Punsters United Nearly Yearly (P.U.N.Y.) Yahoo! Group
Frequently Asked Questions

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Written and maintained by Lee Jackson
P.U.N.Y. List Administrangler

Document Created December 13, 2003
Current Revision 1.0 (rev. February 6, 2004)

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Table of Contents

I. Group Description

II. Questions About Messages
1. Why was my post returned to me as spam?
2. Why am I getting messages with [spam] in the subject line?

III. Web Addresses and Contact Information

IV. Trademark and Copyright Information / End

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I. Group Description

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(The following is also posted online at http:
//groups.yahoo.com/group/puny/)

Punsters United Nearly Yearly (P.U.N.Y.) is a small, unofficial
group, formed in 1990 to assist the O. Henry Home and Museum in
Austin, TX. Specifically, we help coordinate and present the
museum's largest fundraiser each year, the annual O. Henry Pun-Off
World Championships.

The O. Henry Home and Museum is actually inside the house in which
the famous short story author William Sydney Porter (a.k.a. O.
Henry) lived while in Austin. The house is listed in the National
Register of Historic Places.

The Pun-Off helps to provide operating and renovation funds for the
museum. In the process, we provide free entertainment for over
1,000 spectators each year, collecting funds through raffles, book
sales, and audience donations during the event. The Pun-Off is also
an event that allows the most twisted minds in the country,
P.U.N.Y. members and otherwise, a chance to show just how far the
English language can be bent without breaking.

Discussions shall include and mostly be limited to P.U.N.Y. status
announcements, news on other pun-related events, pun challenges and
discussions, and ideas about future fund raisers and competitions.
Basically, anything pun-related or O. Henry related is fair game.

NOTE: Some messages may contain mildly mature subject matter.
Parental discretion is advised. Please keep things at least at a PG
level if you join. ;-)

Please note that messages posted by new members are moderated at
first. This was made necessary by a number of inconsiderate
spammers. Also, please note that the moderator reserves the right
to reject and/or ban anyone who applies for membership. This is
again for anti-spam purposes, so if you join with a member name
that looks like a spammer address, you might be banned without
notice. If you are a legitimate user and you experience problems
with any of this, please notify the listowner.

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II. Questions About Messages

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1. Why was my post returned to me as spam?

At some point during your stay in the P.U.N.Y. group here on Yahoo!
Groups, you may receive a message in response to one of your posts
that looks something like this:

To: (deleted for privacy - LJ)
Subject: Error [puny] re: (deleted for privacy - LJ)
From: SpamHold <spam.hold@mpcdoc.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 12:07:23 -0600

Your message was filtered by NEMX Spam Filter. Please note that
the intended Recipient did not receive this message.

NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY This communication is intended to be
confidential and solely for the use of the persons or entities
addressed above. If you are not an intended recipient, be
aware that the information contained herein may be protected
from unauthorized use by privilege or law, and any copying,
distribution, disclosure, or other use of this information is
prohibited. If you have received this communication in error,
please contact the sender by return e-mail immediately, and
delete or destroy all copies. Thank you for your cooperation.

Don't panic. This is not your fault.

Why did it happen? I wish I knew. I can tell you what is going
on, though. Someone in our group, be they an active member or just
an observer, has set up a mail program to auto-forward messages
from our group to an address within the mpcdoc.com domain. The
mail server at mpcdoc.com is then marking certain group messages as
spam and then returning error messages. The rest of the group does
not see the error messages, since they are addressed directly to
the original sender.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to trace things once the forwarding
is done, since the SpamHold filter does not include any header
information from the original message.

I have contacted the people at the mpcdoc.com domain, and they are
completely baffled by the situation. They don't know which of
their users is the target of the redirected mail, since SpamHold
apparently deletes the messages before they can look at the
headers.

In other words, there's nothing that can be done to solve the
matter.

In the meantime, if you never want to see one of these messages
again, set up a filter within your mail program. Have it delete
any messages that come from spam.hold@mpcdoc.com, and that'll do
the trick.

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2. Why am I getting messages with [spam] in the subject line?

Yahoo! Groups has implemented a new feature recently called
SpamGuard. This is an apparent response to a persistent problem
with spam sneaking through into group messages. The following two
links contain information on how SpamGuard works:

http://groups.yahoo.com/local/service-spamguard.html
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/abuse/abuse-08.html

Here's a quote from Yahoo!'s description of SpamGuard:

"Yahoo! Groups routes messages sent to your group
through SpamGuard. If we detect that a message is
spam, we will notify you and include the message as
an attachment. If you use a Yahoo! Mail email address
for your group, these messages will automatically get
routed to your Bulk folder.

"If you do not use Yahoo! Mail, or if you use POP
access to read your Yahoo! Groups messages in your
email client (e.g., Outlook), you can set up filters
to route these messages to an appropriate folder,
such as 'spam' or 'bulk.'"

There are two problems that I've seen with this so far. The first
problem is that it is a bit overzealous. It marks some very
obviously non-spam messages as spam. The second problem is that it
can break e-mail filters on users' systems. For example, if you
use filters in your e-mail program (Outlook, Pegasus, Eudora, or in
my case, Agent) to route incoming messages into folders, this might
screw things up and result in P.U.N.Y. messages going into your
generic inbox (or worse, trash folder) instead.

There's nothing that can be done about the first problem, but you
can do something to address any filter difficulty you may
encounter. Read the information at this link:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/abuse/abuse-10.html

It will show you what you need to get your filter to recognize
SpamGuard-processed messages.

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III. Web Addresses and Contact Information

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To visit the P.U.N.Y. group on the web, go to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/puny/

You will be prompted to set up a Yahoo! profile (if you don't
already have one) before the system will let you into the group's
site. There's no charge for this.

Once you're on the group site, you can manage your group
membership (including unsubscription), set delivery options, and do
generally a bunch of other stuff.

To unsubscribe from the group without visiting the site, send a
blank e-mail message (no subject text or body text required) to
this address:

puny-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

Yahoo! Groups usage terms can be found at:

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

The listowner (a.k.a. the Administrangler) can be reached at:

puny-owner AT yahoogroups.com

(NOTE: Spam prevention measures in place - replace the "AT" with
an @ sign and delete the spaces before using the above address.)

Finally, here are some P.U.N.Y. and O.Henry Museum related
websites of interest:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/ohenry/default.htm
http://punpunpun.com

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IV. Trademark and Copyright Information / End

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Outlook and the Microsoft logo are trademarks of the Microsoft
corporation.

Agent is a trademark of Forte, Inc.

All other trademarks used or referred to in this FAQ are the
property of their respective owners.


Lee Jackson, P.U.N.Y. List Administrangler
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/puny