Thanks for all the replies I got on my message on books listing
mailing lists, including addresses and other information about various
books.
Normally I try to make sure that all information on "my" mailing list
is correct and not misleading. The main reason I nevertheless
asked you all if you think it's worth trying to correct what's in
those books about Internet is because I know so little about them.
Only if there are recurring books in ever new editions would there be
any point in correcting information in them, and I thought that
perhaps there rather are new books all the time that only appear in
one edition each.
I mentioned the "Internet Yellow Pages" and Stephanie da Silva
surmised I meant the "Rider Internet Yellow Pages". If you say so...
I just know what my subscribers have told me when I've asked them
where they learnt about the list.
As for AOL, they seem to be a popular target for attacks because of
them letting their users roam about on the Net at large without
knowing anything about what they're doing. I've too had my share of
clueless AOL users but I think that things have become a lot better.
In fact almost all AOL users who I've had to do with recently
because of my mailinglist have behaved like well-informed responsible
Net Citizens (TM).
Of course that may be because I'm one of the "*tiny* percentage of list
owners" (according to David O'Donnell) who actually have asked to not
have the posting address included in AOL's list. I still think that
list (and any list of mailing lists) by default shouldn't contain
information on how to post to the list, but only include that if the
list administrator explicitly asks for it.
As for such lists of mailing lists I understand what David O'Donnell
wrote about AOL's need of their own list of lists:
> Because so many of our members don't understand anything at all
> about the Internet, we provide more information than you'd find in a
> 'typical' list-of-lists, and it's geared towards AOL members.
but on the other hand I as a list administrator wouldn't have the time
to send descriptions of my list to any number of email providers in
any number of different formats if they all wanted their own lists.
I want the time *I* spend on such activities to be for the good of the
whole net community and not just (the customers of) one commercial
vendor. (Keith Moore already made that point.) David has answered
that he is planning to make the AOL list of mailing lists available to
the Net at large, which I think is a good idea, but still it's true
that it's impractical having to update information on a list in lots
of places whenever anything changes.
My ideal would be one single source about publicly accessible mailing
lists. Only one place to look: if it isn't there, it's not public.
Only one place to update entries in. If you update it there, the
change will soon spread to other places too.
I guess the nearest thing now to what I'd like is Stephanie's list
even though it's not quite what I want. For one thing it's
copyrighted and
> No part of it may be reproduced in any form, except through normal Usenet
> distribution channels, without explicit permission from the author.
If for example someone makes a list of mailing lists having to do with
comics I'd like them to be able to just lift the information on my
list (which is about Disney comics) from that list. Ideally it should
be possible to create an updated list of mailing lists on comics
automatically every time a new version of the master list arrives, to
be included in a WWW page on comics or whatever.
As for the special needs of the presentation of mailing lists to
customers of one particular provider of email perhaps the ideal would
be if the list-of-lists had a more strict form with specific entries
having specific attributes. Then a list with
name: Disney comics mailing list
managing-software: by-hand
request-address: disney-comics-request@minsk.docs.uu.se
...
might be automatically translated into a form suitable for a
particular need. For experienced users a comprehensive list might say
just
contact: disney-comics-request@minsk.docs.uu.se
where another version might expand that into
To subscribe:
Send a politely worded request to
disney-comics-request@minsk.docs.uu.se.
(which is an actual quote from the List of Lists at AOL). Also such
localized versions of a master list of lists would make it possible to
automatically translate email addresses into another format, such as
">INTERNET:disney-comics-request@minsk.docs.uu.se" or whatever.
Also localized versions might ignore information on ftp servers or
WWW servers for users without access to that.
Well, I'll keep on dreaming...
-- "
Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback@minsk.docs.uu.se
"Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!"
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