News

Forum

-----------------
Access
Links
Shop
PinBoard
Archive
Contact Us

SA Mountain Talk Discussion List

SA MOUNTAIN is a technical discussion list about Southern African Mountaineering, Walking, Backpacking and Climbing. It was created as a forum for open discussion for those with an interest in Southern African mountaineering and related aspects. Membership of this list is open to anyone with an interest in mountains - it is NOT restricted to members of the Mountain Club of South Africa, Hiking Federation or any other organisation or any other group. The only "qualifier" for membership is an interest in mountains.

This is NOT a one-way news broadcaster, but rather a discussion list which requires active participation in order to be successful.

Tip:

Each discussion list has a culture. That culture is determined by the personalities and writing styles of the people actively participating in the discussions on that list. Take a while to lurk (read without actively participating) - you'll get an idea of what topics are frequently discussed and the tone used to discuss them. When you do post you'll already have picked up a good idea of what gets the best response and what generates friction.

Then climb in and be active!

Postings:

Postings should be addressed to:

samountain-talk@mountain.org.za

Give each message / posting a descriptive subject line. A subject line of: "Trip report: Makaza ice, 19/7-23/7" says a lot more than "Last weekend". Please, do not start a subject line with "Help" - EZMLM (see below) regards this as an administrative request and will send you the help file.

IMPORTANT!!!
In order to post to this list you must be subscribed. This is done in an attempt to prevent spam postings appearing. This is also the reason for the elaborate procedure for joining - to ensure that people subscribe under their own (traceable) addresses. You cannot post to the list if you are not subscribed. You cannot even post to the list from an address other than the one you subscribed from.

Off-topic postings:

First of all, what's an off-topic posting? Well, if you've bothered to read the intro at the beginning of this document, you'll see that this list is intended for a specific type of discussion. Postings not within the scope of this forum are regarded as off-topic. Off-topic postings fall into two basic categories: unwanted and offensive.

Unwanted off-topic postings are those which are on the fringe of the scope of the forum, such as a request whether someone on the list is travelling overseas (the poster may want them to buy a book not available here and not related to mountains). If you absolutely MUST post something like this (and you do so at your own peril), prefix the subject line with the words: "OFF TOPIC:" so as to warn people of the content - some may choose not to download these messages. Remember - off-topic posting is at your own peril!

Offensive off-topic postings are those which are guaranteed to earn you the wrath of the list's subscribers, the list owner (me!) and possibly even your ISP, if we complain enough. Postings about malicious viruses, chain-letters, bleeding hearts sob-stories about dying children in Afghanistan wanting emails and so on fall into this category. Post something like this once and you'll be flamed. Severely. Post something like this twice and you'll be officially warned by the list owner. The third time you'll be removed and not allowed to resubscribe.

General tips:

• Give your message an informative and descriptive SUBJECT line.
• When replying, check if the message SUBJECT line still applies or whether you need to change the SUBJECT to something else. Not everyone reads every message - some delete messages with certain headers. It would be a shame if your message was deleted because of an inaccurate heading.
• Also when replying, trim everything off the original message and leave only that part which you are discussing. Pay special attention to the end of the message, where the list software (EZMLM) adds the adverts and standard footers - please trim them off.
• Read your message before sending it to check for mistakes.
• If you want to know more about how the list software works, send a message to samountain-talk-help@mountain.org.za. Again, No subject or body required.
• Remember that while the list is intended primarily for use in discussing Southern African mountaineering-related matters, it is open to anyone and has international readers. Try to stick to English as the language or explain any local terms in your post for the benefit of those who don't understand the local vernacular.

Private ads may be posted. Please prefix these with the words 'For Sale:' or 'FS:". These are to be regarded as one-off's.

Commercial advertisements may NOT be posted as messages to the list. A one-off posting may be made announcing a new product / course. These postings MUST start with "ANN:" or "Announce:". The content is limited to a message along the lines of:

"The Association of Stupid Sports (ASS) has formulated a course on Belaying On Unconsolidated New Crystalline Extrusions (BOUNCE). See the following URL for details http://WereStupid.ASS.co.za) or send mail to Bounce@WereStupid.ASS.co.za for details"

Repetitive commercial advertising may be done by contacting the list-owner (owner-samountain-talk@mountain.org.za). The current arrangement is as follows:

Maximum: 60 Words + 1 URL + 1 email address, no images or binaries. Cost: R 75.00 for one month, payable in advance, preferrably by direct bank deposit.

The advertisement will be tacked onto the end of all messages distributed through samountain-talk and will immediately precede the final block relating to the list itself.

Commands

The software running this list is EZMLM (Easy Mailing List Manager). All this is is an automatic re-mailing system. There are certain commands which can be used to retrieve information.

When we used majordomo the commands were all sent to the same address. Now that we're using EZMLM, each command IS an address.

The following commands apply:

To subscribe to the list, send a message to:
samountain-talk-subscribe@mountain.org.za

To remove your address from the list, send a message to:
samountain-talk-unsubscribe@mountain.org.za

Send mail to the following for info and FAQ for this list:
samountain-talk-info@mountain.org.za samountain-talk-digest-subscribe@mountain.org.za samountain-talk-digest-unsubscribe@mountain.org.za

To get retrieve messages 123 through 145 from the archive, with a maximum of 100 per request, mail:
samountain-talk-get.123_145@mountain.org.za

To get an index with subject and author for messages 123-456 from the archive, mail: samountain-talk-index.123_456@mountain.org.za

They are always returned as sets of 100, max 2000 per request, so you'll actually get 100-499.

To receive all messages from the archive with the same subject as message 12345, send an empty message to:
samountain-talk-thread.12345@mountain.org.za

The messages do not really need to be empty, but I will ignore their content. Only the ADDRESS you send to is important.

Administrative matters:

This list is administered by a list owner. The list owner's task is to see to the daily administration of the list, establish the list's policy and ensure that general orderliness prevails. If you have a query on the policies of the list or need to know how something works, you may contact the list owner directly at the following address:

owner-samountain-talk@mountain.org.za

Enjoy your stay!

If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list, you can send mail to <#l#>-unsubscribe@mountain.org.za. No subject or command is necessary.

PLEASE, PLEASE - sign off the list if you are changing email-addresses, going away for an extended period, or too busy to read your mail. It's really annoying to have all the bounced messages clogging up the List Owner's mailbox because of expired accounts, etc!

NOTE FROM WEB PAGE EDITOR: This is not an MCSA list but the information is hosted here because of its interest to many MCSA members. The List Owner is Rob Thomas.