HBD General Information

I'll bet your signature starts with a line of underscores -
like this: ___________________________
That line is actually an ASCII representation of a daemonic incantation which calls the "Sig Gobbling Daemon" from the depths of the server to do away with it and all which may follow it. Beware the evil train of underscores! Lo! Forsooth!
Huh? Oh. Sorry. Some of the free-mail-if-you-let-us-spam-you-and-all-your-friends ISPs have taken to attaching sigs having more than 80 characters in length to the bottoms of all outgoing mail (likened to a leech attaching itself to your buttock). The "common thread" in all of these seems to be the evil train of underscores used to separate it from that of its unwitting host. These trigger the "line length greater than 80" filter, precluding the unwitting victims from posting to the Digest. But we're nice guys. We don't want to preclude any but the spammers and the rankest of idiots from posting. (Just kidding about the idiots - they can post freely.) So, to make a long story...well, er, longer... Karl has written a filter to burn the leeches from the buttocks of those infested. Hence, any sig starting with the evil train of underscores is heretofor kaput....

It's not a bug! It's a feature! Well, uh. OK. It's a bug.
The same filter, descended from heaven, which precludes the Digest's ability to pass viruses on to the readers is also responsible for the mysterious line munching. And, thanks to the incredibly observant detective by the name of Byron Towles, we now know what triggers this consumptive behavior!
If any one line of your post begins with the word "end", it will be removed from your post.
Yeah, yeah. We know. And we're working on making that filter a bit more intelligent, but, with the proliferation of viruses today, we feel it better to warn you against starting lines with the word "end", rather than disabling the filter and taking a chance on infecting a bunch more people...

Actually, it is apparent rennerian as Jeff is not yet static, so neither should be your brewery's position to his location. Confused?
Long story, there. In any case, it is a coordinate system developed to determine your location relative to that of Jeff Renner's house. You see, it was deemed that Jeff Renner is actually the center of the brewing universe, and, being a courtesy to let other HBD readers know where you are (particularly when asking questions of regional interest - Jeff was very, very vocal that such information should be included with every post, hence his title as center of the brewing universe...), the rennerian coordinate system allows you to do so in HBD terms.
Still confused? Not surprised. I wrote the explanation and I'm confused, too. In any case, you can click Here to calculate yours. All you need to know is your longitude and lattitude...

Many mail readers have difficulty with lines of greater than 80 characters, the Digest scripts were written to filter out those that don't comply. Set the line length in your mailer to 80 or less. (Prior to the writing of the sig filter mentioned above, you may have been starring in the role of Unwitting Victim...)

Non-ASCII character sets are a relative newcomer to email. Since many mail clients have difficulty displaying (mine included!), we disallow them - choosing instead to "standardize" the Digest character set to Western or US-ASCII. Most international subscribers can properly display this character set.

Our mission is to make the best brewing information possible available to anyone who has access to the internet. Incorporating every new feature, particularly in our core vehicle - the email digest, would preclude those who cannot get or afford clients employing these features from participating. Instead, we work towards means of serving our products "both ways". For instance, we are working on a method to allow Digest participants to subscribe to a straight text version or HTML version of the emailed Digest. Part of our ability to do this requires that we develop systems on the Digest server to translate the incoming postings to the plain text version (ie, programatically deal with character set conversions, HTML tag removal, etc.). Many of these systems have been developed and are being tested on the existing mail stream today. Once perfected, we will roll out the multiple version subscription system, but, until then, please respect our mission and bear with the tedium of complying with somewhat archaic rules...

Karl puts it most eloquently...
"The Un-Digested version is toast. Gone. Forget it. This is because cancellation of articles is now re-enabled. As a result, there is no guarantee to maintain accuracy [with the responses generated by the undigested version to a potentially cancelled note]. We have far more requests for the cancellation feature than for the undigested feature."
So there!

A few possibilities here:
• You didn't subscribe through the Digest, but through some other source.
  Unsubscribe through the source you subscribed through. Note that if you subscribed through either of Rob Gardner's hp.com servers or either of the Association of Brewers aob.org servers, you should send your unsubscribe to this server (homebrew-request@hbd.org).
• Your mailing address or alias has changed.
  Read the bottom of your Digest and note the address to which the Digest is mailing. Send this address along with your request to be unsubscibed to janitor@hbd.org
• You are sending your request to an obsolete address.
  Send your unsubscribe to homebrew-request@hbd.org
• You are not following directions...
  Your email to unsubscribe MUST contain the word "unsubscribe" (without the quotes) in the BODY of the note. That note must be sent to homebrew-request@hbd.org

Send an email note to req@hbd.org with the word "subscribe" in the body of the text (no quotes required...). Make sure you're using the email account you wish to have subscribe. That oughta do it...

Addresses "fall" off the list on occasion due to conditions on the internet giving the appearance that the address is no longer valid. Should you find yourself without your Digest, simply send a note containing only the word "subscribe" to req@hbd.org.

If you end up with two Digests, send a note containing only the word "unsubscribe" to req@hbd.org, and only one copy of your address will be removed. If the problem continues, or you get a message indicating your address could not be found, contact janitor@hbd.org and give them your address, name and any aliases you may have subscribed under.

If you get a 550 error in response to your email into the HBD, your email address or (more likely) your domain has been listed on a SPAM/Problem domain blacklist. As of 2 September 2004, we've adopted the blacklist method of mail filtering to reduce the load on the server presented by this brave new world of illicit emailing.
Your best bet is to get a yahoo or hotmail account, and use that instead (and admonish your ISP for being so promiscuous with their accounts as to get on the spamlists.)
If you absolutely MUST use the email address that is being rejected, use THIS FORM to submit your email address for consideration. Be warned, though, that most will not be reinstated as doing so will make moot the automation I've put in place to save me the time of culling the spam out of the queue and out of my inbox - as a I pointed out: the problem was created by your ISP; not by me.

Go ftp to the Digest server hbd.org/pub/hbd/Digests. Use anonymous as your username and your email address as your password to log in.

Of course, it is! We claim copyright to the compilation, and preserve copyright of posters to their individual posts. This means that you cannot republish the HBD in whole without the permission of HBD.ORG (effectively: the Janitors) or in part without the permission of the individual posters.
Generally, there's no problem quoting from the Digest into club newsletters, articles, etc., as long as the source is properly attributed. There'd be HUGE trouble afoot if you were to, say, store the Digest archives on a CD ROM or book or binder and offer it for sale.
Here's the full text from the HBD "info" file (send "info" in a note to req@hbd.org to get yours...):
COPYRIGHT for the Digest as a collection is currently held by hbd.org (Pat Babcock). Digests in their entirity CANNOT be reprinted/reproduced without this entire header section unless EXPRESS written permission has been obtained from hbd.org. Digests CANNOT be reprinted or reproduced in any format for redistribution unless said redistribution is at absolutely NO COST to the consumer.
COPYRIGHT for individual posts within each Digest is held by the author. Articles cannot be extracted from the Digest and reprinted/reproduced without the EXPRESS written permission of the author. The author and HBD must be attributed as author and source in any such reprint/reproduction. (Note: QUOTING of items originally appearing in the Digest in a subsequent Digest is exempt from the above. Home brew clubs NOT associated with organizations having a commercial interest in beer or brewing may republish articles in their newsletters and/or websites provided that the author and HBD are attributed. ASKING first is still a great courtesy...)

janitor@hbd.org for the emailed Digest or webmaster@hbd.org for the website.

I'm glad you asked that! We see our "charter" as not only providing the Digest, but providing SERVICE to the home brewing community. Part of this, to our minds, is helping to "spread the word". A good way to do this is to help OTHERS spread the word! A good way to do that is to help clubs get on the web to advertise their stuff!
Have a home brew club that needs a website? Contact webmaster@hbd.org to see about setting yours up. We offer space on the webserver, "communal" cgi-scripts for common functions and a email-based list serve for clubs at no cost - your funds are better spent on your members! We reserve the right to deny service to any applicant for whatever reason we see fit. I don't believe we have denied anyone yet, though...
UPDATE: As of January 2008, HBD.ORG is no longer granting space to home brew clubs.
Unfortunately, in preparation for a hosting transition, the HBD can no longer offer webspace to home brew clubs. Please avail yourselves of free web hosting providers. http://www.free-webhosts.com/ carries a useful list of free webhosts for your reference. It is recommended that those currently hosted on hbd.org begin the transition to other hosting arrangements. Expected ETA for the transition is August 2009..

Part of our charter to bring you the best brewing info we can get our (virtual) hands on. This is what we refer to as "The Preserve". It works like this:

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The Janitors are the two twits who "run" the HBD. They spend inordinate amounts of time ensuring that SPAM doesn't creep into your beloved reading material, while continuously working to build and enhance the Digest's web presence. Their sole reason for being is to bring you the most, highest quality brewing information possible whilst not requiring one dime of your hard-earned dollars/Euros/Pounds/Lira, etc. (Though the site is sponsor and donation funded. See http://hbd.org/sponsors.html and http://hbd.org/hbddonors.html if interested.)
Not only is this a really cool thing to do, it's useful, too! All this handy reference material for your brewing endeavors all in one place!
Back to your original question, though:
Master of the Code, and Guy Who Was Generally Quietly Working In The Background: Karl Lutzen
Unfortunately, Karl "retired" from Janitorship in, roughly, September of '03, leaving the Code Mastership to Pat in full. May the good Lord have mercy on his soul.
Vocal Code Hacker Who Builds The Hardware And Lives With The Servers: Pat Babcock
Volunteer Queue Wrangler, For Whose Help, Pat Is MOST Grateful: Spencer Thomas. Both reachable through: janitor@hbd.org

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