to work right, email list-admin@youth-guard.org and someone there will be able to help you out. Most of the guidelines here, however, should help resolve most matters.
Hope to see you on the lists!