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AIDSRIDEDC FAQ Section 1. AdminstriviaThis section contains these subjects:
The AIDSRIDEDC mailing list exists as a resource for Riders, Corp, and friends of the Tour de Friends. Many of us have found the List to be a great way to share our Ride experiences, to exchange useful information about the Ride and about cycling in general, and to help build the TdF community. Participation in the List is entirely voluntary, and opinions expressed on the List do not necessarily reflect official policies of the Tour de Friends. When you post to the List, please consider that you are, in effect, writing a note to a large number of people. It's worth walking into the next room to get a drink of water before you press SEND , especially if you are writing about anything likely to be contentious. Remember, too, that nuances of meaning that are clear in face-to-face conversation may be lost in a more impersonal exchange (using "smileys" -- :-), "winks" -- ;-), and other "emoticons" can help with this sometimes). When you press the REPLY button in response to a message on the List, please remember that, if your E-mail program works as it should, your reply will, by default, be sent to everyone on the list. If what you intend is to send a reply only to the originator of the message, you will typically need to change the 'To:' header in your reply. (The details of how to do this vary, depending on the E-mail client program you are using.) Please think about whether your reply should be sent to the whole list, or just to the author of the message to which you're replying. Please also try to ensure that the message you post has a meaningful 'Subject: ' header, as a courtesy to other list subscribers who may not have time to read every message. (This point is especially important if you are subscribed to the digest form of the list.) Many E-mail client programs automatically quote the message to which you are replying. This, in itself, is a convenience and not so bad; but consider that the quoted message may itself contain the previous message, which contains the previous message, which contains ..., well, you get the idea. Edit what you quote so that it includes enough to indicate what you're talking about, but not more. (This is an especially important point if you receive the digest form of the list. Quoting the entire digest, when you are replying to one message within it, creates a burden for other subscribers.) In other words, please look at the message/reply that you are about to send out, and edit it as necessary, before you press SEND. Please do not post binary (=non-text) attachments to the List. These are not accessible to everyone, and take up a lot of download time for those people that have slow dial-up connections. They can cause problems with the list digest or archives. In addition, there are many E-mail clients that do not handle these attachments correctly. A better method (although it is admittedly more work for the poster) is to post a link to the attachment on a Web site, or offer to E-mail it directly to those who are interested. If you have a plain text attachment, the best course is to just cut-and-paste in into your message. The AIDSRIDEDC list is unmoderated, so there is no restriction on what you may post. Please be considerate of others in the TdF community, and remember that we are a very diverse group in terms of politics, gender, ethnic background, religion, sexual orientation, age, and almost anything else you can think of. Repeated use of the list for unrelated or commercial purposes is frowned upon. One-time postings of non-TdF-related announcements are OK; it is a courtesy to other members of the list to indicate that these are "Not Ride Related" or "[OT]" in the Subject line. Please be aware, also, that anyone with access to the Internet and knowledge that this list exists can subscribe, or view the Web archive from the list. You may wish to take this into account in deciding whether to discuss personal topics. Back to Top
The AIDSRIDEDC mailing list is currently maintained on a server at Heller Information Services, headquartered
in Rockville MD, using a software package called 'Majordomo'. The server
address to which administrative requests should be sent is:
Important: Although Majordomo handles most kinds of E-mail successfully for list postings, administrative requests must be plain text. (In particular, most Microsoft E-mail clients for PCs need to be told to send plain text.) To subscribe to the List, you should send an E-mail message to the List server , with the first (and only) line in the message body being: subscribe aidsridedc-list address The address argument -- which must be a valid E-mail address -- is optional; you should not include it unless you are trying to enter a subscription for an E-mail address different from the one from which you are sending the request. (For example, you are sending the request from work but want to subscribe at your home E-mail address.) Please be aware that, in order to reduce the risk of malicious subscriptions, requests to subscribe other addresses will be forwarded by Majordomo for approval by one of the List Administrators. This will usually mean some delay. If you prefer to receive the digest form of the list (which will periodically send you a group of postings collected into one mailing, rather than each message individually), simply replace the SUBSCRIBE command above with: subscribe aidsridedc-list-digest address (Once again, address is optional, and generally should not be specified. See the explanation above.) You should receive some reply from the list server after submitting any administrative request. If your request was successful, please save the reply; it contains information that will be useful if you want to drop or change your subscription at some future date. In particular, please make note of the E-mail address that you have used to subscribe. The E-mail address to which you send messages for posting to the List is: aidsridedc-list@his.com All messages will appear automatically on both the main List and the digest version. You will always receive copies of any messages that you post to the List. If you want to discontinue your subscription [unsubscribe], you need to send an E-mail message to the List server , with the first and only line in the message being: unsubscribe aidsridedc-list OR unsubscribe aidsridedc-list-digest depending on whether you have been subscribed to the main list or the digest version. You must send this request from the same E-mail address that you used to subscribe originally. You should receive some response to this request from the E-mail List server. If you change your E-mail address, you will need to unsubscribe from
your old address, and then re-subscribe from your new address. Also,
beware that the list server is very "literal minded" when it comes to
E-mail addresses. Mail aliases, in particular, can cause problems with
"unsubscribe" requests. For example, you can send E-mail to Rich Gibbs
(the current FAQ editor) at any of these addresses: Rich.Gibbs@his.com,
RichGibbs@his.com, rgibbs@his.com. They all work, and refer to the same
person on the same host system, but they are three different addresses as
far as the server software is concerned. Back to TopMajorDomo, the list processing software that "manages" the AIDSRIDEDC list will send you a brief description of available commands for list subscribers if you send a message to the List server with the line help in the message body. You can get a copy of the "information document" for the list by sending a message to the List server with a body containing: info aidsridedc-list There is also a Web-accessible archive
for the List. It will typically have at least the most recent month's
messages available, and has a search function to help in finding a
particular message. (The archive is managed using a package called
MHonArc; one of the nice features it offers is showing the list of
archived messages in "threaded" form -- that is, organized by the Subject:
lines rather than strictly chronologically -- much as a USENET newsreader
does. You can also, for example, get a list sorted by author. This is
handy for avoiding your FAQ editor's long-winded postings If you are experiencing difficulty with your subscription, you can
contact the volunteer List Administrator:
There is no intention that the administrators will regulate the content
of the List or serve as "thought police". (They may intervene
temporarily in emergencies to solve serious technical problems --
a mail loop, or a virus attack, for example.)
This FAQ is an attempt, by numerous Riders, Corp members, and friends
of the Tour de Friends Ride, to provide an information resource for
the TdF community. It is not an official publication of the TdF organization.
Anyone is welcome to submit questions for potential inclusion in the
FAQ; suggested questions accompanied by an offer to help write the answers
are even more welcome! ;-)
The design of the FAQ pages has been kept deliberately "low-key",
without too many graphics. This was done because they were intended to be
an information resource, and not a marketing device. We also wanted to
keep the FAQ as accessible as possible, even for people with older
browsers. The HTML code is mostly hand-written to conform strictly to
standards, and has been run though a verifier to ensure the conformance
actually is there,
We welcome your constructive feedback in order to make this a more
useful document. Please use the Feedback Form
, or send an E-mail message to the FAQ editor, Rich Gibbs, at
rgibbs@his.com.
You can get information on the Web about the Tour de Friends here.
There is a general toll-free number that will connect you to the Tour
de Friends offices: The Tour de Friends office is located at :
Phone:(202) 742-7433 E-mail: info@tourdefriends.com On-line
schedule of training rides available here.
Lynn Kutner has compiled a list of useful sites covering nutrition,
hydration, and dealing with hot weather .
Rich Gibbs has an annotated collection of links to cycling-related sites
that you may find useful.
The Care Exchange Web site is
maintained by a group of California AIDS Riders and friends, and has a
collection of information you may find very useful.
Some of you may be interested in getting more information on the AIDS
epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention make a lot
of information available on the Web, for example:
The Gear
Swap page is for TdF participants who have items of equipment that
they want to swap, sell, or give away (bicycles, tubes, tires, stems,
pedals, components, seat-bags, frame-pumps, water bottles, etc.) Please
use the form at the Gear Swap
page to post information.
Heller Information Services, of Rockville
MD, has very generously provided the facilities for the AIDSRIDEDC List,
as well as the Web space for this FAQ, to the TdF Ride. We are most
grateful for their help and support.
The following people's contributions have helped to create this FAQ:
If you need pledge forms for the 2003 TdF Ride, you can get them from
the Tour
de Friends Web site. The form is in Adobe's PDF format, so you will
need a copy of Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view or print the form. If
you don't have a copy of the Reader, you can download it --
it's free -- from Adobe's Web site.
This page was last modified:
Friday, 28-Mar-2003 16:54:41 EST |