[Bcc: BALUG-Test list] So ... BALUG-Test list ... not an official announcement ... yet, but, it's up and running, and mostly functional ... with some noteworthy caveats/issues still to be addressed (and probably some I've not yet discovered).
Policy, etc. - haven't really written that up yet, but shall. In the meantime, it goes approximately as follows: Fairly similar to BALUG-Talk - generally need to be subscribed to post, no job postings (no reason to have exceptions on that on the Test list) It *is* a test list, so some things are and generally will remain different: Recommended convention: if you *do not* want a response to your posting to the list, include both of these two strings: test ignore in your Subject: header and they can be upper and/or lower case (testing should be done case insensitive). If you don't include both test and ignore, you may get human and/or automated responses, e.g. received your posting fine at ... and here's full headers as received. No guarantees you'll get such response(s), but if you don't include test and ignore, you may get such response(s).
The list may wink in and out of existence, but for the most part will be persistent, have preserved archives, etc. Archives may be reloaded and/or altered (posts added/dropped) - notably for testing - but for the most part the archives will generally contain what was posted to the list.
Anyway, that's at least approximation of the policy (will write it up more later, and have it on the list page).
Caveats - at present the archives are effectively broken. It's a web server configuration issue - they're otherwise fine and being archived (and it's not filesystem or file permissions or the like). I'll get that fixed (one of the relatively higher priorities).
At present, emails with an empty body are being rejected. I still need to fix that (as legitimate mailman commands may have command in Subject header and have empty body).
The mail server has a whole lot 'o anti-spam stuff on it. Fairly likely some of that may be too aggressive and/or annoying. I like how it's rejecting tons 'o cr*p spam :-) ... but I want to keep the nuisance factor sufficiently low on legitimate email. It will probably need some adjusting. If you get a "hard" / "permanent" failure (or the mail server automagically blacklist or bans you on what should be legitimate email), shoot me an email note: Michael.Paoli@cal.berkeley.edu - and include full headers and the complete bounce message contents. Some of the greylisting and flood protection may be a bit annoying - especially on first messages. E.g. a legitimate email doesn't necessarily get an "instant" response/acceptance - I've tuned some of that down so initial delays are less annoying (e.g. dropped to 2 minutes) while still effectively thwarting spammers. Anyway, much of that may yet be subject to further adjustments, etc., as reasonably appropriate. There are also a lot of block lists that are used ... at least some of those may be a bit too aggressive in their blocking and block some legitimate email. Anyway, let me know where issues are encountered.
Also, the site is neither high bandwidth nor high availability. So, sometimes it may not be available ... but for the most part it generally should be up and available.
So, where is it, how to get started? List page, here: https://temp.balug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/balug-test It, and the other BALUG lists, will temporarily migrate from lists.balug.org to temp.balug.org - and later settle back on lists.balug.org (part of our migration away from DreamHost.com). BALUG-Test list first, then BALUG-Admin, then BALUG-Talk, and last, BALUG-Announce.
And how can you tell if your post was successful without being able to see the archives? Looks like with the default: Receive your own posts to the list? Yes One should be able to tell/distinguish by headers, etc., in received posting. Looks like also there's default: Avoid duplicate copies of messages? Yes One might possibly want to change to No to help ensure all copies are received.
And ... well, not exactly step-by-step, but tracking fair bit of migration and testing here: https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:mail_and_lists (it's not fully current ... but not that far from current either)