SKEPTIC Frequently Asked Questions

This is not a list of paranormal-related questions and skeptical answers; for that, consult Taner Edis's SKEPTIC Annotated Bibliography [being reconstructed a/o 2010-06-17 — RM], or the sci.skeptic FAQ. Here are answers to some common questions about using the SKEPTIC mailing list.

Questions:

How do I subscribe to SKEPTIC?
What are the rough ground rules for SKEPTIC discussions?
How do I get help about SKEPTIC?
What do I do if I'm overwhelmed by the quantity of mail?
How do I suspend my subscription while on vacation?
How do I get off the list?
What do I do about possible mail problems?
How do I get a copy of my own postings, on GMail?
How do I get archived postings?
Who else is a fellow subscriber?
What other commands can I send the list's software?
How do I use the "Reply-To:" mail header?
What is the history of this mailing list?

For any other questions, bother your friendly listadmin at skeptic-owner@linuxmafia.com. That might provide an occasion to include another item in this FAQ. (N.B.: This iteration of the FAQ is maintained by Rick Moen, so blame any deficiencies on him. In a pinch, he can also be telephoned directly at +1 (650) 283-7902.)

The easiest and most common way to subscribe is using the "Subscribing to skeptic" form on GNU Mailman's Web interface at linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic. You will need to act on a confirmation mail, to complete subscribing.

Alternatively, if you would rather use GNU Mailman's e-mail command interface to subscribe, send

subscribe [password] [digest|nodigest] [address=<address>]

...to skeptic-request@linuxmafia.com, in either the message body or the Subject: header. You'll be required to mail back a confirmation string. (Square brackets signify an optional paramater. Non-default "digest mode" is covered below. Omitting the password parameter from your subscription request will cause GNU Mailman to generate a subscription password for you.)

Most people prefer the Web interface over e-mailing GNU Mailman commands, but you can always use either command interface.

Rough Ground Rules

SKEPTIC is an unmoderated mailing list. The listadmin will, however, intervene when it looks like the discussion is spinning out of control. Anyone may subscribe, but the listadmin will curb anyone making a major pest of him/herself, beyond the usual amount of flaming and irrelevancies. The listadmin's (very rare) comments in his official capacity are always indicated as such.

Usually, courtesy and some common sense will prevent you from getting into hot water, either with others on the mailing list or with the listadmin. After all, we are all mainly interested in a free, informative discussion of paranormal and fringe-science ideas, preferably without having to wade through tons of irrelevant and boring postings in the process.

These rough guidelines might help you:

Try to keep on-topic. SKEPTIC is about paranormal and fringe-science issues, and the scientific and philosophical matters that arise in debating these. We try not to be too rigid in drawing boundaries; in the past, we have gone into urban legends, Marxist and libertarian politics, feminism and anti-feminism, conspiracy theories, meta-ethics, the merits of vegetarianism, religion, educational questions, weird philosophy, math, and a whole host of topics besides the standard paranormal fare. As long as there is a clear connection to skepticism, and the discussion does not become a firestorm that drowns out our primary concerns, things usually work out fine.

(Note: Owing to a general shortage of on-topic material — fringe-science and fringe-medical claims and closely related matters — since about 2005, the listadmin tolerates pretty much any off-topic thread that isn't acrimonious. We've become an amiable and discursive lot.)
Avoid making skepticism an ideology. Yes, "skepticism" is a vague notion, but we still have a rough idea what we are interested in criticizing, and what we are content to leave to other mailing lists. You might be convinced the ideology you despise is the epitome of irrationality, and that the duty of every True Skeptic is to combat it unto his or her last breath. Too bad. We don't mind the occasional foray into politics or religion here, but, if you find yourself evangelising, it's time to slow down and move onto something else.
Don't waste bandwidth. This can be a busy list in the heat of a debate. When you're receiving a hundred messages a day, it can be rather irritating if many of these are just one- to three-line messages that don't say much besides expressing agreement, disagreement, or making some less-than-crucial comment. These are best done by private e-mail sent to the original poster. This doesn't mean you should act like a stuffy academic and stamp out all humour or personal chattiness wherever you see it. Just use your judgement — keep in mind that hundreds of people will read what you post, so try to say something worthwhile.

Getting Help

First of all, bookmark this FAQ. When it doesn't help, send all questions related to the list to skeptic-owner@linuxmafia.com. This includes requests for help, and any and all complaints. Please do not post such material to SKEPTIC (skeptic@linuxmafia.com) itself, unless there is a good reason.

Digests

If you can't deal with the volume this list generates every day, but would like to look at what's going on periodically, you might consider digest mode. This means you will get everything bundled together as either plaintext or MIME-encoded attachments, and bundled as one piece of mail about once every 24 hours, instead of GNU Mailman mailing you every posting individually. After subscribing, the easiest and most common way to select delivery mode is to use the "change your subscription options" form on GNU Mailman's Web interface at linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic, logging in using your subscription password. (If you've forgotten it, use the "get a password reminder" form, to have it mailed to you.) Then, in the displayed subscriber options, pick "On" for subscription option "Set Digest Mode", and either "MIME" or "Plain Text" (default) for subscription option "Get MIME or Plain Text Digests". (Obviously, adjusting subscription option "Set Digest Mode" to default setting "Off" reverts your subscription to normal nodigest delivery mode.)

Alternatively, if you would rather use GNU Mailman's e-mail command interface to select delivery mode, send

set digest plain

...or...

set digest mime

...to skeptic-request@linuxmafia.com, in either the message body or the Subject: header. You'll be required to mail back a confirmation string — unless you precede your "set" command with

set authenticate <password> [address=<address>]

Digests can be convenient for deleting all the day's message traffic at once, if you feel disinclined to read it, or if the number of messages received in a day is a problem for you.

Send "set digest off" to skeptic-request@linuxmafia.com, in either the message body or the Subject: header, to revert to default nodigest mode, sending you a copy of each individual posting as sent. You'll be required to mail back a confirmation string — unless you precede your "set" command with

set authenticate <password> [address=<address>]

Note: For the sake of your fellow subscribers, if you choose to reply (on-list) to something in a digest, please:

change the extremely generic "Subject" header furnished by digest mode to something meaningful (perhaps to the Subject header of the individual posting you're replying to), and
quote only (relevant passages of) the posting you're responding to, and don't just quote the entire digest (the default action)

Lazy postings from digest-mode subscribers, failing to attend to either or both of those matters, are a blight on mailing lists all across the Internet. Please be a happy exception. Thank you.

Suspending List Mail

If you're going to be away for a while, and would like to stop receiving SKEPTIC mail during that time (suspend delivery), the easiest and most common way is to use the "change your subscription options" form on GNU Mailman's Web interface at linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic, logging in using your subscription password. (If you've forgotten it, use the "get a password reminder" form, to have it mailed to you.) Then, in the displayed subscriber options, pick "Disabled" under subscription option "Mail delivery".

Alternatively, if you would rather use GNU Mailman's e-mail command interface to suspend delivery, send

set delivery off

...to skeptic-request@linuxmafia.com, in either the message body or the Subject: header. You'll be required to mail back a confirmation string — unless you precede your "set" command with

set authenticate <password> [address=<address>]

This'll suspend your mail, while keeping you on the list, and is smoother and less complex than signing off and rejoining later. When you want to start receiving mail again, use:

set delivery on

...sent to skeptic-request@linuxmafia.com, in either the message body or the Subject: header. You'll be required to mail back a confirmation string — unless you precede your "set" command with

set authenticate <password> [address=<address>]

Unsubscribing

If you want to leave SKEPTIC, the easiest and most common way to unsubscribe is to use the "unsubscribe from skeptic" form on the Web interface at linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic, logging in using your subscription password. (If you've forgotten it, use the "get a password reminder" form, to have it mailed to you.)

Alternatively, if you would rather use GNU Mailman's e-mail command interface to unsubscribe, send

unsubscribe [password] [address=<address>]

...to skeptic-request@linuxmafia.com, in either the message body or the Subject: header. If you omit your subscription password, you'll be required to mail back a confirmation string. (Furnishing your subscription password within your unsubscribe request causes immediate unsubscription, without confirmation.)

The address field is optional (thus the brackets), being useful if you're sending the request from somewhere other than your subscribed address. (You'll then be sent a confirmation request at your subscribed address — again, unless you supply your subscription password within your request.)

The Mailman Project's own FAQ has also long answered this question.

Mail Problems

Since SKEPTIC is a fairly active list, it will be unusual to have one day where you receive nothing, let alone a few in a row. In this case, chances are that the list has had trouble sending mail to you. You have either been auto-deleted from the list, or GNU Mailman has suspended your mail.

The easiest and most common way to check if you're still subscribed is to use the "Subscribing to skeptic" form on GNU Mailman's Web interface at linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic, logging in using your subscription password. (If you've forgotten it, use the "get a password reminder" form, to have it mailed to you.) If you're already subscribed, the page will tell you so. Then, using the "change your subscription options" form on the same page to display subscriber options, verify that subscription option "Mail delivery" is set to "Enabled" instead of "Disabled". If not, toggle back to Enabled.

Alternatively, if you would rather use GNU Mailman's e-mail command interface to verify subscribed status, send

subscribe [password] [digest|nodigest] [address=<address>]

...to skeptic-request@linuxmafia.com, in either the message body or the Subject: header. If already subscribed, you'll be so advised. If you find you're not subscribed, you can confirm to rejoin the list. If you suspect your subscription might be set to delivery=off, sending

set delivery on

...will restart delivery.

If you get no reply at all to e-mailed commands, this probably means the list server is down. In that case, all you can do is wait. The listdmin will be aware of the problem, and is probably working to get things going again.

Own Postings

How do you receive a copy of your own posting, at a subscribed GMail address, to confirm that your posting went out? Simple, you don't.

GMail deliberately, as "part of its functionality to keep your inbox clean", suppresses the own-copy a subscriber (traditionally) gets sent on postings to any mailing list. There is no known way to disable this feature. It's just something all GMail users live with.

However, if you want a way to verify that GNU Mailman processed your posting, just check the archives.

The Mailman Project's own FAQ has also long answered this question. (That page includes a partial workaround to the problem GMail gratuitously imposes on its users.)

List Archives

GNU Mailman archives SKEPTIC in a Web archive available to any current subscriber at http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/private/skeptic/. By subscribers' request, it is not fully public (thus the word "private" in the URL), hence is not indexed/searchable by Web search engines.

From April 29, 1998 to July 9, 2000, eGroups (later Yahoo Groups) operated a publicly accessible Web archive of SKEPTIC, but then ceased to append newer traffic. On Dec. 15, 2020, that archive vanished altogether along with the rest of Yahoo Groups. There are no other known public archives.

Any subscriber who wishes his/her posting to be omitted from the cumulative archive need only include

X-No-Archive: Yes

...among the message's SMTP headers. That header is by convention also respected, in general, by third-party archivers such as Gmane and mail-archive.com.

Subscriber Roster

The subscriber roster is visible to any existing subscriber (but not to the public at large). Use the "skeptic Subscribers" form on GNU Mailman's Web interface at linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic, logging in using your subscription password. (If you've forgotten it, use the "get a password reminder" form, to have it mailed to you.) The resulting "skeptic Subscribers" page lists the e-mail addresses (but sadly not the associated names) of subscribers.

Anyone who wishes to opt out of the subscriber-viewable roster is welcome to do so. The easiest and most common way is to use the "change your subscription options" form on GNU Mailman's Web interface at linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic, logging in using your subscription password. (If you've forgotten it, use the "get a password reminder" form, to have it mailed to you.) Then, in the displayed subscriber options, pick "Yes" for subscription option "Conceal yourself from subscriber list?"

Alternatively, if you would rather use GNU Mailman's e-mail command interface to suspend delivery, send

set hide on

...will omit you from the roster, rendering your presence visible to nobody but the listadmin. The roster will, however, indicate the number of such "hidden" subscribers. Sending

set hide off

...will end your self-concealment. You'll be required to mail back a confirmation string — unless you precede your "set" command with

set authenticate <password> [address=<address>]

Other Commands

As with other GNU Mailman commands, the usual access method for perusing available commands and subscriber options is via the Web interface at linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic, logging in using your subscription password. (If you've forgotten it, use the "get a password reminder" form, to have it mailed to you.)

Alternatively, if you would rather use GNU Mailman's e-mail command interface to explore available commands and subscriber options, send

help

...and/or, if you wish detailed help about subscription options

set help

...to skeptic-request@linuxmafia.com, in either the message body or the Subject: header, which directives will fetch (respectively) a list of GNU Mailman's commands, and a list of available subscriber options.

The Mailman Project's own FAQ has also long answered this question.

The "Reply-To:" Header

The "Reply-To:" mail header on SKEPTIC mail was formerly "munged" (overridden) by the mailing list software, in an attempt to force most replies back to the mailing list, itself, during the jhu.edu-era incarnations (prior to 2016's migration to linuxmafia.com). "Munging" instructs mail clients to redirect their 'r' (or similar) reply-sender commands back to the mailing list only. If you desired to send offlist private mail to a fellow participant, you thus needed to manually overcome this forced reply semantics (substituting the desired recipient's private e-mail address, before sending); else you found that you had accidentally sent a private communication publicly, to the entire mailing list. This notorious "munging" hazard has now been eliminated, starting with linuxmafia.com hosting in October 2016.

What remains, however, is confusion on the part of some, predominantly less-technical, mailing list members. A faction of early Internet users worldwide held a position that "munging" (overriding at the level of mailing list software) was an appropriate use of the Reply-To: header, came to expect its altered reply semantics (where "reply-sender" is forced back to the list), and came to demand such overriding. However, in 2001, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) weighed in with SMTP standards RFC 2822 and 2369, decreeing that, no, Reply-To: "munging" is not appropriate. linuxmafia.com complies with IETF standards. Therefore, its mailing lists will not violate them, merely because some users demand Reply-To: header abuse.

In consequence, you should always use your e-mail software's:

reply-all command to continue on-list discussion.
reply-sender command to depart from on-list discussion into private mail.

The legitimate use of Reply-To:, entirely in your hands, involves you specifying an alternate return address for any direct replies, e.g., because you'll be spending several weeks away during which your preferred direct-response mailbox is alternate-me@example.com. To so indicate, you would add:

Reply-To: alternate-me@example.com

...to your existing SMTP headers atop outgoing mail.

History

The SKEPTIC list is managed by:
Rick Moen, SKEPTIC listadmin
skeptic-owner@linuxmafia.com. Rick took over on October 4, 2016 from Leonard R. ("Len") Cleavelin, who in turn adopted it around 2000 from founding list owner Taner Edis.

This page has been lightly modified by Rick Moen from Taner's original, which covered details of the prior mailing list manager software, LISTSERV and ListProc, which ran on now-defunct Internet servers jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu and (later) listproc.hcf.jhu.edu. That forum was, in turn, functionally speaking, a replacement for the very first SKEPTIC mailing list, believed to have been founded around 1987 on the Internet-gated BITNET service: Norman R. Gall's SKEPTIC@YORKVM1.BITNET (aka "BITNET SKEPTIC"), driven by LISTSERV software on an IBM VM-operating system mainframe at York University, Toronto, where he worked in the Dept. of Philosophy. Unfortunately, however, BITNET SKEPTIC suddenly vanished around July 19, 1993. (BITNET itself faded away after 1996 when CREN ended support, eroding as nodes dropped out over the next decade.)

At nearly the same time as Norm Gall started BITNET SKEPTIC, Toby Howard (of Manchester Skeptics) and Jim Lippard (of Phoenix Skeptics) established the first ARPAnet/JANET "skeptics" mailing list on Oct. 1, 1987 (but it's long gone). (ARPAnet was itself decommissioned in 1990 in favour of NSFNet as the Internet's backbone. NSFNet in turn was retired in 1996. JANET persists, substantially rearchitected 1991-1997, as the UK's research & education "ac.uk" & "gov.uk" components of the Internet.) Usenet newsgroup sci.skeptic started in September 1989.

Prompted by the unexpected July 1993 disappearance of Norm Gall's BITNET SKEPTIC, Taner Edis, then a graduate student studying condensed matter theory in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, quickly set up a replacement LISTSERV list, skeptic@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu, at JHU's Homewood Computing Facility (thus "hcf.jhu.edu"), which soon migrated to his longer-lived ListProc mailing list skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu, which in turn was then migrated a second time, on 16 July 1999, to Sympa mailing list skeptic@lists.johnshopkins.edu.

In due course (around 2000), Taner handed over administration to Leonard R. ("Len") Cleavelin of St. Louis, inadvertently causing an eventual crisis 16 years later, on October 4, 2016, when JHU suddenly realized SKEPTIC was no longer managed by someone with JHU academic affiliation, and therefore gave Len notice that SKEPTIC would be deleted on Oct. 10th. That same day, Rick Moen gave SKEPTIC its present incarnation on GNU Mailman, running on his linuxmafia.com server, including migrating all of Sympa's then-extant one year of back-postings, importing them into GNU Mailman's Web archive, which is why SKEPTIC's archives are now continuous from Nov. 1, 2015 to the present.

Please correct obsolete references elsewhere to the SKEPTIC's mailing list's former incarnations on jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu, listproc.hcf.jhu.edu, and lists.johnshopkins.edu, which are long gone.

From around 1992 to 2022, the SKEPTIC list had a popular peer in Garrison Hilliard's similarly named Skeptix, hosted from 2008 to 2022 at lists.opn.org/mailman/listinfo/skeptix_lists.opn.org. Unlike SKEPTIC, Skeptix was publicly Web-archived. We're told that Skeptix originated around 1992 as James Randi's Wizards Star List, wizards-star-list@ssr.com, but was renamed Skeptix in 2002 upon being passed along to Garrison Hilliard and re-hosted using GNU Mailman on mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/skeptix, and then around 2008 migrated to GNU Mailman at its final home, lists.opn.org/mailman/listinfo/skeptix_lists.opn.org.

Near as we can tell, around 2012, community hosting non-profit Oregon Public Networking (OPN.org) ceased business operations, transferring operation of its servers to commercial hosting firm Peak Internet, and retaining some volunteers to coordinate OPN operations. Starting around 2015, some party with superuser access (impliedly one or more member of Peak Internet's technical staff) took clumsy system administrator actions that damaged lists.opn.org's SMTP software and GNU Mailman, disabling one of GNU Mailman's command-handling mail aliases and making Skeptix's cumulative Web archive of back postings become HTTP 403 Forbidden instead of publicly accessible. When this probably-Peak-Internet-caused damage was called to Peak Internet's attention, after some delay, Peak Internet announced that because of "security problems" it would be shutting down OPN.org's server entirely, as of June 30, 2022, and providing no replacement.

Garrison Hilliard and OPN's volunteer asked Peak Internet to please supply to Garrison Skeptix's subscriber roster and cumulative postings archive mbox file, but these were never provided, and Peak Internet finally retired lists.opn.org around August 5, 2022. Therefore, Skeptix ended up being killed by corporate action, in apparent violation of Peak Internet's hosting agreement with OPN. As there are no backups, as of this writing (Aug. 2022), Skeptix cannot be revived elsewhere — apparently a cautionary tale about the trustworthiness of some hosting firms.

Last modified: 2022-08-11