9.1 How do I make sure that my post has the right topic?

When a list administrator defines a topic, he or she sets three things:

You can view this information by logging in to your member options page. (See Section 3.1 for more details on how to do this.) and clicking on the "details" link for any topic that interests you.

To post on a given topic, you need to make sure that the Keywords: or Subject: headers in a message match the regular expression for that topic. Regular expressions can actually be fairly complex, so you may want to just ask the list administrator if you don't know how to make heads or tails of the expression given.

Most Mailman topic expressions will be fairly simple regular expressions, so in this document we will simply give you some common examples. Regular expressions are a bit too complex to teach in a few lines here, so if you really want to understand how the regular expressions work, you should find a tutorial or reference elsewhere. (For example, DevShed has a decent tutorial at http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/Administration/RegExp/)

Here are some examples of possible regular expressions and matching lines:

Regular expression Matching lines
zuff Keywords: zuff
zuff Keywords: ZUFF
zuff Keywords: Zuff
zuff Keywords: amaryllis, zuff, applesauce
zuff Subject: [zuff] Do you have the right stuff for zuff?
zuff Subject: Do you have the right stuff for zuff?
zuff Subject: What is zuff?
\[zuff\] Keywords: [zuff]
\[zuff\] Subject: [zuff] Do you have the right stuff?
\[zuff\] Subject: Online zuff tutorials (was Re: [zuff] What is zuff?)

A few notes: