Mailing List - AUS-Tasmania

started 22 November 1998
Administrator Meryl Yost

The AUS-Tasmania mailing list is an e-mail list for the discussion of Tasmanian genealogy and history. Rootsweb hosts the mailing list and subscriptions are free. When you subscribe to the mailing list you will receive all e-mail messages that are sent to the list. There are currently 644 subscribers (30-Jun-2016) to the list. The list is not moderated, therefore any posting to the list will be sent straight to everyone subscribed. Please do try and keep your postings to the discussion of Tasmanian genealogy or history. The messages are archived for people to view later - useless discussion is therefore discouraged. The average message number per day is 2.5 (based on last month). Digest subscribers receive a digest when there has been about 8 messages sent to the list.

How to subscribe
How to unsubscribe
How to post messages
Guidelines for messages
Not Acceptable messages
Virus Issues
Protecting yourself and your computer
Viewing message archives
If you have any problems
ISP Filter Problems

How to subscribe

For mail mode (in which the messages arrive one by one), send a message to
AUS-Tasmania-L-request@rootsweb.com
that contains the word
subscribe
in the subject and in the message body, and nothing else (no signature).

If you prefer digest mode (in which several messages arrive together), send a message to
AUS-Tasmania-D-request@rootsweb.com
that contains the word
subscribe
in the subject and in the message body, and nothing else (no signature).

How to unsubscribe

For mail mode (in which the messages arrive one by one), send a message to
AUS-Tasmania-L-request@rootsweb.com
that contains the word
unsubscribe
in the message body, and nothing else (no signature or subject).

For digest mode (in which several messages arrive together), send a message to
AUS-Tasmania-D-request@rootsweb.com
that contains the word
unsubscribe
in the message body, and nothing else (no signature or subject).

How to post messages

To have your messages forwarded to both AUS-Tasmania-L and AUS-Tasmania-D lists, your e-mail should be sent to AUS-Tasmania-L@rootsweb.com. Messages sent there will appear in both modes. Please note that messages to the list must be sent in Plain Text, not in HTML mode.

Guidelines for messages

Please include your name and where you are from in your signature. This could help people to point you in the direction of resources in your area.
Subject line should give a precise indication of your query.
Please keep your signature tag lines to 4 lines or less.
If you are replying to a Digest message don't forget to change the subject line from the Digest number to an appropriate subject.
Messages are easier to read if the SURNAMES are typed in capital letters.
It is considered impolite to type ALL of your message in capital letters.
The list is set to send replies to the original poster, not to the whole list. Click on Reply All in your e-mail program if you would like the reply to go to the original poster AND to the whole list.
Please don't hesitate to ask any thing that you want to regarding Tasmanian history or genealogy. Even if you think it might be a "trivial" question, the answer could give helpful information to all of us.
You might include the following in your messages:
- The Tasmanian surnames that you are researching.
- Specific queries about the Tasmanian individuals or families that you are researching.
- Queries or information that you may have about places in Tasmania.
- Queries or information about the resources available for Tasmanian research.
- Requests for or offers of look ups for Tasmanian research.
- Any helpful hints that you would like to share with the list.

NOT ACCEPTABLE messages

DO NOT post messages to the list about research questions other than Tasmanian.

If you have queries that aren't Tasmanian check the Rootsweb list at https://mailinglists.rootsweb.com/listindexes/legacy/intl/AUS/ to find other Australian mailing lists.

DO NOT post messages or tag lines to the list that are commercial in content. If you are a non profit organisation or non profit individual postings are allowed about new publications but they MUST NOT include the price. You may include a description and a contact e-mail or web page for further information. Please e-mail the list Admin for permission first.

DO NOT forward messages sent to you personally or to other lists without the permission of the original poster.

DO NOT post messages to the list that may breach copyright. This includes forwarding personal e-mails, providing information from books, manuscripts, microform or digital format, without copyright permission.

DO NOT post messages to the list for the purpose of soliciting. Anyone found doing this will be immediately un-subscribed.

DO NOT FLAME (be rude to) other subscribers. Anyone found doing this will be immediately removed from the list.

DO NOT post messages about viruses (see below).

Virus Issues

DO NOT post messages to the list about viruses. The list is only for the discussion of Tasmanian genealogy and history.
It is important that you keep your anti-virus software up to date at all times.
Do not open any attachments unless you are sure that they are safe.
Any subscribers found to be passing viruses on to other subscribers will be un-subscribed until they are virus free.
If someone advises you that you have a virus don't use your e-mail program until you have cleaned up your system.

General Virus Information Page by Peter Lakeman http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~surreal/VirusInfo/
Virus discussion mailing list VIRUS-DISCUSSION-L can be found at https://mailinglists.rootsweb.com/listindexes/legacy/other/Internet_Help/VIRUS-DISCUSSION.html
Rootsweb blocks all e-mails with attachments and only allows text messages https://support.rootsweb.com/announce.html#virus
To get the run down on virus attachments, in a not too technical manner, see http://www.viruslist.com

Protecting yourself and your computer

by Howard Picken

Keeping up-to-date anti-virus software and installing firewall software can go a long way to preventing viruses spreading email addresses and other personal information from user's computers, it will not however prevent spam from happening.
Below are a few tips and ideas to help you deal with spam and protecting yourself.

Most users have lax security on their web browsers that allow cookies (little packages of information) and scripts (small programs) to be downloaded on to their computer so that everytime they start their web browser they send out user's personal information to various places around the world. These scripts and cookies are normally downloaded without the knowledge of the user. The proper setup of one's browser can go along way to stopping this from happening. Change your security and privacy settings to ask your permission before downloading any information to your computer. If you don't know how, find someone who does.

Some of these scripts are called "AD WARE" or "Spyware". Gator, Kazaa and Red Sherriff are three of the most common ones. Free programs are available and can effectively remove any files from computers that have these scripts installed. Basically, any site that has advertising on it or requires your to login will most likely download (or try to) a cookie or script on a user's computer. One night of browsing 20 or so web sites might download 3 or 4 of these files and it is these files that could be the danger as far as sending personal information else where for spammers to get hold of.

The best policy is to;

Choose an ISP (Internet Service Provider) who has spam filtering or processes such as black-listing or grey-listing as part of your account package.
Install an Ad or Spyware removal program
Install anti-virus software
Install a personal firewall program.
If your ISP does not provide spam blocking/filtering then install a Spam filtering program. These programs usually integrate themselves into your email program to filter spam out and will go a long way to helping you manage spam.
And finally, always keep your email program up-to-date.

A combination of all the above six items will effectively block nearly all spam, almost all viruses and remove tracking programmes from a user's computer. After all this change your email address, if you really want to, because your old one will still be in circulation by spammers for a long time afterwards.

"Remember, as with anti-virus software, always keep any protection software up-to-date. There are new ways of hacking into computers or obtaining personal information being found everyday."

Viewing message archives

All messages which are posted to this mailing list are stored in an archive at Rootsweb, and you can browse through this archive to read messages that were posted in the past, including messages which were posted before you subscribed to the list.

There are two types of searches available for viewing past messages.

1. RootsWeb Mailing Lists -- Interactive Search
This feature lets you search for messages according to information such as author, subject or message content. The URL for the archive is:
https://mailinglists.rootsweb.com/listindexes/

When prompted for the name of the list, type "AUS-Tasmania" (without the quotes), and then click on "Submit Query". You can then select a year to search and type in a query to search for.

2. RootsWeb Threaded Archives
https://lists.rootsweb.com/hyperkitty/
If using this feature for the first time, you will need to click on the "Create an account" link, and then follow the instructions given to create a user account for yourself.
If you have already created an account, you can log in directly by going to https://lists.rootsweb.com/hyperkitty/AUS-TASMANIA-L/.

If you have any problems

There are occasionally problems with the server that processes the mailing list e-mails. If you haven't received any mail for a few days check the yellow box at Rootsweb Help Desk
If the mailing list server is down there is absolutely no point sending a "I haven't received any mail" message to the mailing list.

Rootsweb mailing lists sometimes remove subscribers automatically if problems occur when sending messages to the subscriber's e-mail address. This can be due to problems at the subscriber's local ISP (Internet Service Provider). If you find that you haven't received any messages for a few days, it may be that you have been removed from the mailing list as a result of such a problem. You can check to see if you are subscribed at Rootsweb Password Central
If you ISP continues to refuse your Rootsweb mail you will need to contact them to resolve the problem.

If you have any other problems with the mailing list, please e-mail the List Admin Meryl Yost.

ISP Filter Problems

by Howard Pricken

With increased traffic in Spam, Internet Service Providers (ISP) are coming under increased pressure to filter spam out of our Email boxes. This is an horrendous task and has many pros and cons.

Some ISPs have been implementing Spam filtering on their mail servers and this is having marginal success.

Spam and uninvited mail filtering can be done in a number of ways, mainly;

Search the sender's email address and the email for in appropriate words.
The problem with this approach is that words like "Sussex", "Dickenson", "Alshith" and "Rootsweb" may be blocked because they contain inappropriate words.
A second approach is to use a list of known spammers. These lists (known as black hole lists BHL) are available from various sources on the web and are updated by people who subscribe to these lists and report any addresses for which they have received spam from.

ISPs use theses lists to check each email coming in to see if the address is on the BHL and if it is automatically respond to the spam email by saying that your email address is not a valid one (even though it is). Most spamming software will then remove the "invalid" address from it's list and not send email to your address any more. Eventually, it is hoped, as far as spammers are concerned, there won't be any valid addresses and thus reduce spam on the net. Suffice to say there is plenty of ways around this for spammers.

The big downside to this is if someone using the same ISP as yourself starts sending spam and a person getting this spam reports to the BHL then the BHL "may" block all of the mail from one domain (eg somewhere.com). If you happen to have an email address with xxx@somewhere.com then any ISP using the BHL will block your email even though it is legitimate email and not spam.

This whole scenario means that when ISPs start blocking Spam (as most internet users have requested) they can also be blocking legitimate email. There are lots of problems with filtering.

If you're finding that mail is not getting to you, check with your ISP to see they have implemented email filtering. If they are looking after their clients (you) then they should have a way to exclude certain email and email addresses from being filtered out.

In finishing, it should be noted that some ISP's who implemented email filtering have removed it because people were not getting all their legitimate email and were complaining about it.

** Note **
As of 10th April 2004, the Australian Government has introduced laws that make it compulsary for ISPs to provide Spam filtering.

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Updated 01-Jul-2016