Mailing Lists

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The GnuCash mailing lists are a useful way to communicate with developers and users. Through them, you can get help with using GnuCash, make suggestions on how to use GnuCash, or even how to improve it.

User Lists

The GnuCash team, together with experienced users, will answer your questions about the use of GnuCash on gnucash-user and the language-specific mailing lists below:

Mailing List Membership

It is customary to join (subscribe) to the mailing list. Posts from non-members wait in a queue to be approved by a moderator.

There is alternate access to some of the Gnucash mailing lists through Nabble and Gmane. Being able to post to those sites does not subscribe you to the mailing list, so your posts will still wait in the queue to be approved, until you actually subscribe to the list.

Mailing List Management

The GnuCash mailing lists are served by a mailman server which allows users to subscribe, unsubscribe, and otherwise manage their subscriptions to the various lists available. For example, you can configure your settings to be subscribed, so you can post to the list, but not receive any emails from the list. These settings can be configured

  • via the web interface, e.g. to unsubscribe gnucash-user:

Unsubscribe.jpg

Tip
The server will answer a request with subject help with the list of possible commands.

Netiquette

Besides general Netiquette you should try to follow these guidelines:

  • Before asking a question on the list, you should see whether that question has been answered before by searching the list archives (see below) and and also by checking the FAQ.
  • Before your first posting disable any autoresponder. It is annoying for people answering you, and you could be removed from the list.
  • Use the reply to the list or reply to all button of your email client instead of reply (to the sender) - others could also be interested in the theme and probably help.
  • Use plain text instead of html format in your email client - html parts will be eaten by the mail server to reduce spam.
  • Attachments - e.g. screenshots or small example files - are allowed, while inline images get stripped off without warning.
  • If you answer using your daily digest, replace in the subject "gnucash-<list> Digest ..." with that from the thread you are answering.
  • In your reply strip off unneeded parts of the citation.
  • A final Thanks, that solved my problem. or Sorry, I'm giving up because ... would be fine. It would help other users, searching the archives, to decide to follow the instructions or not.
    • But there is no need for follow up Thank yous.
  • Each list has a moderator. The moderator makes the final decisions on which posts are acceptable or not, and is able to suspend list membership at their discretion. Posts to the list which are considered flaming, spam, or which contain offensive language may lead to suspension. Netiquette gives general guidelines.

Mailing Lists for Development Topics

The GnuCash community also maintains a separate set of mailing lists intended for discussion of the ongoing development of GnuCash, including submitting patches, helping with testing, or discussing future development directions. These lists should not be used for asking questions about the use of GnuCash. Questions of that nature should be submitted to gnucash-user or one of the other mailing lists mentioned above.

  • gnucash-devel: The real development discussion and
  • a bunch of watch lists:

To submit patches, you should use Bugzilla because on mailing lists they get too easy forgotten.

Mailing List Archives

Past discussions on the lists are maintained in list-specific archives, which can be seen at mailman server.

Searching the List Archives

Currently, there is no on-site mechanism to search the mailing lists and the search link on the archive page is broken.

Instead, use the term "site:lists.gnucash.org" at Google or Yahoo! to search within the archives, e.g. http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Alists.gnucash.org+string+to+search .

Spam Prevention

The GnuCash mailing list server runs a number of tests to reduce the amount of spam collected in the mailman queues. In addition to the normal content filters and DNS Blacklists, the server also uses a sender verification method and greylisting to make sure the email is originating from a legitimate email account. Unfortunately this can affect your ability to send to the list if you're using one of the major email companies and THEY don't follow the rules.

For example, if you get a bounce back saying something like: 

... while talking to lists.gnucash.org.:
>>> DATA
<<< 550 5.7.1 <gnucash-user@gnucash.org>... sender <me@my.domain> via [10.20.30.40] to <gnucash-user@gnucash.org> rejected, too many recent retries
550 5.1.1 <gnucash-user@gnucash.org>... User unknown
<<< 503 5.0.0 Need RCPT (recipient)

This means your email provider failed the sender verification tests (i.e., it accepts mail to ANY address), and then when it was greylisted it re-transmitted the message too many times (more than three) in the spam-detection window (five minutes). Once this happens, you're blacklisted from the list. Unfortunately there's nothing you can do but wait until the blacklist entry times out (about one week). You might want to complain to your email provider, or you could change to a provider that's more friendly, or just use a different email address.

There is no manual way to reset the blacklist, so please don't ask. We apologize for your inconvenience, but rarely does this affect real users. If you get hit by this, we're sorry, but this is a problem from your provider's end and we cannot correct it on our end.

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