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BMW-GS MicaPeak com
is a topical mailing list for discussion of all facets of ownership and
riding of BMW GS series dual-purpose motorcycles. Topics dealing with
the GS's close relatives (e.g. R80ST, R100/850/1100R, F650?) may also be
appropriate provided they have some relevance either to GS's or to
off-pavement touring/riding on an absurdly heavy motorcycle.
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ATTENTION
SUBSCRIBERS! BY CONTINUING YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS MAILING LIST,YOU AGREE TO ABIDE BY THE CHARTER DESCRIBED BELOW. |
BMW-GS is a topical mailing list for discussion of all facets of ownership and riding of BMW GS series dual-purpose motorcycles. Topics dealing with the GS's close relatives (e.g. R80ST, R100R/850R/1100R, F650) may also be appropriate provided they have some relevance either to GS's or to off-pavement touring/riding on an absurdly heavy motorcycle.
Congratulations, you must have a personality! Or at least own other bikes besides your GS. But the list administrators don't care about anything besides the topics described in A1, not appearing in their BMW-GS mail folder anyway. We don't expect BMW-GS's charter to completely satisfy everyone's cyber/moto thirst. But fortunately there are many other lists available with somewhat different charters, and it's easy to subscribe to as many or as few as you'd like. For instance, other BMW-related email lists include:AIRHEADS:
A topical (i.e. non-chat) list celebrating ownership of BMW Boxers with type 247 or earlier engines. (This would include R80G/S and R100GS, but not R1100GS/R1150GS models.) Boxer technical info, short stories, trip reports, planned gatherings, and tasteful jokes are all appropriate on this list, an effort of the Airheads Beemer Club.To subscribe to airheads, send mail:
To: listprocList owner: davidwi
msg body: SUBSCRIBE AIRHEADS Yourfirstname Yourlastname
BMW-TECH:A topical mailing list intended solely for the technical discussion of BMW motorcycle mechanics. It's narrower in scope than BMW-GS in that it covers only technical subjects, but broader in that it covers all BMW motorcycles:To subscribe to bmw-tech, send mail:
To: majordomoList owner: ibmwr
msg body: SUBSCRIBE BMW-TECH or SUBSCRIBE BMW-TECH-DIGEST
BMW-R1100:A chat list for BMW R1100 owners.
To subscribe to bmw-r1100, send mail:To: majordomoList owner: owner-bmw-r1100
msg body: SUBSCRIBE BMW-R1100 or SUBSCRIBE BMW-R1100-DIGEST
BMWMOA:BMW Motorcycle Owners of America club
To subscribe to bmwmoa, send mail:To: majordomoList owner: ibmwr
msg body: SUBSCRIBE BMWMOA
BMWMC:A general mailing list covering all aspects of BMW motorcycle ownership and riding. bmwmc has a much broader charter than either BMW-GS or BMW-TECH. It also carries far more traffic.To subscribe to bmwmc, send mail:
To: majordomoList owner: ibmwr
msg body: SUBSCRIBE BMWMC or SUBSCRIBE BMWMC-DIGEST
CO-BMWGS:Colorado BMW "dual sport" bikes/rides/wrenching/gatheringTo subscribe to co-bmwgs, send mail:
To: listprocList owner: jeb
msg body: subscribe CO-BMWGS YourfirstName YourlastName
DUST:DUal-Sport-Touring on BMW GS's and [gasp] other brands too! To subscribe to DUST, send mail:To: listprocList owner: gnome
msg body: SUBSCRIBE DUST Yourfirstname Yourlastname
Note that listproc and majordomo ignore anything on the Subject line. Your command must be contained in the body of the message.A far more complete list of motorcycle-related mailing lists is available on the World Wide Web at URL:
http://www.micapeak.com/info/mlist.html
If you can't derive a combination of existing lists to cover all of your interests without overflowing your mailbox, contact us at bmw-gs-owner
Anyone interested in the discussions outlined in section A1 and who agrees not to abuse the list for purposes beyond this charter.
- Propagating threads that move beyond the bounds of this charter as outlined in section A1. In consideration of other BMW-GS subscribers, such discussions should be taken to private e-mail or to a more appropriate forum such as the lists described in A2. For example, a debate about helmet laws would be inappropriate on BMW-GS, although reviews of dual-sport helmets are welcome. In general, the less GS-specific a topic is, the less bandwidth it deserves on this mailing list.
For those who feel the need to post announcements about laws and regulations which may affect the way in which we may be allowed to use our bikes, even though such issues are rarely GS-specific, there is the following clause. You can mail them to the list administrator (bmw-gs-owner- Posting complaints to the list about abuse of the list. However well intentioned, this is usually as harmful as the original noise. Such concerns should be addressed directly to the originator or list administrators only.
- Posting "test" messages and other "meta" messages, such as "Did anybody see the message I sent last week?" and "Why haven't I gotten any messages yet today?" Such messages are more appropriately addressed to the list administrators, or handled by the automated list-processor. Please see A16 below.
- Posting "virus warnings" or email chain letters of any kind. See http://HoaxBusters.ciac.org/ or http://www.Europe.F-Secure.com/virus-info/hoax/
- Almost beyond mentioning is the fact that riding a BMW-GS is not restricted to specific views on life, be it political, religious, social, sexual or whatever, with the possible exception of the mental attitude required for owning and riding one in the first place. If for some reason you feel irritated or even offended by another member's remarks, however tangential and non-GS-specific they may be and therefore worthy of comment that they be kept off-list, rebuttal, or worse, PLEASE keep those remarks off-list too, directing them to me (bmw-gs-owner@micapeak.com) instead. On-list comments in cases like these tend to avalanche into ugliness, and we all can do without that. Also note that there are no absolutes here, and that what to one person is merely a somewhat brusque remark can be another person's deadly insult. Therefore, be temperate in what you send out, and be tolerant in what you accept.
The list administrators understand that most inappropriate postings are unintentional. We have therefore set the default Reply-To field to the originator (see A12), and the default mode to ACK (see A11). The list owners are also NOT interested in running a moderated list. And we even understand that some amount of off-topic chatter is inevitable. But at the same time, we are also dedicated to ensuring that BMW-GS remains a topical, high-content, low-noise list for the benefit of those subscribers who don't have time to sort through the sheer volume inherent in a random chat list. Should polite reminders (by the listadmins or other subscribers) prove ineffective in reducing abuse of this list, the listadmins reserve the right to refuse service if necessary to enforce this charter. Please direct any questions, objections, concerns, or suggestions regarding the administration of this list directly to the list administrators via bmw-gs-owner
- If a thread's topic has evolved outside of the original posting, change the subject line of your response to reflect it. (If it's evolved outside of the BMW-GS charter, drop it or take it off-line.)
- Use minimal quotes. Trim down the text from the original message so that your reply includes ONLY the minimum quotation necessary to establish context. Include an attribution for the quoted material, but please don't repeat 20 lines of headers. (Note that if you attempt to re-post the "Message-ID:" header of the original message, listproc may mistake your reply as a "bounce" and automatically reject it!) You can also make your response easier for others to read by following the Internet/NetNews convention of appending new material AFTER the minimum quoted portion of the message to which the new stuff refers. For more information, see RFC1855 (http://rfc.net/rfc1855.html, and other locations). Certain mail clients include, by default, all of the original message underneath the reply text, making it easy to miss how large it's already gotten. Each time someone replies that way without trimming the quoted message, text that's been sent to the list gets sent again, and again, and again. This bloats message size, and makes digests hard to read.
- Avoid "crossposting" between mailing lists. If you feel you must send the same message to both BMW-GS and another mailing list, please send them separately. The reason is that if you include both BMW-GS and other mailing list addresses on the To:/CC: fields of the same message, a frequent result is that non-GS threads wind up getting copied from the other lists to BMW-GS. As posting to BMW-GS is restricted to members only, most of these messages will be rejected.
- Sign each message. Include at the end of each message a "signature" that reasonably identifies you by name, e-mail address, and preferably indicates your geographic location. It is also often helpful to include the year and model of your GS. It is considered over the top to include a 25-line ASCII drawing of your pet cat, even if it does wear goggles and rides in your Multivario.
- Do not post attachments. The BMW-GS list on Micapeak is configured to reject them, so make sure your post doesn't accidentally include things like HTML, the infamous WINMAIL.DAT, ms-tnef, vcards and other "rich text format" attachments. Users of Microsoft's email products please take note! Do not try to post graphic files like .GIF and .JPEG either. If you really have to show a picture, supply the URL, or send it, on request, directly to those who want it.
- Keep the number of geographically-narrow messages to a minimum, and, as a courtesy to others, use a Subject: line to reflect that. Remember that BMW-GS has subscribers all over the Universe.
- Posting responses to the list that are only of interest to a single individual. Messages that say "Okay, Joe, I'll buy your old alternator rotor" should be handled in private email.
- Maintain respect, patience, and a sense of humor.
It's all run by server software. Send a plain text mail message to LISTPROCSUBSCRIBE BMW-GS Joe MotoheadPlease replace "Joe Motohead" with your NAME or a nickname -- NOT your e-mail address. Your e-mail address is determined automatically from the headers of your mail. This means that you should send all commands to listproc (see Q8, Q9, Q10 and Q11, and also Q14) from the same e-mail account where you initially subscribed. All list-mail will be sent to that one address.
Please do NOT subscribe from an address which you only use to forward mail to another address; this can make it hard to figure out what's going on when mail starts bouncing, especially when the subscribed address is a nickname (e.g. oilheadjoe@dirtriders.com), and mail is forwarded to a workplace address which generally uses a real name of some form. Message bounces come from the address the mail is forwarded to, which I have to try and match up with the subscribed address.
Subscriptions from workplace addresses are also discouraged. Overly enthousiastic virus- and content-filters have often caused message bounces, and when that happens you're unsubscribed.
You can also use the web-based interface at http://www.micapeak.com/lists, but make sure you fill in the correct SMTP mail address (NOT your AOL screen name, for instance).
Send your message to BMW-GS
Send a message to LISTPROCUNSUBSCRIBE BMW-GSNo name is required - it's keyed on your address from the e-mail header.
Again, you can also use the web-based interface at http://www.micapeak.com/lists, which is especially suitable in case you can't send mail from your subscribed address anymore. To gain access, you have to have your password at hand, which is in the mail message you received as the acknowledgment to your subscription. This also applies to the next two items (Q10 and Q11): changing your subscription address and your mailing mode.
Though listproc refers to a "SET ADDRESS" command, it is strongly advised to simply SUBSCRIBE from your new account, and UNSUBSCRIBE from the old. The SET ADDRESS command works only when sent from the old address anyway, so if you have switched providers or your company's mail administrators have changed a little something, and you no longer can send email from your old address, just send a note to the list administrators via bmw-gs-owner, and we will manually remove your old address.
Your subscription is always set to EXACTLY ONE of these modes, which control how and when you get mail from the list:
ACK Undigestified list mail (THIS IS THE DEFAULT). You get a separate e-mail message for each posting made by a subscriber, including those messages sent by you. NOACK Undigestified list mail. You get a separate e-mail message for each posting made by a subscriber, NOT including those messages sent by you. DIGEST Digestified list mail. Instead of receiving one e-mail message for every message sent to BMW-GS, you get two big "digest" e-mail messages per day. Each big digest message contains a copy of all the messages submitted to the list (including your own) since the last digest. POSTPONE Your record stays on file, but you get NO mail from the list. NOTE: it also doesn't "save up" the mail while you're gone; you are simply ignored until you re-set your mode. You can set yourself to any one of these modes by sending mail to LISTPROC
SET BMW-GS MAIL {something}E.g.: to get back to "normal" mode after setting your mode to postpone or digest:SET BMW-GS MAIL ACK
Depends on your mailer, and the list "mailing mode" you've selected.If you're configured as ACK or NOACK, the "REPLY" function in most mail programs will send your response ONLY to the originator of the message to which you're replying, not to the entire list. BE CAREFUL and be aware of the addressee generated by your mailer. If you intend to reply to the whole mailing list, you may have to fill in the list address by hand: bmw-gs
If you're configured as DIGEST, the "REPLY" function in most mail programs will send your response to the entire list. BE CAREFUL and be aware of the addressee generated by your mailer. If you intend to reply only to the originator of the message to which you're replying, you will have to fill in the individual's address by hand.
You can't. Sorry. If you need to know if a particular person is subscribed, you can ask me (bmw-gs-owner
The BMW-GS mailing list is run in "restrictive" mode.
This means that listproc rejects all messages from addresses not in the subscriber list. While this cuts down most of the spam, it does not entirely eliminate it since _anyone_ can just subscribe, spam, and disappear again. And while on the one hand we're not about to try investigating and approving each SUBSCRIBE request, the above does leave a trail as clear as a dozen GSes storming up a wet forest track on fresh knobbies. And it's much too cumbersome for almost all spammers to bother with anyway.Anyway, when a spam gets out on BMW-GS (which hasn't happened since switching the list to "restrictive" back in 1998) I analyze the headers in the list's incoming mail log and enhance the .ignored filter. Depending on the host where the spam originates, we are sometimes successful in getting the spammer's account shut down.
Unfortunately, running in "restrictive" mode increases the admin task of dealing with wrongly rejected messages, and a hassle for those subscribers who for various reasons do not have a precisely consistent return address.
In any case, you should simply DELETE and IGNORE the occasional spam which appears on BMW-GS. Do NOT post a reply to the list, do NOT attempt to send a reply to the spammer (the redistributed email does not give you all the headers required to distinguish between the actual source and a forged "From:" address), do NOT even tell me about it (I see all the bmw-gs traffic too, after all, and on top of that I see all the traffic that is rejected).
One more thing, some subscribers have speculated that spammers are gathering addresses from the BMW-GS REVIEW command. As this option is blocked (since autumn 2001), this is as good as impossible.
As noted in A14, as an antispam measure, posting to BMW-GS is restricted to subscribers only. One implication of this is that you can ONLY post from the account you used when subscribing. Messages from other accounts, even though they may use the same full name, will be rejected. This rejection will _only_ be sent to bmw-gs-owner (for anti-spam reasons again), so initially you won't know anything is wrong, except that your message hasn't gone out on the list as expected. If necessary, bmw-gs-owner will manually notify you, and you can repost your message from the correct account. This also applies when your provider or company changes the account name your mail appears to be from, as occasionally happens.People who often use several accounts, and who want to be able to post from them too, can ask to have an alias created.
If you think you're not reading the most current version, send mail to LISTPROCINFO BMW-GS
Possibilities include:You can find out the status of your subscription by sending mail to LISTPROC
- the bmw-gs listproc host (Micapeak) or its link to your computer may be temporarily out of service,
- your subscription might have gotten unsubscribed or postponed due to excessive bounces to your account.
SET BMW-GSNote that the error conditions above may also prevent the return message from reaching you, or even the status inquiry not reaching Micapeak in the first place (or with long delays). Inquiries to the list administrator may suffer the same fate.
You can obtain a listing of about a week's worth of files in the bmw-gs archives by sending mail to LISTPROCINDEX BMW-GSIndividual files (such as BMW-GS Digest 1020) may be retrieved by sending mail to LISTPROCGET BMW-GS bmw-gs-digest.1020Please replace "bmw-gs-digest.1020" with the name of the archived file you wish LISTPROC to email you. Note that you may request multiple files with a single LISTPROC email by including multiple lines of GET commands in your message.
The entire (well, currently back to 2002 or so, but more is gradually being added) archive can be accessed viahttp://www.micapeak.com/archivesusing your mail address and password (sent to you with your welcome message when you subscribed; if you lost it you can retrieve your password by sending a message containingSET BMW-GSto LISTPROC
If you don't know which digest numbers might interest you, try searching for your topic. For instance to find out what people have been saying about the F650, send mail to LISTPROCSEARCH BMW-GS F650orSEARCH BMW-GS "f650"The search mechanism is line-oriented, so it generally works best if the search string is a single word. Note that the search is case-insensitive, and will only pay attention to surrounding blanks if you ask it to. Thus searching for "swing" (with or without the quotation marks) will trigger on ``Swing'', ``swinging'', and ``SWINGARM''. But searching for "swing " (quote marks required in this case) will trigger on ``Swing arm'' but _not_ ``swingarm'' or even ``swing, '' . To learn more details about searching, logon to a Unix/Linux system and type "man grep". If you don't have that option you may want to search a shareware archive for a grep meant for your platform, and read its documentation. There are also websites that serve Unix manpages, for instance http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi
Sort of... You can find an HTML'ed version of this subscription FAQ at... http://www.micapeak.com/bmw-gs/, which you are looking at right now.But probably what you're really looking for is Jean Moxhet's http://www.micapeak.com/bmw/gs/ This is an excellent reference to the entire BMW GS series!
For owner's of 1990-1995 GS and PD models, Wendell Duncan has the entire parts fiche on-line at http://www.xmission.com/~wendell/GS/
David Loone maintains the most complete R1100GS page I know of... http://wwwnar.atnf.csiro.au/~dloone/personal/R1100GS/
Circa 1992, Bob Pasker began the bmw-gs list on his personal microVAX called halfdome.sf.ca.us Since then it's migrated to dear old "mom", and now micapeak.com. Currently the bmw-gs list is read by over 1000 subscribers (from 350 or so summer 1996).There are a _lot_ of resources for motorcycle enthusiasts at Micapeak. The bmw-gs list is especially fortunate in that the digests are archived and available for searching and retrieval. Please keep this in mind when the next annual fund raising appeal comes around.
While Carl Paukstis (listmasterThe BMW-GS list and archives we have today are due in part to the contributors listed in http://www.micapeak.com/pages/friends.html
Send mail directly to the listowner:
Rik Steenwinkel # rsteenw bmw-gs-owner