BFBC E-Mail Lists
BFBC is the Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley Coalition. Our mission is to make Berkeley a more bicycle-friendly city -- we want to help make bicycling so safe, convenient, and pleasant that it becomes a preferred way of getting around town. The BFBC electronic maillists give BFBC members and area cyclists the ability to communicate via e-mail toward these ends. There are two maillists: BFBC-NEWS and BFBC-TALK.
BFBC-NEWS
Contains announcements, bulletins, news items, etc. BFBC-NEWS is moderated. That is, only the "moderator" can post messages to it. This maillist exists to offer a means to receive the announcements but skip the discussions. If you have an item you want to appear in BFBC-NEWS, send it to the moderator at bfbc-news-items (at) bfbc2 (dot) org. Because it appears only once a week (on average) you should send event announcements to the moderater at least a week in advance.
BFBC-TALK
Is a discussion list for matters germane to local bicyclists and bicycle advocates. Any BFBC-TALK subscriber may post items to it (however, non-subscribers may not). If you are a subscriber, then to post an item simply mail your message to bfbc-talk (at) bfbc2 (dot) org.
A digest version of BFBC-TALK is also available. If you subscribe to the digest, then instead of receiving individual messages throughout the day as they are posted, you will receive a single message every day or two which contains all messages since the previous digest. You can still post to BFBC-TALK.
People who subscribe to BFBC-TALK (or its digest) will automatically receive BFBC-NEWS too.
BFBC-TALK has heavier volume than BFBC-NEWS. If you think you are getting too much e-mail, you'll probably want the digest version (see above), or else just BFBC-NEWS, but not regular BFBC-TALK.
How to Subscribe
Anyone can subscribe to either list. To do so, send a blank message from the e-mail account you would like to subscribe to the appropriate "subscribe" address:
- bfbc-news-subscribe@bfbc2.org for bfbc-news;
- bfbc-talk-subscribe@bfbc2.org for bfbc-talk; or
- bfbc-talk-digest-subscribe@bfbc2.org for bfbc-talk-digest.
You'll be sent a confirmation email a few minutes after you subscribe. Just reply to that message; you'll receive an acknowledgement; and you're set.
How to Unsubscribe
To unsubscribe, send a blank message from the e-mail account you would like to unsubscribe to the appropriate "unsubscribe" address:
- bfbc-news-unsubscribe@bfbc2.org for bfbc-news;
- bfbc-talk-unsubscribe@bfbc2.org for bfbc-talk; or
- bfbc-talk-digest-unsubscribe@bfbc2.org for bfbc-talk-digest.
As with subscribing, you will be asked to confirm by e-mail.
Guidelines
Please keep to the topic of bicycling matters of Berkeley-area interest. Please keep things civil -- personal attacks reflect badly on the bicycle movement in general and on BFBC in particular. Don't send subscribe or unsubscribe requests to the list -- for that, see above. This list is not for official communication with the BFBC -- for that, see below.
Rejection and Other Disappointments :-)
Our software enforces mechanical several rules. If your posting doesn't meet them, it will be automatically rejected. If this happens, you will normally receive an explanatory message. The rules include:
-
Subscribers only.
As noted above, only subscribers may post to BFBC-TALK.
This can lead to problems if you haven't kept us up-to-date
about your address changes.
If, for example, you subscribed a long time ago under the name
me@School.edu
and you're now reading mail
(including forwarded e-mail from the School account) at
me@Job.com
then you'll find that you receive BFBC-TALK mail
but that anything you post from me@Job.com
is rejected.
Same story if you changed your e-mail username --
for example if you changed
from billy@foo.com to william@foo.com.
In such cases, simply unsubscribe your old address
and subscribe your new address (see above).
Exceptions can be made on an individual basis. If you need to send e-mail from more than one address, contact the list manager (see below) to arrange to post from your alternate address without subscribing it.
Observe that subscribing to BFBC-NEWS alone does not qualify you to post to BFBC-TALK. You must subscribe to BFBC-TALK in order to post to it.
- Bcc's. It is not possible to post to BFBC-TALK by putting it as a "Bcc:" (blind-carbon-copy) recipient. The name bfbc-talk@bfbc2.org must appear in the To: or Cc: line for the item to be posted.
- Not too long. Messages may not exceed a certain length, currently 30,000 bytes. That's about 1000 lines of typical text. Most often, the reason a message is too long is because it included an attachment, which is disallowed anyway (see the next item).
- No attachments, no HTML. Attachments such as HTML, MS-Word .doc files, etc. can spread viruses and are therefore removed (assuming the message survives the message-length restriction noted above). This means that your mailer must be configured to post in plain ascii text, not HTML. See the No MIME site for more information and specific instructions on how to configure your mailer to post in plain text.
In case you're wondering, rules 1 and 2 are to deter spam and spurious cross-postings, both of which had been problems until these restrictions were added. So far they have done a good job.
List Manager
For more information about the BFBC e-mail lists, or if you are having trouble with them not explained on this page, contact the BFBC list manager, Mark Abrahams, ListMgr (at) bfbc2 (dot) org.
How to Contact BFBC
- E-mail: bfbc (at) lmi (dot) net.
- Phone: 510-962-4537 (96 BIKEr)
- US mail: PO Box 13357, Berkeley CA 94712-4357
- Bikestation office: Downtown Berkeley BART Station, concourse level, south end.
- Web site: http://www.bfbc.org/
Legal Stuff - Terms of Use
This should all be obvious, but due to past problems we need to say the following.
BFBC owns and operates its maillists as a service for its members and other interested parties. BFBC is the sole judge of what is and is not proper use of its maillists. If the BFBC list manager sends you a warning in connection with your use of the maillists, you must heed it; otherwise you may be suspended or removed from the maillists. If you don't like something about these maillists, or something you receive through them, your only legitimate responses are: (a) discuss the item politely with the person who posted it; (b) complain to the list manager (see above); or (c) unsubscribe. Any other action, including but not limited to any complaint filed with third parties or any action initiated with third parties, is interference with BFBC's maillist operations and will not be tolerated. Your use of the BFBC maillist service is bound by the terms of this paragraph.
If you don't accept these terms of use, then unsubscribe.