From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 3 16:23:08 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03263; Sat, 3 Jul 93 16:23:08 GMT Received: from msmail.kgs.ukans.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03256; Sat, 3 Jul 93 09:23:01 PDT Message-Id: <9307031623.AA03256@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> Date: 3 Jul 1993 11:21:49 -0600 From: "pfterry" Subject: To: "List Managers Mailing List" Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I'm running Anastasios Kotsikonas' listserver version: 5.5 with Ida sendmail (I think) on a Sun IPC. One member of a mailing list that I manage has complained that it is "primitive" compared to the 1.7f version of the VMS listserver. Specifically, it doesn't support some of the commands that he's become used to. Is there a way that I can improve the functionality of the listserver on the Sun? Thanks in advance. Fred +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Fred Terry, Kansas Geological Survey 1930 Constant Ave., Lawrence, KS 66047 pfterry@cyberpunk.kgs.ukans.edu +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I've tried to relax, but--I dunno--I seem to be more comfortable tense. From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 3 23:44:28 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04400; Sat, 3 Jul 93 23:44:28 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04393; Sat, 3 Jul 93 16:44:20 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA09921; Sat, 3 Jul 93 18:35:56 EDT Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1993 14:15:51 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Your mail Message-Id: <930703.141551-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: "List Managers Mailing List" In-Reply-To: Your message of 3 Jul 1993 11:21:49 -0600 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 3 Jul 1993 11:21:49 -0600 pfterry said: >I'm running Anastasios Kotsikonas' listserver version: 5.5 with Ida sendmail (I >think) on a Sun IPC. One member of a mailing list that I manage has complained >that it is "primitive" compared to the 1.7f version of the VMS listserver. >Specifically, it doesn't support some of the commands that he's become used to. >Is there a way that I can improve the functionality of the listserver on the >Sun? Ahh.. Now this is a bit of a "curious" situation; it looks like you are comparing Tasos' "Listserver" with Eric's "Revised LISTSERV", a listserver versus a listserv... :-) But hey! I didn't know Eric had already put a VMS version of his MLM into production (or is it a beta version?). Now the funny thing is that someone on comp.mail.misc is asking for just such a thing... Has Eric posted more news re a VMS version of "LISTSERV"? Another (formal) point btw. The name of Tasos' product is "Listserver", that of Eric's is "LISTSERV", both are list servers - or more general - Mailing List Managers. I just issued a formal correction on comp.mail.misc; some people seem to think "listserv" is a generic word, which imho is like saying all gems (false and real) are "diamonds"... >I've tried to relax, but--I dunno--I seem to be more comfortable tense. So did I, but any further, and I'm dead... ;-) Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 6 14:52:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11079; Tue, 6 Jul 93 14:52:39 GMT Received: from radiomail (radiomail.net) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11072; Tue, 6 Jul 93 07:52:33 PDT Received: by radiomail; id AA10566; Tue, 6 Jul 93 07:48:05 -0700 Message-Id: <9307061448.AA10566@radiomail> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 07:46:53 -0800 GMT From: Mark Schaub (via RadioMail) Subject: UNIX listserver To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Anybody know of a listserver that runs under UNIX? Specifically, we have a Data General 6240 running DG/UX 5.4.2 (it's AT&T compliant). Thanks ======================================= Mark A. Schaub Manager, Networks & Telecommunications University Hospital Consortium uhw2@RadioMail.Net schaub@borg.uhc.edu ======================================= From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 6 16:31:57 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11218; Tue, 6 Jul 93 16:31:57 GMT Received: from radiomail (radiomail.net) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11211; Tue, 6 Jul 93 09:31:51 PDT Received: by radiomail; id AA13789; Tue, 6 Jul 93 09:27:41 -0700 Message-Id: <9307061627.AA13789@radiomail> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 09:26:30 -0800 GMT From: Mark Schaub (via RadioMail) Subject: email to MHS To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk o: list-manager@greatcircle.com Ok, now I've got a really tough one. Our email comes into our big UNIX box. Most of our network users are on PCs and Novell with MHS as a local mail router. I need to get the mail moved from the UNIX box over to the Novell mail server so MHS can deliver it. Is anybody using something that does this??? Thanks --------------------------------------- Mark A. Schaub Manager, Networks & Telecommunications University Hospital Consortium uhw2@radiomail.net schaub@borg.uhc.edu --------------------------------------- From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 6 19:43:20 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11652; Tue, 6 Jul 93 19:43:20 GMT Received: from mozart.aero.ufl.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11639; Tue, 6 Jul 93 12:43:10 PDT Received: from localhost by mozart.aero.ufl.edu (5.61ufl/4.10) id AA11581; Tue, 6 Jul 93 15:45:45 -0400 Message-Id: <9307061945.AA11581@mozart.aero.ufl.edu> To: Mark Schaub (via RadioMail) , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: UNIX listserver In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 06 Jul 93 07:46:53 BST." <9307061448.AA10566@radiomail> Date: Tue, 06 Jul 93 15:45:44 -0400 From: mauricio@mozart.aero.ufl.edu X-Mts: smtp Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Anybody know of a listserver that runs under UNIX? Specifically, we have a > Data General 6240 running DG/UX 5.4.2 (it's AT&T compliant). The two that I remember right now are Procmail and Listserv... From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 7 00:56:14 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA12430; Wed, 7 Jul 93 00:56:14 GMT Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA12407; Tue, 6 Jul 93 17:55:56 PDT Received: from spool.uu.net (via LOCALHOST) by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA13825; Tue, 6 Jul 93 20:58:15 -0400 Received: from telesoft.UUCP by spool.uu.net with UUCP/RMAIL (queueing-rmail) id 205644.7522; Tue, 6 Jul 1993 20:56:44 EDT Received: from lone.alsys.com by flash.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2a) id AA26454; Tue, 6 Jul 93 17:31:28 PDT Message-Id: <9307070031.AA26454@flash.alsys.com> Received: by lone.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2) id AA21009; Tue, 6 Jul 93 17:31:25 PDT From: mnejat@lone.alsys.com Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 17:31:25 PDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.2 4/12/91) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Having problems building listserver6.0 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I get the following messages when trying to build listserver 6.0: flash (16) setup UNIX ListServer system setup script ----------------------------------- Version 6.0 System already built under /user/server Looks like you cannot compile with the -DHAVE_SELECT_H flag; run systest. Looks like you cannot compile with the -DHAVE_ULIMIT_H flag; run systest. Compile with -DHAVE_SETJMP_H if you already have not done so. Compile with -DHAVE_TZFILE_H if you already have not done so. You may wish to compile with -DSYSLOG=facility to use syslog(3) for reports. Do you wish to use unproto for compilation [n]? y Enter the directory unproto resides: /user/mnejat/tools/unproto cc -c -g -I/user/server -I/user/server/src -I/usr/server/src -I/usr/include -I/ user/server/src -DHAVE_SETJMP_H -DHAVE_TZFILE_H -Dbsd signals.c "signals.c", line 55: syntax error at or near word "struct" "signals.c", line 56: syntax error at or near type word "char" "signals.c", line 57: syntax error at or near type word "int" "signals.c", line 59: syntax error at or near type word "void" "signals.c", line 60: syntax error at or near type word "void" "signals.c", line 61: syntax error at or near type word "int" "signals.c", line 121: syntax error at or near type word "int" "signals.c", line 128: sig undefined *** Error code 1 make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `signals.o' setup: error(s) during compilation; quitting ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have changed the DEFINE statements in src/Makefile to what the setup script suggests, but don't know what to do about the syntax errors. I don't have an ANSI C compiler and am using unproto program. Here is the output of uname -a command: flash (22) uname -a SunOS flash 4.1 5 sun4 Any help is greatly appriciated, --Mehregan Nejat From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 7 01:48:21 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA12578; Wed, 7 Jul 93 01:48:21 GMT Received: from walt.disney.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA12571; Tue, 6 Jul 93 18:48:14 PDT Received: from dalsdb (dalsdb.fa.disney.com) by walt.disney.com with SMTP id AA27153 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.3 for List-Managers@greatcircle.com); Tue, 6 Jul 1993 18:51:01 -0700 Received: from bimbette.wdp_animation by dalsdb with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #53) id m0oDOXe-000FckC; Tue, 6 Jul 93 18:43 PDT Message-Id: Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 18:43 PDT To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: cc'ing my postmaster From: sullivan@fa.disney.com Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Some sites cc my postmaster when they send bounce messages. Is there something I can put in the header to either keep this from happening or to redirect those cc's to me? Michael Sullivan sullivan@fa.disney.com Walt Disney Feature Animation +1 818 544 2683 (voice) Glendale, CA +1 818 544 4579 (fax) From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 7 20:20:45 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14800; Wed, 7 Jul 93 20:20:45 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca ([137.207.192.3]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14793; Wed, 7 Jul 93 13:20:35 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA02909; Wed, 7 Jul 93 16:22:37 EDT Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 15:52:35 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Message-Id: <930707.155235-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 6 Jul 1993 07:46:53 -0800 GMT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 6 Jul 1993 07:46:53 -0800 GMT Mark A. Schaub said: >Anybody know of a listserver that runs under UNIX? Specifically, we have a >Data General 6240 running DG/UX 5.4.2 (it's AT&T compliant). In all fairness to the authors of the "Revised LISTSERV" resp. the "ListServer" applications, may I suggest that one use a generic like "Mailing List Manager"? The MLM generic seems to have been around for some time, and imho quite accurately describes what you are referring to here. Aside from the issue of fairness to the authors, there's the practical question of confusion amongst users of these MLMs. Anyone used to "Revised LISTSERV" for example can get rather upset when addressing an MLM with and getting unexpected responses... So for those currently using as address but not running "Revised LISTSERV", and for those thinking of using an MLM other than the "Revised LISTSERV" MLM, may I urge you to consider changeing that address to something more applicable to the MLM (to be) used? Regards, and thanks in advance. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 7 20:37:21 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14856; Wed, 7 Jul 93 20:37:21 GMT Received: from cs-mail.bu.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14849; Wed, 7 Jul 93 13:37:12 PDT Received: from CS.BU.EDU by cs-mail.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA25257; Wed, 7 Jul 93 16:39:53 -0400 From: tasos@cs-mail.bu.edu (Anastasios Kotsikonas) Received: by cs.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA12523; Wed, 7 Jul 93 16:39:52 -0400 Message-Id: <9307072039.AA12523@cs.bu.edu> Subject: Re: UNIX listserver To: Ophof@CS.UWindsor.Ca (F. Scott Ophof) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:39:50 -0400 (EDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <930707.155235-0400@MReXX-0.18> from "F. Scott Ophof" at Jul 7, 93 03:52:35 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1408 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > On Tue, 6 Jul 1993 07:46:53 -0800 GMT Mark A. Schaub said: > >Anybody know of a listserver that runs under UNIX? Specifically, we have a > >Data General 6240 running DG/UX 5.4.2 (it's AT&T compliant). > > In all fairness to the authors of the "Revised LISTSERV" resp. the > "ListServer" applications, may I suggest that one use a generic like > "Mailing List Manager"? The MLM generic seems to have been around > for some time, and imho quite accurately describes what you are > referring to here. > > Aside from the issue of fairness to the authors, there's the > practical question of confusion amongst users of these MLMs. > Anyone used to "Revised LISTSERV" for example can get rather upset > when addressing an MLM with and getting unexpected > responses... > So for those currently using as address but not > running "Revised LISTSERV", and for those thinking of using an MLM > other than the "Revised LISTSERV" MLM, may I urge you to consider > changeing that address to something more applicable to the MLM (to > be) used? This is becoming a bit annoying. This issue has been discussed before and in GREAT length on this list and most recently on comp.unix.sys5.r4 (a totally inappropriate newsgroup) and comp.mail.misc. Are we going to see the end of it ever, or will this message pop up every time one uses the string "listserv" in all of its forms? Tasos From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 7 20:46:13 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14887; Wed, 7 Jul 93 20:46:13 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14880; Wed, 7 Jul 93 13:46:03 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa00280; 7 Jul 93 16:40 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA02934; Wed, 7 Jul 93 16:43:03 EDT Message-Id: <9307072043.AA02934@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:43:03 EDT In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof" "Re: UNIX listserver" (Jul 7, 3:52pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: "F. Scott Ophof" , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Mmdf-Warning: Parse error in original version of preceding line at Note2.nsf.gov Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Aside from the issue of fairness to the authors, there's the > practical question of confusion amongst users of these MLMs. > Anyone used to "Revised LISTSERV" for example can get rather upset > when addressing an MLM with and getting unexpected > responses... > So for those currently using as address but not > running "Revised LISTSERV", and for those thinking of using an MLM > other than the "Revised LISTSERV" MLM, may I urge you to consider > changeing that address to something more applicable to the MLM (to > be) used? Hmmm. I have over 2,000 users on a non-"Revised Listserv" called "listserv@nsf.gov", and nobody has ever complained. Could it be that this esoteric stuff is more interesting to developers than to users, who just might be smarter than we think? Could it be that users of "Revised LISTSERV" are fewer in number than the hordes of new users that are flooding the Internet? As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights go as far as to the name "listserver". "LISTSERV" is just "listserver" truncated to 8 characters to meet the needs of an e-mail system based on the concept of moving punched cards between hosts. If I change the name to "LISTMGR", how am I providing better service? I rather think I'll be confusing people. --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 8 05:32:56 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA15972; Thu, 8 Jul 93 05:32:56 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA15959; Wed, 7 Jul 93 22:32:45 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA08967; Thu, 8 Jul 93 01:34:49 EDT Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 23:02:18 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Message-Id: <930707.230218-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:43:03 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:43:03 EDT Michael H. Morse said: >Hmmm. I have over 2,000 users on a non-"Revised Listserv" called >"listserv@nsf.gov", and nobody has ever complained. I don't see any connection between no-complaints and your MLM-addr. And if the MLM you refer to as reachable at is not "Revised LISTSERV", then you've got your first comment right here. I'm requesting polite respect for useage elsewhere in the networks in re the word "LISTSERV". > Could it be that users of >"Revised LISTSERV" are fewer in number than the hordes of new >users that are flooding the Internet? I fail to see the relevance between number-of-users and politeness. >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights >go as far as to the name "listserver". The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. >If I change the name to "LISTMGR", how am I providing better service? >I rather think I'll be confusing people. You would be trading a temporary and small confusion NOW against a massive confusion later on. Furthermore, many MLMs run on machines at academic sites. Academia exist to educate their students, not only in pure knowledge, but also the applied variety. And last but not least, to further their sense of fairness, ethics, and morals. If I'm not mistaken, these last three should also be integral to governmental institutes. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 8 05:32:57 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA15974; Thu, 8 Jul 93 05:32:57 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA15960; Wed, 7 Jul 93 22:32:46 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA08973; Thu, 8 Jul 93 01:34:51 EDT Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 23:53:29 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Message-Id: <930707.235329-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:39:50 -0400 (EDT) Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:39:50 -0400 (EDT) Anastasios Kotsikonas said: >This is becoming a bit annoying. This issue has been discussed before and >in GREAT length on this list and most recently on comp.unix.sys5.r4 (a totally >inappropriate newsgroup) and comp.mail.misc. Are we going to see the end >of it ever, or will this message pop up every time one uses the string >"listserv" in all of its forms? I sincerely hope to see this issue end with polite respect given (in this case) to the authors and users of various MLMs. As to how the discussion got onto comp.unix.sys5.r4, I don't know. Possibly because someone wanted it there? Are you implying that that newsgroup is exempted from such issues? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 8 20:27:42 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA18088; Thu, 8 Jul 93 20:27:42 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA18081; Thu, 8 Jul 93 13:27:33 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa09243; 8 Jul 93 7:51 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA03111; Thu, 8 Jul 93 07:55:00 EDT Message-Id: <9307081155.AA03111@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:54:59 EDT In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof" "Re: UNIX listserver" (Jul 7, 11:02pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: "F. Scott Ophof" , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights > >go as far as to the name "listserver". > > The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. > I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. Now I'm *really* confused. We *use* Tasos' implementation. So, does that mean I have the right (and meet your standards of politeness) to use the name "listserver"??? If so, then I *must* use the address "listserv" as well. You see, we have a Unix host on the BITNET, and some BITNET sites have 8-character restrictions on addresses. Now what do you suggest? --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 8 20:49:54 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA18132; Thu, 8 Jul 93 20:49:54 GMT Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA18124; Thu, 8 Jul 93 13:49:45 PDT Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef) id AA06340; Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:16:10 EDT Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA07663; Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Message-Id: <9307082029.AA07663@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >> >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights >> >go as far as to the name "listserver". >> >> The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. >> I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. > >Now I'm *really* confused. We *use* Tasos' implementation. So, does >that mean I have the right (and meet your standards of politeness) to >use the name "listserver"??? If so, then I *must* use the address >"listserv" as well. You see, we have a Unix host on the BITNET, and >some BITNET sites have 8-character restrictions on addresses. Now >what do you suggest? Quite frankly, I suggest that we find something more meaningful to discuss. We can all find naming clashes; look at the current flame- war in cracking/phreaking circles over some 15-year-old's appropria- tion of the name "Legion of Doom." How many of us call our HP-UX systems "Unix"? How about those Macs running A/UX? Are they "Unix"? PRIMIX? Solaris? HCX/UX? On and on and on......*sigh*...........we could go on all summer long with this stuff. I've seen this particular flamewar crop up on BITNET lists (such as LSTOWN-L and NODEINFO), Usenet newsgroups, and (most recently) here on List-Managers. All the world is not Eric Thomas' Revised LISTSERV, nor is it Tasos' implementation. Gee, what if I run Majordomo and call it something like "mailserv@engr.uky.edu"? What if I write an exact Unix clone of LISTSERV? Arrgh..... --Wes From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 9 01:08:24 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19074; Fri, 9 Jul 93 01:08:24 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19067; Thu, 8 Jul 93 18:08:13 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA24015; Thu, 8 Jul 93 21:09:52 EDT Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 18:46:59 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Message-Id: <930708.184659-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT Wes Morgan said: >On Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:54:59 EDT Michael H. Morse said: >>Scott Ophof said: >>> (I think) Michael H. Morse said: >>> >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights >>> >go as far as to the name "listserver". >>> The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. >>> I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. >>Now I'm *really* confused. We *use* Tasos' implementation. So, does >>that mean I have the right (and meet your standards of politeness) to >>use the name "listserver"??? If so, then I *must* use the address >>"listserv" as well. You see, we have a Unix host on the BITNET, and >>some BITNET sites have 8-character restrictions on addresses. Now >>what do you suggest? I think it would be fair to say that it would be nice to have the address reflect which MLM is addressed, except where users could get confused by a different behaviour than the address would imply. So if it's a "ListServer" running on a BITnet node, I personally would go for something like (maybe) "L-SERVER" to ensure users wouldn't expect a "Revised LISTSERV". >How many of us call our HP-UX systems "Unix"? How about those Macs >running A/UX? Are they "Unix"? PRIMIX? Solaris? HCX/UX? On and Ouch... Yes, this is indeed a sore point too; they're all based on the "Unix" concept, but different enough to confuse the users... Gee, what if I run Majordomo and call it something >like "mailserv@engr.uky.edu"? If there's no MLM using "MailServ" as product name, then why not? Though in the interest of the users, it wouldn't really be such a good idea, right? >What if I write an exact Unix clone of LISTSERV? Arrgh..... Which users & maintainers etc. couldn't distinguish from "Revised LISTSERV" and interfacing with the other "Revised LISTSERV"s exactly as they do with each other? Of course you wouldn't use "Revised LISTSERV" code, or use "LISTSERV" as product name... :-) I would very much applaud such a project, and point out that CREN currently is engaged in just such a project! And I'd sincerely hope Eric wouldn't grumble at -type addresses being used. If I'm not mistaken, Tasos' intention was that "ListServer" be indistinguishable from "Revised LISTSERV" as to the common subset of functionality and user-interface. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 9 01:27:50 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19101; Fri, 9 Jul 93 01:27:50 GMT Received: from albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19094; Thu, 8 Jul 93 18:27:42 PDT Received: from nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu by albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) with SMTP id ; Thu, 8 Jul 93 21:29:56 -0400 Received: by nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu (15.11/4.0) id ; Thu, 8 Jul 93 21:29:52 edt Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 21:29:52 edt From: tower@gnu.ai.mit.edu Message-Id: <9307090129.AA24464@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: Ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <930708.184659-0400@MReXX-0.18> "Ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca" Reply-To: tower@prep.ai.mit.edu Organization: Project GNU, Free Software Foundation, 675 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139-3309, USA +1 (617) 876-3296 Home: 36 Porter Street, Somerville, MA 02143, USA +1 (617) 623-7739 Subject: UNIX listserver Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 18:46:59 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Sender: List-Managers-Owner@greatcircle.com Precedence: bulk On Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT Wes Morgan said: >On Thu, 8 Jul 1993 07:54:59 EDT Michael H. Morse said: >>Scott Ophof said: >>> (I think) Michael H. Morse said: >>> >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights >>> >go as far as to the name "listserver". >>> The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. >>> I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. >>Now I'm *really* confused. We *use* Tasos' implementation. So, does >>that mean I have the right (and meet your standards of politeness) to >>use the name "listserver"??? If so, then I *must* use the address >>"listserv" as well. You see, we have a Unix host on the BITNET, and >>some BITNET sites have 8-character restrictions on addresses. Now >>what do you suggest? I think it would be fair to say that it would be nice to have the address reflect which MLM is addressed, except where users could get confused by a different behaviour than the address would imply. So if it's a "ListServer" running on a BITnet node, I personally would go for something like (maybe) "L-SERVER" to ensure users wouldn't expect a "Revised LISTSERV". Being more interested in serving users, I would have all known MLM addresses on my host pointing at whichever MLM program I was using. Users don't like having programmers and system administrators require them to know many many different ways of doing one thing. And I agree with the users. Yes, a user who contacts an MLM he doesn't know, at the "name/address" of one he does know will be a little confused, but at least he'll get enough information to go forward, rather then a "User Unknown..." thanx -len Member, League for Programming Freedom. Ask: lpf@uunet.uu.net From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 9 05:05:17 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19432; Fri, 9 Jul 93 05:05:17 GMT Received: from uu7.psi.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19422; Thu, 8 Jul 93 22:05:10 PDT Received: by uu7.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA17805 for ; Fri, 9 Jul 93 00:52:25 -0400 Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 22:41:27 GMT From: rick@ssg.com (Rick Emerson) Received: by ssg.com (4.0/3.2.083191-System Support Group) id AA03862; Thu, 8 Jul 93 22:41:27 GMT Message-Id: <9307082241.AA03862@ssg.com> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: UNIX listserver In-Reply-To: <9307081155.AA03111@z.nsf.gov> References: <9307081155.AA03111@z.nsf.gov> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk "Michael H. Morse" writes: > > >As far as fairness to the authors, I don't think the property rights > > >go as far as to the name "listserver". > > > > The name "ListServer" is in use by the MLM implemented by Tasos. > > I sincerely hope you respect his use of that word. > > Now I'm *really* confused. We *use* Tasos' implementation. So, does > that mean I have the right (and meet your standards of politeness) to > use the name "listserver"??? If so, then I *must* use the address > "listserv" as well. You see, we have a Unix host on the BITNET, and > some BITNET sites have 8-character restrictions on addresses. Now > what do you suggest? > > --Mike What not call the darn thing a "whizbang" and be done with it. It has eight letters and looks nothing like the name someone seems to feel he holds world rights to. The noise level on this list has now managed to exceed 100%. I'm outta here! Rick | Richard B. Emerson | Replies may be sent to: | | System Support Group | rick@ssg.com | | 940 Delaware Avenue |-------------------------------------------------+ | Lansdale, PA 19446 USA | "Life is just a tire swing..." | | Voice: 215.855.1607 | -- Jimmy Buffett | From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 9 09:55:12 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20314; Fri, 9 Jul 93 09:55:12 GMT Received: from castor.cc.utu.fi by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20305; Fri, 9 Jul 93 02:55:02 PDT Received: by utu.fi id <30487-5>; Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:57:39 +0300 Subject: Re: UNIX listserver From: Matti Aarnio To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:57:38 +0300 In-Reply-To: <9307090810.AA19938@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> from "List-Managers-Digest-Owner@GreatCircle.COM" at Jul 9, 93 11:10:05 am Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Length: 3103 Message-Id: <93Jul9.125739eet_dst.30487-5@utu.fi> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >From: "F. Scott Ophof" > On Thu, 8 Jul 93 16:29:54 EDT Wes Morgan said: > >What if I write an exact Unix clone of LISTSERV? Arrgh..... > > Which users & maintainers etc. couldn't distinguish from "Revised > LISTSERV" and interfacing with the other "Revised LISTSERV"s exactly > as they do with each other? Of course you wouldn't use "Revised > LISTSERV" code, or use "LISTSERV" as product name... :-) > I would very much applaud such a project, and point out that CREN > currently is engaged in just such a project! And I'd sincerely hope > Eric wouldn't grumble at -type addresses being used. No, he won't, however he does expect that such LISTSERVers do act like Revised LISTSERVs, and one BIG snafu in it is R-LISTSERV's DISTRIBUTE-protocol, which is documented in RFC 1429. (Yes, it really looks alike MVS JCL, so what ?) Actually it is a sort of SMTP inside the mail body. R-LISTSERVs just handle it better. The protocol is easy to implement, but how do you find the (near-) optimal list of peers willing to run it ? R-LISTSERVs do it by centralized control, and monthly distributed routing database. (They are run in the BITNET after all..) A month or two ago Eric made a contract with EARN to develope a VMS version of the R-LISTSERV. VMS because VMS Pascal is nearest to the PASCAL-VS, that most of the R-LISTSERV is written today. I assume some of you are going to IETF at Amsterdam, could we try to find a BOF for "Bulk-MXes" -- for a way to discover who are willing to run bulk deliveries around the network. Hmm.. Consider scenario: Host-A(Finland) a list of 1000 recipients of which 20 in Finland. Now the usual thing is to start spiffing MX and A questions around the network, and then deliver mail to each and all of them via individual connections, unless by some miracle multiple recipients are at the same host/mx, or then by getting into some arrangement with some sites abroad, and define static routes to large areas of domain space via those.. What I wish for is a simple scheme of finding willing Bulk-delivery servers, much like R-LISTSERVs. In scenario I usually consider, next logical hop is in Sweden, which then splits to Central Europe (say, Paris, Amsterdam, CERN, Bonn -- corners of EBONE), and USA+Asia. Again, next step would go to - say USA (EDU that is): How to locate regionals onto which to push the mail, or just use plain ordinary MXes ? If the scheme is multi-level, how does one avoid unnecessary traversal to higher-levels ? How would such resource finding operate ? Especially as it would be good to assume that people at networks know their connection routes, and are thus better positioned to place such routing information into the DNS. > If I'm not mistaken, Tasos' intention was that "ListServer" be > indistinguishable from "Revised LISTSERV" as to the common subset > of functionality and user-interface. Well, let commands be the same, and their behaviour, but it can still present a bit different outlook ;) > Regards. > $$\ /Matti Aarnio From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 10 01:34:17 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA21807; Sat, 10 Jul 93 01:34:17 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA21800; Fri, 9 Jul 93 18:33:52 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA11233; Fri, 9 Jul 93 21:35:51 EDT Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 16:04:10 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: UNIX listserver Message-Id: <930709.160410-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: Cc: Eric Thomas In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:43:03 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 7 Jul 1993 16:43:03 EDT Michael H. Morse said on List-Managers: >Scott Ophof said: >> Aside from the issue of fairness to the authors, there's the >> practical question of confusion amongst users of these MLMs. >> Anyone used to "Revised LISTSERV" for example can get rather upset >> when addressing an MLM with and getting unexpected >> responses... >Hmmm. I have over 2,000 users on a non-"Revised Listserv" called >"listserv@nsf.gov", and nobody has ever complained. Could it be that >this esoteric stuff is more interesting to developers than to users, >who just might be smarter than we think? Could it be that users of >"Revised LISTSERV" are fewer in number than the hordes of new >users that are flooding the Internet? I don't know how large those "hordes" are, and would be interested in at least a fair guesstimate. There is less guessing in the following extract from private mail from Eric Thomas, where he suggests I point out to Michael a few things. I chose to interpret that as meaning posting it was OK. Start-of-quote: || [..] that he should refrain from talking about things he doesn't || know about, such as the reason why LISTSERV is called LISTSERV and || not something else, or the amount of users it has. LISTSERV's || membership exceeded 1,000,000 in June and it delivers 2-6 million || messages every day. || I waste several hours every month due to people who confuse 'unix || listserv' and LISTSERV. I even get bug reports for 'unix listserv'. || The confusion goes both ways, and some users ask why the command to || subscribe to LISTSERV lists is not 'add' like with their local unix || list server. The IETF thinks it is a very serious problem and wants || to standardize the syntax. You may quote as little or as much as || you want from this message. End-of-quote. I'd like to add that there are something like 2500-3000 lists registered with "Revised LISTSERV". As to those bug reports and confusion items Eric mentions, if I were in his position I'd forward them straight to List-Managers, ListNix, and other relevant lists/groups for resolving and CONTINUE to do so till fair action was taken. But I'm not in his position, so all I can do is what I'm doing now. Aside from all else, user-confusion should be minimised, and anyone with a heart for other network users would want to do so as soon as possible, right? Can anyone come up with figures on how many people are subscribed to the non-"Revised LISTSERV" MLMs? Maybe we can then get some idea of how many (and which) users would have to be re-educated IF various MLM authors and people running MLMs were to consider making changes. Regards, and thanks in advance. $$\ F. Scott Ophof From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 10 02:47:16 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22549; Sat, 10 Jul 93 08:31:50 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22541; Sat, 10 Jul 93 01:31:42 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA16339; Sat, 10 Jul 93 04:33:54 EDT Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 02:02:13 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930710.020213-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Which single header in an email item consistently informs the reader (or software) that the item is from a mailing list, and lists the address (and name) of that mailing list? And in such a way that it is clearly NOT mail from a *person*. In the BITnet world the "Sender:" header was used for this purpose, which doesn't seem to be correct in the Internet world... BTW, I get confused by terminology like "mirrors", "exploders", etc., so if you include such, an explanation would be greatly appreciated (in plain English please?). Regards, and thanks in advance. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 10 02:49:51 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22556; Sat, 10 Jul 93 08:31:57 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22542; Sat, 10 Jul 93 01:31:44 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA16345; Sat, 10 Jul 93 04:33:56 EDT Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 02:48:15 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: A step forward (was Re: UNIX listserver) Message-Id: <930710.024815-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:57:38 +0300 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:57:38 +0300 Matti Aarnio said: >>From: "F. Scott Ophof" >> And I'd sincerely hope >> Eric wouldn't grumble at -type addresses being used. > No, he won't, however he does expect that such LISTSERVers do act >like Revised LISTSERVs, and one BIG snafu in it is R-LISTSERV's >DISTRIBUTE-protocol, which is documented in RFC 1429. (Yes, it really >looks alike MVS JCL, so what ?) >Actually it is a sort of SMTP inside the mail body. R-LISTSERVs just >handle it better. Yes, but that's not much of a recommendation... (grin) I don't want to flame, but imho it's also time a better Mail Transport Protocol were developed than SMTP. Heck, maybe X.400 *is* the way to go? Forget about the ridiculous user-addressing syntax; it clearly never was meant to be human-readable, nor will it ever be. Besides, the same can be said for the DNS format. An interface between machine- readable addrs and something we humans can read is needed anyway. But that's fodder for another list/group. > The protocol is easy to implement, but how do you find the (near-) >optimal list of peers willing to run it ? R-LISTSERVs do it by >centralized control, and monthly distributed routing database. >(They are run in the BITNET after all..) Get together with the relevant BITnet people? They are probably wrestling with the same problem for when "Revised LISTSERV" comes to the Internet. Your idea of getting together in Amsterdam sounds great! Wish I could be there, listening to great minds at work. (sigh) >Hmm.. Consider scenario: Yikes! Out of my league. *Gone*! :-) >> If I'm not mistaken, Tasos' intention was that "ListServer" be >> indistinguishable from "Revised LISTSERV" as to the common subset >> of functionality and user-interface. > Well, let commands be the same, and their behaviour, but it can >still present a bit different outlook ;) Erm.. Please not if it confuses the users. And please note that it certainly is time we all started thinking of users possibly having differing mindsets. IMHO we should go one of the following routes: 1: Make the current user-interface FULLY understandable by ANY human, be heesh a computer-user or not. 2: Ensure that the current interface is purely consistent for machine-readability, and implement a user-interface ON TOP of it, this last interface to be installed on the user side (a la client-server model), completely adapted to the user and the machine it's running on. If we do (1), then we can be sure to run into trouble; there is NO way a command set can be devised that is useable by ALL people on Earth with the SAME ease-of-understanding. And I really don't think it's fair to force English on non-English speakers. This leaves route (2), which opens up the possibility of tailoring that interface to each INDIVIDUAL users' wishes/mindset. My point here is simply to indicate that we ARE at this milestone, and it's nearing decision-time... Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 10 15:02:19 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23157; Sat, 10 Jul 93 15:02:19 GMT Received: from grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23150; Sat, 10 Jul 93 08:02:12 PDT Received: from localhost (wolf@localhost) by grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (8.1C/8.1) id RAA19033; Sat, 10 Jul 1993 17:04:39 +0200 From: Christophe Wolfhugel Message-Id: <199307101504.RAA19033@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr> Subject: RFC-822 parser in Perl ? To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 17:04:38 +0100 (MEST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 464 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Is there a real RFC-822 parser out there, by real I mean a parser which would respect the syntax, and particularly quoted strings and pairs. I mean: "stupid (yeah) user"@relay.host (comment) should give local part = "stupid (yeah) user" host = relay.host comment = com,ment Yeah those addresses you only see twice in your life (generally really close from an X.400 gateway :)). -- Christophe Wolfhugel | Email: Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr From List-Managers-Owner Sun Jul 11 22:22:36 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25451; Sun, 11 Jul 93 22:22:36 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca ([137.207.192.3]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25444; Sun, 11 Jul 93 15:22:26 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA08303; Sun, 11 Jul 93 18:23:59 EDT Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1993 13:49:22 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930711.134922-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: Cc: Cc: Cc: In-Reply-To: Your message of 10 Jul 1993 14:22:20 GMT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 10 Jul 1993 14:22:20 GMT Eric Thomas said on LSTSRV-L: >On Sat, 10 Jul 1993 02:02:13 -0400 "F. Scott Ophof" >said: >>Which single header in an email item consistently informs the reader (or >>software) that the item is from a mailing list, and lists the address >>(and name) of that mailing list? And in such a way that it is clearly >>NOT mail from a *person*. >In the general case, none. Though I hoped otherwise, I'm not surprised to see this answer. >Using the 'Sender:' is correct in both worlds, the religious argument is >about what to put in that field and what to do to the rest of the header. >IETF lists come with a 'Sender:' field, so don't let anyone convince you >that this field cannot be used by mailing lists. OK, it may be USED by mailing lists, but (according to RFC822) not for the PURPOSE for which "Revised LISTSERV" uses it. But if Internet mail contains addresses like <...-request@...> or in the "Sender:" header to indicate the item comes from an MLM, that to me doesn't ensure that those addresses will consistently reflect the relevant mailing list. In other words, if the "Sender:"-addr is: or will the following ALWAYS be true? or could it also be: or worse yet: And besides and <..-REQUEST@..>, are there any other such words that have the same ("guaranteed") behaviour? Recently I've seen items from some "Revised LISTSERV"s which have "X-List:" headers, and that header-line has up to now consistently displayed the relevant and correct list-address itself. Do I sense an intention to use (and advertise using) that header for that SINGLE purpose? If so, how does one ensure that that header will only be used for THAT purpose? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 12 10:10:18 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26500; Mon, 12 Jul 93 10:10:18 GMT Received: from sally.informatik.rwth-aachen.de ([137.226.112.172]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26491; Mon, 12 Jul 93 03:09:54 PDT Received: from hathi (hathi.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE) by sally.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (4.1/sally-2) id AA20976; Mon, 12 Jul 93 12:12:26 +0200 Received: by hathi (4.1/POOL.3) id AA11460; Mon, 12 Jul 93 12:12:34 +0200 Message-Id: <9307121012.AA11460@hathi> From: berg@pool.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (Stephen R. van den Berg) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:12:31 +0200 In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof"'s message as of 1993 Jul 10 Sat 2:02. <930710.020213-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk "F. Scott Ophof" wrote: >Which single header in an email item consistently informs the reader >(or software) that the item is from a mailing list, > And in such a way that it >is clearly NOT mail from a *person*. The answer to this question is easy: if there is a field in the header that says: Precendence: list then it is from a mailinglist, and NEVER from a person. There is a small catch here: not all lists set this field correctly (yet). > and lists the >address (and name) of that mailing list? Well, this one is not so easy. I can only vouch for "procmail"-managed mailinglists which contain: Resent-From: Resent-Sender: X-Mailing-List: ... With the exception that Resent-From: will only be added if it wasn't already on the incoming mail. -- Sincerely, berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless). berg@physik.tu-muenchen.de I've never been superstitious! Knock on wood. From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 12 13:01:36 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26751; Mon, 12 Jul 93 13:01:36 GMT Received: from mailman.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26744; Mon, 12 Jul 93 06:01:27 PDT Received: from localhost by mailman.nsf.gov with SMTP id AA19382 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 12 Jul 1993 09:04:38 -0400 Message-Id: <199307121304.AA19382@mailman.nsf.gov> To: "F. Scott Ophof" From: "Ravin Asar" Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@CS.UTexas.edu, ListNix@Grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 11 Jul 93 13:49:22 -0400. <930711.134922-0400@MReXX-0.18> Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 09:04:37 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The message I received from "F. Scott Ophof" said: ... > > But if Internet mail contains addresses like <...-request@...> or > in the "Sender:" header to indicate the item comes > from an MLM, that to me doesn't ensure that those addresses will > consistently reflect the relevant mailing list. In other words, if > the "Sender:"-addr is: > or > will the following ALWAYS be true? > > or could it also be: > > or worse yet: > > > And besides and <..-REQUEST@..>, are there any other > such words that have the same ("guaranteed") behaviour? I see a number of people have responded to your question, and most seem to be on the mark. However (and you probably know this already) the use of prefixes "owner-" or suffix "-request" are really implementation-dependant. I know that the mail software I run (sendmail) looks for and "carbon-copies" to an "owner-" address when bouncing list-related mail. Our older machine which ran MMDF looked for a "-request" address instead. I would imagine that list maintainers would use a combination of "From:", "Reply-To:" and "Errors-To:" headers to ensure that postings to the list are replyable in a consistent manner. That way the burden of reliability rests with the maintainer rather than a list user. > > Recently I've seen items from some "Revised LISTSERV"s which have > "X-List:" headers, and that header-line has up to now consistently > displayed the relevant and correct list-address itself. > Do I sense an intention to use (and advertise using) that header for > that SINGLE purpose? If so, how does one ensure that that header > will only be used for THAT purpose? I've paraphrased a relevant portion of RFC 822 which explains the use of "X-" prefixed fields. . 4.7.4. EXTENSION-FIELD . . A limited number of common fields have been defined in . this document. As network mail requirements dictate, addi- . tional fields may be standardized. To provide user-defined . fields with a measure of safety, in name selection, such . extension-fields will never have names that begin with the . string "X-". . . Names of Extension-fields are registered with the Network . Information Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, California. . . . 4.7.5. USER-DEFINED-FIELD . . Individual users of network mail are free to define and . use additional header fields. Such fields must have names . which are not already used in the current specification or in . any definitions of extension-fields, and the overall syntax of . these user-defined-fields must conform to this specification's . rules for delimiting and folding fields. Due to the . extension-field publishing process, the name of a user- . defined-field may be pre-empted . . Note: The prefatory string "X-" will never be used in the . names of Extension-fields. This provides user-defined . fields with a protected set of names. I've seen various forms of "X-" addresses, none of which are really "standard" (like X-List and X-Mailing-List). They may be in (very) common use, but they don't appear to be guaranteed to exist in the future. > > Regards. > $$\ -Ravin __________________________________________________________________ Ravin Asar | National Science Foundation | 1800 G St. NW #440 | Washington, DC 20550 Official: postmaster@nsf.gov | Phone: (202) 357-5934 Personal: rasar@nsf.gov | Fax: (202) 357-7663 __________________________________|_______________________________ IMHO From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 12 23:06:16 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27731; Mon, 12 Jul 93 23:06:16 GMT Received: from rata.vuw.ac.nz by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27724; Mon, 12 Jul 93 16:05:56 PDT Received: by rata.vuw.ac.nz id AA05591 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for List-Managers@greatcircle.com); Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:08:06 +1200 Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:08:06 +1200 Message-Id: <199307122308.AA05591@rata.vuw.ac.nz> From: Tony Martindale To: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Stephen R. van den Berg's message of Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:12:31 +0200 <9307121012.AA11460@hathi> Subject: How to recognize mail from an MLM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk From: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stephen R. van den Berg) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:12:31 +0200 "F. Scott Ophof" wrote: >Which single header in an email item consistently informs the reader >(or software) that the item is from a mailing list, > And in such a way that it >is clearly NOT mail from a *person*. The answer to this question is easy: if there is a field in the header that says: Precendence: list then it is from a mailinglist, and NEVER from a person. Say what? Where is this defined as a standard (proposed, de facto or otherwise)? This is not in RFC 822 or 1123, I'm amazed that you can be so definite. Overloading the "Precendence" field with additional meaning does not strike me as the way to go about things. The Extension-Field or User-Defined-Field is the better approach IMHO. There is a small catch here: not all lists set this field correctly (yet). There is a bigger catch: not all mailers are configured to do sensible things with this field. At best the Precendence field is a UNIXism/sendmailism. There have been good postings in the past to List-Mangagers about the Precendence field, so I won't rave. I gather, from this list, that there are a number of groups/committees looking at standards/RFC's for mailing list management. Can anyone give a report on where the current thinking is at regarding this and other issues? --- Tony Martindale Computing Services Centre, phone: +64 4 495 5051 Victoria University of Wellington, fax: +64 4 471 5386 P.O. Box 600, Wellington, NEW ZEALAND. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 00:14:13 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27843; Tue, 13 Jul 93 00:14:13 GMT Received: from cruskit.aarnet.edu.au by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27836; Mon, 12 Jul 93 17:13:56 PDT Received: from localhost.aarnet.edu.au by cruskit.aarnet.edu.au with SMTP id AA12068 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 13 Jul 1993 10:15:48 +1000 From: Andy Linton To: Tony Martindale Cc: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM X-Organization: AARNet, GPO Box 1142, Canberra, ACT 2601, AUSTRALIA X-Phone: +61 6 249 2874 Precendence: list Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 10:15:45 +1000 Message-Id: <12067.742522545@cruskit.aarnet.edu.au> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In your message dated Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:08:06 +1200, you write: > > From: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stephen R. van den Berg) > Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:12:31 +0200 > > "F. Scott Ophof" wrote: > >Which single header in an email item consistently informs the reader > >(or software) that the item is from a mailing list, > > And in such a way that it > >is clearly NOT mail from a *person*. > > The answer to this question is easy: if there is a field in the header that > says: > Precendence: list > > then it is from a mailinglist, and NEVER from a person. > > Say what? Where is this defined as a standard (proposed, de facto or > otherwise)? This is not in RFC 822 or 1123, I'm amazed that you can > be so definite. Overloading the "Precendence" field with additional > meaning does not strike me as the way to go about things. The > Extension-Field or User-Defined-Field is the better approach IMHO. > I agree with Tony - there's no absolutes here at all. We need a set of standard headers for lists and for SMTP mail details of envelope construction. There isn't such a standard yet and to go around saying that that there is or wishing that a particular header was part of a standard doesn't help. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 00:24:59 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27866; Tue, 13 Jul 93 00:24:59 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27859; Mon, 12 Jul 93 17:24:47 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA04125; Mon, 12 Jul 93 20:25:57 EDT Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 16:44:49 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930712.164449-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: To: Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Up to now I've only seen replies which come down to this: There's no SINGLE header which is used by ALL MLMs to inform the reader that the item is from "Name of list ". Note that the addr format (FQDN, BITnet addr, bang-type, X.400, or whatever) is irrelevant. If addresses like , , or (gasp!) (as a/the MLM at GreatCircle.com does) are indeed implementation-dependant, then they too are effectively not too useful as a general case. I can accept that MLMs came into general use after standards like RFC822 were proposed, with those standards not taking MLMs into consideration. But after all these years, hasn't *any* standard been proposed and rammed through *YET*?? To clarify (just in case), I'm NOT interested in the MLM-side of the matter, only that the READER (human/software) can identify without ambiguity the ==> LIST-ADDRESS <== (plus optionally its name). For some time I thought that "Newsgroups: groupname[s]" meant "you are reading an item that was posted as-is to 'groupname[s]'". But now I see that people use that header to indicate that they copied the item from 'groupname[s]', quote (parts of) it, and send it off via email as private replies. So using that header as an analogy/example of what I mean is out... Most (not all) list hosted by a "Revised LISTSERV" have both the "Sender:" and "Reply-To:" set to the list-address, thus making identification (and replying) easy. The exception is when list-owner/subscribers have indicated that a "Reply-To:" set by the poster should be respected (or even always the poster's addr). Even in that case the address in the (in the formal sense mis-used) "Sender:" header is a clear indicator for the reader/software. Does anyone have any info on RFCs which have proposed a header for what I'm asking? If there ain't none, then I'd like to propose that: Listname: Name of List be used for this purpose, and for no other purpose. And that this header and its purpose be registered, etc. I don't care whether it would be "Listname:" or "List-Name:", but not some "X-whatever:", please. Ie. I retract my proposal to use "X-List:". On Mon, 12 Jul 93 09:04:37 EDT Ravin Asar said on List-Manager: >... >I would imagine that list maintainers would use a combination of >"From:", "Reply-To:" and "Errors-To:" headers to ensure that postings >to the list are replyable in a consistent manner. That way the burden >of reliability rests with the maintainer rather than a list user. You sent me three items (carbon-copy bodies, two private, one to List-Managers), none of which had a header identifying the exact list-address to reply to. On Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:12:31 +0200 Stephen R. van den Berg said on List-Managers: ..["Precendence: list" means it's from A list].. This still does not identify the , as you call it (clearest definition I've seen yet btw!). To need TWO headers for one piece of data seems imho overkill. Or is: Precendence: group a valid form to indicate it's a newsgroup item? Are there other values which are valid here? On 11 Jul 1993 22:42:16 GMT Eric Thomas said on LSTSRV-L: >On Sun, 11 Jul 1993 13:49:22 -0400 F. Scott Ophof said: >>Recently I've seen items from some "Revised LISTSERV"s which have >>"X-List:" headers, and that header-line has up to now consistently >>displayed the relevant and correct list-address itself. >These are not from LISTSERV. At any rate I don't think this is a good >solution, one has to think of mail sent to multiple lists, resent from >list X to list Y, and so on. Hmm.. I was quite sure I saw them (Don't know where, Don't know when".. as the song goes). But I'll snag a couple, double-check, and report back. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 02:36:51 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28117; Tue, 13 Jul 93 02:36:51 GMT Received: from mailman.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28110; Mon, 12 Jul 93 19:36:39 PDT Received: from localhost by mailman.nsf.gov with SMTP id AA12321 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 12 Jul 1993 22:40:52 -0400 Message-Id: <199307130240.AA12321@mailman.nsf.gov> To: "F. Scott Ophof" From: "Ravin Asar" Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@CS.UTexas.edu, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@Grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com Reply-To: Come on MLMs - fill this in Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 16:44:49 -0400. <930712.164449-0400@MReXX-0.18> Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The message I received from "F. Scott Ophof" said: ... > If addresses like , , or > (gasp!) (as a/the MLM at GreatCircle.com does) > are indeed implementation-dependant, then they too are effectively > not too useful as a general case. It occurred to me that none of the above should really be used as indicators of MLM-generated mail for the simple reason that they occur on the RHS of a field name. > > I can accept that MLMs came into general use after standards like > RFC822 were proposed, with those standards not taking MLMs into > consideration. But after all these years, hasn't *any* standard > been proposed and rammed through *YET*?? > > If there ain't none, then I'd like to propose that: > Listname: Name of List > be used for this purpose, and for no other purpose. And that this > header and its purpose be registered, etc. Yes, that does seem sensible to have, especially considering that X-List* fields have been floating around for a while now, waiting to be "adopted". A small semantic point here, though: just as one doesn't use a "Sendername:", "Subjectmatter:" or a "Fromname:" field, it would appear to be more appropriate and consistent (imho) to name the field "List:". > I don't care whether it would be "Listname:" or "List-Name:", but > not some "X-whatever:", please. Ie. I retract my proposal to use > "X-List:". > I wonder if the people who started using the X-List* fields (I'm a little short on history here) have anything in the works for formalizing a definitive field now. The SRI-NIC was listed in RFC822 as the keeper of registered field names. This might now be a function of rs.internic.net. > > Or is: > Precendence: group > a valid form to indicate it's a newsgroup item? Are there other > values which are valid here? > "Precedence:" as I know it is a definite sendmail-ism, and is site-dependant. The RHS of this field can be any text defined by the email administrator, and is translated by sendmail into a number (via the config file). This is then used by sendmail to determine whether to favor or penalize the delivery of this message relative to the current system load. I most certainly wouldn't rely on it as an indicator of MLM-generated mail. > > On 11 Jul 1993 22:42:16 GMT Eric Thomas said on LSTSRV-L: > >On Sun, 11 Jul 1993 13:49:22 -0400 F. Scott Ophof said: > >>Recently I've seen items from some "Revised LISTSERV"s which have > >>"X-List:" headers, and that header-line has up to now consistently > >>displayed the relevant and correct list-address itself. > >These are not from LISTSERV. At any rate I don't think this is a good > >solution, one has to think of mail sent to multiple lists, resent from > >list X to list Y, and so on. Wouldn't mail sent to multiple lists be taken care of by their respective MLMs ? And if a message was resent from list X to list Y, wouldn't it now be deemed to originate from list Y's MLM (and contain headers appropriate to list Y) ?.... just asking. The history of the message could, of course, be preserved through the use of the "Resent-" prefix defined in RFC822 (Section 4.2). ... > Regards. > $$\ __________________________________________________________________ Ravin Asar | National Science Foundation System Manager: Unix Systems | 1800 G St. NW #440 | Washington, DC 20550 Official: postmaster@nsf.gov | Phone: (202) 357-5934 Personal: rasar@nsf.gov | Fax: (202) 357-7663 __________________________________|_______________________________ As always, IMHO. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 04:51:47 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28318; Tue, 13 Jul 93 04:51:47 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28311; Mon, 12 Jul 93 21:51:40 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA07172; Tue, 13 Jul 93 00:53:28 EDT Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 21:36:01 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930712.213601-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 13 Jul 1993 10:15:45 +1000 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 13 Jul 1993 10:15:45 +1000 Andy Linton said: >In your message dated Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:08:06 +1200, you write: ^^^^ ^^^ Does that refer to Tony Martindale? >> From: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stephen R. van den Berg) >> The answer to this question is easy: if there is a field in the header that >> says: >> Precendence: list ^ How did that "n" creep in there? Typo? Or is my dictionary so old that it doesn't list anything related to this word? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 07:27:27 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28596; Tue, 13 Jul 93 07:27:27 GMT Received: from cruskit.aarnet.edu.au by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28589; Tue, 13 Jul 93 00:26:02 PDT Received: from localhost.aarnet.edu.au by cruskit.aarnet.edu.au with SMTP id AA12617 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 13 Jul 1993 17:28:05 +1000 From: Andy Linton To: "F. Scott Ophof" Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM X-Organization: AARNet, GPO Box 1142, Canberra, ACT 2601, AUSTRALIA X-Phone: +61 6 249 2874 Precendence: list Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 17:28:04 +1000 Message-Id: <12616.742548484@cruskit.aarnet.edu.au> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In your message dated Mon, 12 Jul 1993 21:36:01 -0400, you write: > On Tue, 13 Jul 1993 10:15:45 +1000 Andy Linton said: > >In your message dated Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:08:06 +1200, you write: > ^^^^ ^^^ > Does that refer to Tony Martindale? My message was addressed to Tony and CCed to the list - it seems reasonable to say 'you said'. > > >> From: berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stephen R. van den Berg) > >> The answer to this question is easy: if there is a field in the header that > >> says: > >> Precendence: list > ^ > How did that "n" creep in there? Typo? Or is my dictionary so old > that it doesn't list anything related to this word? Stephen's original post had it like that. Note the headers of this mail have it too - sort of blows his theory away. No elaborate tricks played to do it either. I agree wholeheartedly that we need a standard in this area - has anyone else looked at the RFP put out by CREN recently: Draft Request for Proposals for a Mailing-List Software Package Including Changes Proposed May 4, 1993 It's much too large to post here: 1.12 Copies of this RFP are available, via anonymous ftp or Gopher, from the Unix machine info.cren.net, in the directory /cren-rfp, as the files ip-listserv.txt, ip-listserv.rtf, and ip-listserv.ps, for plain- text, RTF interchange format, and PostScript versions, respectively. The RFP is also available from listserv@bitnic.educom.edu (LISTSERV@BITNIC.BITNET) as the file LISTMGT RFP-TXT or LISTMGT RFP-RTF. Comments and questions about this RFP should be directed to the moderated LISTSERV list crenlist@bitnic.educom.edu; interested parties should self-subscribe to that list through listserv@bitnic.educom.edu. I wonder how many of the list managers around have this level of detail in their specs - it runs to 1200 lines. Appendix A is pertinent to this discussion. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 09:52:58 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28882; Tue, 13 Jul 93 09:52:58 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28875; Tue, 13 Jul 93 02:52:47 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA08961; Tue, 13 Jul 93 05:55:01 EDT Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 04:51:22 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930713.045122-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I received 3 copies of the body of this item. The headers were slightly different, and only in one case could I to some extent identify the list-address using what I feel are normal/obvious headers. Here follow all three sets, though I've taken the liberty of leaving in only those headers which are relevant to an item. (I couldn't care less about "Received:", "X-...:", "Lines:", "Phone:", etc. Note that "Prece[n]dence:" doesn't tell me anything, so I've instructed my mailreader to delete it also. Note also that in some cases the address-casing in the "Cc:" line is not the same as in the other(s). | Message-Id: <199307130240.AA12321@mailman.nsf.gov> | To: "F. Scott Ophof" | From: "Ravin Asar" | Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@CS.UTexas.edu, | List-Managers@greatcircle.com, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, | Unix-Listserv@stormking.com | Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM | In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 16:44:49 -0400. | <930712.164449-0400@MReXX-0.18> | Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT | Sender: rasar@nsf.gov | Reply-To: Come on MLMs - fill this in | Message-Id: <199307130240.AA12321@mailman.nsf.gov> | To: "F. Scott Ophof" | From: "Ravin Asar" | Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@CS.UTexas.edu, | List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@Grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, | Unix-Listserv@stormking.com | Reply-To: Come on MLMs - fill this in | Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM | In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 16:44:49 -0400. | <930712.164449-0400@MReXX-0.18> | Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT | Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM | Message-Id: <199307130240.AA12321@mailman.nsf.gov> | To: "F. Scott Ophof" | From: "Ravin Asar" | Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@CS.UTexas.edu, | List-Managers@greatcircle.com, ListNix@Grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, | Unix-Listserv@stormking.com | Reply-To: Come on MLMs - fill this in | Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM | In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 16:44:49 -0400. | <930712.164449-0400@MReXX-0.18> | Date: Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT | Sender: rasar@nsf.gov The ONLY item which has a header displaying anything which could imply it's coming from a list is the second one, and even there it's of the variety. All three I found in my mailbox, and none show the always clearly recognizable "Revised LISTSERV" setup, so none were from LSTSRV-L or comp.mail.misc. The second one says in the "Sender:" line, so it's probably from . So which of the others comes from ListNix, which from Unix-Listserv? Or did you send me one directly, Ravin? In other words, could I be missing one? And no, Ravin, none of these Unix MLMs seems to have the "Reply-To:" set to the equiv. of "ignore poster, use list-addr-only". I don't even think it's possible in those MLMs. On Mon, 12 Jul 93 22:40:52 EDT Ravin Asar said: >The message I received from "F. Scott Ophof" said: >... >> If addresses like , , or >> (gasp!) (as a/the MLM at GreatCircle.com does) >> are indeed implementation-dependant, then they too are effectively >> not too useful as a general case. >It occurred to me that none of the above should really be used as >indicators of MLM-generated mail for the simple reason that they >occur on the RHS of a field name. Come again? You mean the should be on the LEFT-hand side, ie. it should be the field-NAME? I misunderstand you, right? >> If there ain't none, then I'd like to propose that: >> Listname: Name of List >> be used for this purpose, and for no other purpose. And that this >> header and its purpose be registered, etc. >Yes, that does seem sensible to have, especially considering that >X-List* fields have been floating around for a while now, waiting to >be "adopted". A small semantic point here, though: just as one >doesn't use a "Sendername:", "Subjectmatter:" or a "Fromname:" field, >it would appear to be more appropriate and consistent (imho) to name >the field "List:". Agreed re semantics. From the same point of view I'd almost suggest to request that "Newsgroup:" be shortened to simply "News:". ;-) >I wonder if the people who started using the X-List* fields (I'm a >little short on history here) have anything in the works for >formalizing a definitive field now. The SRI-NIC was listed in >RFC822 as the keeper of registered field names. This might now be >a function of rs.internic.net. My experience with SRI-NIC (and now its successor) is less than phenomenal, so anyone who knows the magic incantations needed to extract info from that source I beg to do so and share that info with us. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 13 17:33:54 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29612; Tue, 13 Jul 93 17:33:54 GMT Received: from sally.informatik.rwth-aachen.de ([137.226.112.172]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29605; Tue, 13 Jul 93 10:32:28 PDT Received: from messua (messua.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE) by sally.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (4.1/sally-2) id AA03874; Tue, 13 Jul 93 19:20:59 +0200 Received: by messua (4.1/POOL.3) id AA25052; Tue, 13 Jul 93 19:20:57 +0200 Message-Id: <9307131720.AA25052@messua> From: berg@pool.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (Stephen R. van den Berg) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 19:20:56 +0200 In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof"'s message as of 1993 Jul 12 Mon 21:36. <930712.213601-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk "F. Scott Ophof" wrote: >>Stephen R. van den Berg wrote: >>> Precendence: list > ^ >How did that "n" creep in there? Typo? Or is my dictionary so old >that it doesn't list anything related to this word? Sorry for the confusion, slip of the finger I guess. -- Sincerely, berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless). berg@physik.tu-muenchen.de "I have a *cunning* plan!" From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 17:45:33 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02009; Wed, 14 Jul 93 17:45:33 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca ([137.207.192.3]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02002; Wed, 14 Jul 93 10:45:25 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA02145; Wed, 14 Jul 93 13:15:32 EDT Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 02:14:10 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: The term "Unix-Listserv" Message-Id: <930714.021410-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: To: Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 13 Jul 93 08:23 EDT Duane Weaver said in a private reply the following, which he gave me permission to post for him: | The Unix version called LISTSERVER is NOT, I repeat NOT a | full implementation of the Revised LISTSERV as known on | Bitnet. | | I can say that with experience. I used to manage a Revised LISTSERV. | We are now running the unix LISTSERVER. | | LISTSERVER is a unixfied version of what the author thinks LISTSERV | does. I understand it is writtin in C. A student worker here said | the code is poorly written. Things do work differently. | The mail headers of mail from LISTSERVER are different. | | There are a few features that only recently became available in | the Revised LISTSERV. | | LISTSERVER is also not as robust as the Revised LISTSERV. IT | appears that processing a list with slightly over 400 subscribers | puts a strain on the server. | | Documentation is typical of unix software; in my opinion, piss poor. | | Duane One comment: I've heard Duane's comment re documentation (or its near equiv.) uttered quite often by others. A partial clarification is that people not used to the Unix mindset have difficulty reading such documentation, and understanding it costs a *lot* of effort. One must constantly think in symbolic and hierarchical terms if one is to make ones peace with the Unix mindset. Such people exist, that is obvious (the experts/gurus). Many of these however don't seem to (want to) understand that not all people are like that, or even wish to be so. Request: Would those responsible for past/present/future documentation please consider the plight of non-experts, and (re)write it looking through the eyes of those confused new users? Regards, and thanks in advance. $$\ F. Scott Ophof From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 19:30:52 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02178; Wed, 14 Jul 93 19:30:52 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02171; Wed, 14 Jul 93 12:30:42 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa16667; 14 Jul 93 14:21 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA09902; Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:25:02 EDT Message-Id: <9307141825.AA09902@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 14:25:01 EDT In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof" "Re: The term "Unix-Listserv"" (Jul 14, 2:14am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: "F. Scott Ophof" , LSTSRV-L@uga.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@cs.utexas.edu, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr Mmdf-Warning: Parse error in original version of preceding line at Note2.nsf.gov Subject: Re: The term "Unix-Listserv" Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > | We are now running the unix LISTSERVER. > | > | LISTSERVER is a unixfied version of what the author thinks LISTSERV > | does. I understand it is writtin in C. A student worker here said > | the code is poorly written. Things do work differently. > | The mail headers of mail from LISTSERVER are different. > | > | LISTSERVER is also not as robust as the Revised LISTSERV. IT > | appears that processing a list with slightly over 400 subscribers > | puts a strain on the server. > | > | Documentation is typical of unix software; in my opinion, piss poor. Whoa!!! Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! How much did you pay for Tasos' software? Who held you down and made you use it? Tasos has spent a *lot* of time writing, documenting, and, yes, *supporting* this software. He lets you use it at no cost. He is flamed regularly by BITNET and Internet bigots because he tried to find some common ground between them. I don't know him personally, but I assume he puts up with it because he is a decent citizen of the net, one who wants to put into the net more than he extracts. He has done his homework and talked to Eric Thomas about the use of the term "listserv". He is very open to suggestions for improvement. This has gone on long enough. Please go away, and come back when you have something to contribute. --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 20:34:26 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02275; Wed, 14 Jul 93 20:34:26 GMT Received: from cs-mail.bu.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02268; Wed, 14 Jul 93 13:34:15 PDT Received: from CS.BU.EDU by cs-mail.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA03682; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:37:05 -0400 From: tasos@cs-mail.bu.edu (Anastasios Kotsikonas) Received: by cs.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA27521; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:36:58 -0400 Message-Id: <9307142036.AA27521@cs.bu.edu> Subject: Re: The term "Unix-Listserv" To: mmorse@z.nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 16:36:57 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca, LSTSRV-L@uga.cc.uga.edu, comp-mail-misc@cs.utexas.edu, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr In-Reply-To: <9307141825.AA09902@z.nsf.gov> from "Michael H. Morse" at Jul 14, 93 02:25:01 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1994 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > > > | We are now running the unix LISTSERVER. > > | > > | LISTSERVER is a unixfied version of what the author thinks LISTSERV > > | does. I understand it is writtin in C. A student worker here said > > | the code is poorly written. Things do work differently. > > | The mail headers of mail from LISTSERVER are different. > > | > > | LISTSERVER is also not as robust as the Revised LISTSERV. IT > > | appears that processing a list with slightly over 400 subscribers > > | puts a strain on the server. > > | > > | Documentation is typical of unix software; in my opinion, piss poor. > > Whoa!!! Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! How much did you > pay for Tasos' software? Who held you down and made you use it? > > Tasos has spent a *lot* of time writing, documenting, and, yes, > *supporting* this software. He lets you use it at no cost. He is > flamed regularly by BITNET and Internet bigots because he tried to find > some common ground between them. I don't know him personally, but I > assume he puts up with it because he is a decent citizen of the net, > one who wants to put into the net more than he extracts. He has done > his homework and talked to Eric Thomas about the use of the term > "listserv". He is very open to suggestions for improvement. Let me just say that I put up with it because I ignore ... nonsense, to put it mildly. I accept criticism from people I can communicate with, and if some student thinks the code is poor and the doc "piss" poor, or does not know how to tweak the system or use UNIX utilities to reduce the load well, who cares after all. People who do not know what they are talking about are only hurting themselves. Flames have NEVER forced me to take a step back, and never will. As I said before, talk is cheap and I have better things to do. I do invite and encourage constructive criticism, but totally ignore people and opinions that exhibit an attitude problem, or strike me as childish. Regards, Tasos From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 21:14:29 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02329; Wed, 14 Jul 93 21:14:29 GMT Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02322; Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:14:20 PDT Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef) id AA17065; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:44:59 EDT Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA12502; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:58:38 EDT Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:58:38 EDT From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Message-Id: <9307142058.AA12502@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: all I can stand of this prattle Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Now that he's vented his spleen, I'm going to vent mine. Our buddy wrote: >LISTSERVER is a unixfied version of what the author thinks LISTSERV >does. I understand it is writtin in C. A student worker here said >the code is poorly written. Flaming code that you've (apparently) never examined and (apparently) couldn't understand is as useless an exercise as I've seen. I'd sug- gest that you put that nice young "student worker" right to work on writing your LISTSERV clone for you. It can't be that hard, right? After all, Eric's only been working on LISTSERV for a decade or so; I seem to remember seeing LISTSERV way back in 1982, but it could be even older. Any halfway talented Unix programmer should be able to knock out a clone of a decade's work in nothing flat, right? The *classic* characteristic of PD software in the Unix world is a simple one -- GROUP EFFORT. I know of very few major packages that have not involved dozens, even hundreds, of people. Every- one takes the time and effort to help out, testing software on their particular installations and providing patches/workarounds for everyone. Do you think that packages like gnuplot, mush, elm, perl and IDA sendmail just appeared in an FTP archive one day? If you think that something is inadequate, there are several options available to you. Patch it to work on your systems. Rewrite those portions that you find "poorly written." Come up with a manual on your own. Send your fixes/upgrades/changes to the author, so they can share your work with the rest of us. Heck, most of us have done it; in the last year or so, I've ported (or assisted in the porting of) over a dozen packages to various systems. It's called "making a contribution" or "giving something back." Obviously, these are con- cepts alien to you. Whining about it on every forum you can find (how many lists did this message hit? 4 + a Usenet newsgroup? ) doesn't achieve a single thing. >LISTSERVER is also not as robust as the Revised LISTSERV. IT >appears that processing a list with slightly over 400 subscribers >puts a strain on the server. Did you stop to think that this *might* just be a limitation of the hardware, instead of the software? There's a big difference between an IBM 3090 running LISTSERV and a Sun SPARCStation run- ning Tasos' code (or Majordomo, or any other MLM). Did you stop to think that LISTSERV has been hand-tuned for a specific set of architectures, while Majordomo, Listserver and other Unix MLMs span a huge segment of the Unix spectrum? (That is NOT intended as any sort of slam on Eric -- LISTSERV is a great piece of work) "We got it for free, but it doesn't do *exactly* what we want! It isn't as fast as the other thing we used! It's got the wrong name! This guy over here says it's poorly written! Waaaaahhhhhh! Waaaaaaaaahhhhhh!" Give it a rest. At the very least, drop list-managers from your Email Wheel O'Diatribe; we're here to talk about mailing list management, not to hear your worthless mewling. I think I'm going to be implementing that email killfile with procmail...........that's another tool developed by dozens of people working together...... Feeling *much* better now, --Wes From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 21:40:27 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02415; Wed, 14 Jul 93 21:40:27 GMT Received: from apple.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02408; Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:40:21 PDT Received: by apple.com (5.61/22-Jun-1993-eef) id AA07529; Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:43:21 -0700 for List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Wed, 14 Jul 93 14:43:21 -0700 From: Chuq Von Rospach Message-Id: <9307142143.AA07529@apple.com> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, morgan@engr.uky.edu Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Children, if you don't have anything better to do, why don't you head down to Iowa and volunteer some of this time you're spending flaming each other to hauling sandbags. Maybe that'll help put the importance of this argument back into some kind of perspective. (VERY tired of listening to the babbling). From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 17:16:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02631; Wed, 14 Jul 93 23:55:59 GMT Received: from relay2.UU.NET by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02614; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:55:42 PDT Received: from spool.uu.net (via LOCALHOST) by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA28255; Wed, 14 Jul 93 19:58:23 -0400 Received: from telesoft.UUCP by spool.uu.net with UUCP/RMAIL (queueing-rmail) id 195627.17715; Wed, 14 Jul 1993 19:56:27 EDT Received: from lone.alsys.com by flash.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2a) id AA13563; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:34:18 PDT Message-Id: <9307142334.AA13563@flash.alsys.com> Received: by lone.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2) id AA22479; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:34:17 PDT From: mnejat@lone.alsys.com Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 16:34:16 PDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.2 4/12/91) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: X.400 and Anastasios listserver. Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Can they work together? Also, what is the most common listserver software used with unix boxes. --Mehregan From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 14 17:46:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02633; Wed, 14 Jul 93 23:56:01 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA02615; Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:55:44 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA03309; Wed, 14 Jul 93 19:57:34 EDT Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 18:07:08 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930714.180707-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of 13 Jul 1993 13:38:03 GMT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 13 Jul 1993 13:38:03 GMT Chris Barnes said: >On Mon, 12 Jul 1993 16:44:49 -0400 F. Scott Ophof said: >> Listname: Name of List >I totally agree with the intent, but not the implementation. *I* >think merely refining what the Sender: and From: tags indicate would >do it. IMHO, the Sender: tag should have the list address (if present); >the From: tag should ALWAYS point to the real person that initiated the >mail message. I think you will discover in RFC 822 that "Sender:" is not the formally correct header for this purpose. Agreed re "From:". I've been playing around with combinations of headers (as many others must have already) but literal & figurative headaches were the only result. >BTW: does anyone know of an ftp site for rfc822? I think it's high time >I actually sat down and read the thing..... Site: wuarchive.wustl.edu Directory: doc/rfc/ File: rfc822.txt.Z (case-sensitive) Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 02:06:46 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03995; Thu, 15 Jul 93 02:06:46 GMT Received: from cruskit.aarnet.edu.au by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03988; Wed, 14 Jul 93 19:06:24 PDT Received: from localhost.aarnet.edu.au by cruskit.aarnet.edu.au with SMTP id AA14564 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:08:39 +1000 From: Andy Linton To: "F. Scott Ophof" Cc: LSTSRV-L@uga.cc.uga.edu, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com, comp-mail-misc@cs.utexas.edu Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM X-Organization: AARNet, GPO Box 1142, Canberra, ACT 2601, AUSTRALIA X-Phone: +61 6 249 2874 Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:08:36 +1000 Message-Id: <14563.742702116@cruskit.aarnet.edu.au> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In a message dated Wed, 14 Jul 1993 18:07:08 -0400, "F. Scott Ophof" writes: > >BTW: does anyone know of an ftp site for rfc822? I think it's high time > >I actually sat down and read the thing..... > > Site: wuarchive.wustl.edu > Directory: doc/rfc/ > File: rfc822.txt.Z (case-sensitive) You might want to add RFC 1123, 1425, 1426, 1427, 1428 to your list of SMTP reading - you'll find some other tangential paths to go down in those as well. RFC 822 doesn't give the full picture - remember that it's 11th birthday will be next month. From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 03:44:18 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04189; Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:44:18 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04182; Wed, 14 Jul 93 20:43:57 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA05804; Wed, 14 Jul 93 23:46:05 EDT Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 21:21:06 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle Message-Id: <930714.212106-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:58:38 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:58:38 EDT Wes Morgan said about Duane's posting: >Now that he's vented his spleen, I'm going to vent mine. >Our buddy wrote: >>LISTSERVER is a unixfied version of what the author thinks LISTSERV >>does. I understand it is writtin in C. A student worker here said >>the code is poorly written. >Flaming code that you've (apparently) never examined and (apparently) >couldn't understand is as useless an exercise as I've seen. I'd sug- >gest that you put that nice young "student worker" right to work on >writing your LISTSERV clone for you. It can't be that hard, right? Wouldn't it be better to ask Duane to ask this student worker for more details? Maybe a thing or two could be LEARNED which might be worth implementing in this or that MLM. >The *classic* characteristic of PD software in the Unix world is >a simple one -- GROUP EFFORT. I know of very few major packages >that have not involved dozens, even hundreds, of people. Every- >one takes the time and effort to help out, testing software on >their particular installations and providing patches/workarounds >for everyone. Do you think that packages like gnuplot, mush, elm, >perl and IDA sendmail just appeared in an FTP archive one day? This characteristic is also quite classic in the BITnet world, at least in most stuff I've seen from '88 on. What drives *me* up the wall is that when people make suggestions for stuff which they think might be an improvement, and/or ask whether it would be an improvement in general, and even when they CLEARLY state they cannot implement it for whatever reason, the result ON THE INTERNET is quite often that these people get flamed from here to Arcturus (and back), are told off, or are summarily replied to with "hack the code". Ie. INTERNET people seem to have very long toes. Now THAT characteristic (long toes) does NOT seem to be as general ON BITNET, in fact, quite rare in my experience. I've seen enough postings on BITnet that are outright flames but where the flame is ignored or joked about, with the meat of the posting being taken into serious consideration. I've also seen way too many VERY POLITE postings on the Internet where the ONLY result is nasty and uncalled-for flames. Now can we quit feeling that our precious toes are being stepped on? Just because a product is "free" does NOT mean its lesser points cannot be criticised. Also, contributions to products can be made in numerous ways, one of which is pointing out certain aspects of those products. Most of us contribute at whatever level we can. I've seen people contribute with "only" a fanfare-trumpet-hurray posting to some list, thanking the implementor(s) of a product! But a "thank you for a job well done" is not a "contribution", right? And documentation (of which user help-files & such) are of course totally irrelevant, and one shouldn't waste any time on such useless crap, right? Because who the hell cares what a USER thinks of a product?! And why should one EVER take the trouble to even consider that a USER might think differently than the implementor(s) of some product? My suggestion: Pull in those toes and try to think like a USER. Just once... If you can't, hey that's OK (nobody's perfect), talk with a GOOD teacher, or to people at the help-desk who have a good reputation interfacing with users (or ditto computer consultant at the CC). They'll be glad to help you out; it's part of their work. >Whining about it on every forum you can find (how many lists did this >message hit? 4 + a Usenet newsgroup? ) doesn't achieve a single thing. Duane gave me permission to post it, and *I* decided to post it to 5 discussion centers. Some people have already responded with positive comments and requests for suggestions and more details. IMHO a good start towards improvements related to MLMs in general. >>LISTSERVER is also not as robust as the Revised LISTSERV. IT >>appears that processing a list with slightly over 400 subscribers >>puts a strain on the server. ..[Might be more hardware- than software-related].. >Did you stop to think that LISTSERV has been hand-tuned for a >specific set of architectures, while Majordomo, Listserver and >other Unix MLMs span a huge segment of the Unix spectrum? (That >is NOT intended as any sort of slam on Eric -- LISTSERV is a great >piece of work) So what are we all gonna do? Sit on our halos, feel we've done our best, stick out our long toes, and leave it up to the poor USERS to figure out how to talk with all these differing MLMs? Or are we going to try to figure out how to improve all these MLMs even more? >Feeling *much* better now, >--Wes Really? (grin) Or have I managed to find some toes/feet not yet stepped on? >;-> Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 07:46:26 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04518; Thu, 15 Jul 93 07:46:26 GMT Received: from ub-gate.UB.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04511; Thu, 15 Jul 93 00:46:17 PDT Received: from bolis.UUCP by ub-gate.UB.com (4.1/SMI-4.1[UB-1.8]) id AA12895; Thu, 15 Jul 93 00:49:11 PDT Received: by hock.bolis.sf-bay.org (Smail3.1.28.1 #6) id m0oGNqX-0002ywC; Thu, 15 Jul 93 00:35 PDT Message-Id: From: Alan Millar Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle To: Ophof@CS.UWindsor.Ca (F. Scott Ophof) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 00:35:14 -0800 (PDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <930714.212106-0400@MReXX-0.18> from "F. Scott Ophof" at Jul 14, 93 09:21:06 pm Reply-To: Alan Millar X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1660 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Verily didst F. Scott Ophof rise up and spake thus: > So what are we all gonna do? Sit on our halos, feel we've done our > best, stick out our long toes, and leave it up to the poor USERS to > figure out how to talk with all these differing MLMs? I believe that the poor users (all of us being one at various times) are all too easily confused by the differences among the MLMs. And in my opinion, the very first stumbling block is "what address do I send my subscription request to?" Send it to listserv@here, listserver@there, mailserv@somewhere.else, and majordomo@that.other.one Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? Presumably the best choice to try for some consistency would be "listserv@whereever". How does this square with the recent flap over intellectual property rights to the name "LISTSERV"? (*I* am perfectly happy to tell people "I run Majordomo, send your requests to listserv@blah.blah. You'll get a reply that says From: Majordomo ". It is fine with me. But will the Don't-call-it-listserv-when-it-isn't-Eric's-Revised-Listserv people have a problem with it?) > Or are we going to try to figure out how to improve all these MLMs > even more? Can't argue with that. - Alan ---- ,,,, Alan Millar amillar@bolis.SF-Bay.org __oo \ System Administrator =___/ Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! -Wizard of Oz From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 02:47:30 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04725; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:20:25 GMT Received: from deepthought.cs.utexas.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04716; Thu, 15 Jul 93 02:20:09 PDT Received: from im4u.cs.utexas.edu by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA26489; Thu, 15 Jul 93 04:23:21 -0500 Received: from chinaca by im4u.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.18/uucp) with UUCP id AA17069; Thu, 15 Jul 93 04:23:04 -0500 Received: from coldsnap.unicom.com by chinacat.unicom.com with smtp (smail3.1.28.1) id m0oGOkq-0002ZXC; Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:33 CDT Received: from localhost by coldsnap.unicom.com (smail3.1.28.1) id m0oGOks-00025PC; Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:33 CDT Message-Id: From: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal) Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 03:33:29 -0500 (CDT) In-Reply-To: from "Alan Millar" at Jul 15, 93 00:35:14 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 608 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, > wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send > to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? We should stick with the Internet convention of using a `-request' address, and the local administrator should feel free to alias that to whatever he or she feels inclined to do. -- Chip Rosenthal 512-447-0577 | I'm going out where the lights don't shine so Unicom Systems Development | bright. When I get back you can treat me like | a Saturday night. -Jimmie Dale Gilmore From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 09:52:19 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04776; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:52:19 GMT Received: from livbird.liv.ac.uk by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04769; Thu, 15 Jul 93 02:52:02 PDT Received: from localhost.liv.ac.uk by liverbird.liverpool.ac.uk with Local-SMTP (PP) id <03924-0@liverbird.liverpool.ac.uk>; Thu, 15 Jul 1993 10:53:33 +0100 To: mnejat@lone.alsys.com Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: X.400 and Anastasios listserver. In-Reply-To: The Message of "Wed, 14 Jul 93 16:34:16 PDT." Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:53:30 +0100 Message-Id: <3922.742730010@livbird.liv.ac.uk> From: Alan Thew Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 14 Jul 1993 16:34:16 PDT mnejat@lone.alsys.com wrote: >Can they work together? We've had problems. X.400 mail will be converted to something resembling RFC822 long before Listserver ever sees it but it tends to have a long row of "------------------------------" as the first line.... listserver junks the message. If you mean "can listserver handle native X.400?" . The answer is no. You need to have a X.400 MTA convert it to RFC822 (can be done) before you stand a chamce. -- Alan Thew alan.thew@livbird.liv.ac.uk ...!uknet!livbird!alan.thew +44 51 794 3735 From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 10:40:36 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04903; Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:40:36 GMT Received: from livbird.liv.ac.uk by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04896; Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:40:26 PDT Received: from localhost.liv.ac.uk by liverbird.liverpool.ac.uk with Local-SMTP (PP) id <04068-0@liverbird.liverpool.ac.uk>; Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:41:00 +0100 To: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle In-Reply-To: The Message of "Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:33:29 CDT." Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:40:59 +0100 Message-Id: <4066.742732859@livbird.liv.ac.uk> From: Alan Thew Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 15 Jul 1993 03:33:29 -0500 (CDT) Chip Rosenthal wrote: >> Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, >> wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send >> to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? > >We should stick with the Internet convention of using a `-request' >address, and the local administrator should feel free to alias that >to whatever he or she feels inclined to do. The only problem with the above is that it's a convention. BITNET software does not use it, many sendmail based software packages tend to use the -owners convention. It would be useful to have an RFC (pigs will fly :-)). There are 2 issues, one is how MLMs look to a user and what other headers MLM's use to identify themselves to MTAs. -- Alan Thew alan.thew@livbird.liv.ac.uk ...!uknet!livbird!alan.thew +44 51 794 3735 From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 13:33:48 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05142; Thu, 15 Jul 93 13:33:48 GMT Received: from cs-mail.bu.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05135; Thu, 15 Jul 93 06:33:41 PDT Received: from CS.BU.EDU by cs-mail.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA14433; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:36:45 -0400 From: tasos@cs-mail.bu.edu (Anastasios Kotsikonas) Received: by cs.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA12276; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:36:44 -0400 Message-Id: <9307151336.AA12276@cs.bu.edu> Subject: Re: X.400 and Anastasios listserver. To: Alan.Thew@livbird.liv.ac.uk (Alan Thew) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:36:43 -0400 (EDT) Cc: mnejat@lone.alsys.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <3922.742730010@livbird.liv.ac.uk> from "Alan Thew" at Jul 15, 93 10:53:30 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 218 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > If you mean "can listserver handle native X.400?" . The answer is no. You > need to have a X.400 MTA convert it to RFC822 (can be done) before you > stand a chamce. Actually the answer is yes in version 6.0. Tasos From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 14:21:09 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05282; Thu, 15 Jul 93 14:21:09 GMT Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05275; Thu, 15 Jul 93 07:20:59 PDT Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef) id AA21766; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:53:34 EDT Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17047; Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:07:13 EDT Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:07:13 EDT From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Message-Id: <9307151407.AA17047@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle Cc: amillar@bolis.sf-bay.org, ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, >wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send >to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? Well, there are a few stumbling blocks: - Some sites don't run an MLM of any sort. I do not; I use the facilities of sendmail to manage the list and manage users by hand. Should I have to install an MLM just to run a single mailing list? (If you peruse the Internet List of Lists, you'll find that the VAST majority of Internet lists are run in this fashion; I'd estimate that less than 10% of Internet mailing lists use an MLM.) - Some systems place limitations on usernames. As a matter of fact, "LISTSERV" is a result of BITNET's 8-character limit. 8) - Lists are running on everything from IBM 3090s to Crays to AT&T 3B2s to PCs in indivdual homes. Ex- pecting each of them to provide the same services may be unrealistic. >Presumably the best choice to try for some consistency would >be "listserv@whereever". How does this square with the recent >flap over intellectual property rights to the name "LISTSERV"? > >(*I* am perfectly happy to tell people "I run Majordomo, send your >requests to listserv@blah.blah. You'll get a reply that >says From: Majordomo ". It is fine with me. >But will the Don't-call-it-listserv-when-it-isn't-Eric's-Revised-Listserv >people have a problem with it?) Well, I think that the common name would perpetuate the users' problems, since "listserv" tells you nothing about the command set necessaary for that particular piece of software. If folks assume (and they seem to do so frequently) that "listserv@wherever" implies Eric Thomas' LISTSERV, they'll be surprised by the results of their commands. >> Or are we going to try to figure out how to improve all these MLMs >> even more? > >Can't argue with that. Well, I don't think that "improve" should necessarily mean "set of commands common to every single implementation." The library cata- loguing folks have been dealing with this very problem; if you surf the Internet, you'll find catalogs running under NOTIS, INNOPAC, DOBIS, and dozens of other programs. Is the library crowd screaming for a global standard? No; they're collecting information across the spectrum. Look at Billy Barron's UNT Guide to Online Library Resources; in its appendices, it give the basic command set for the various catalog facilities in use throughout the Internet. Why not do the same for MLMs? Organize it conceptually; dedicate a page or two to "getting a catalog of available mailing lists," and include the instructions for doing so with LISTSERV, majordomo and others. Is there anything wrong with that solution? Remember, too, that LISTSERV represents a decade's work; you won't find many packages that can match its abilities. In fact, may MLMs don't even try to do so; the combination of an MLM and an ftp archive is every bit as good as the 'single source' LISTSERV mail/file server model. --Wes From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 15:27:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05412; Thu, 15 Jul 93 15:27:39 GMT Received: from mailman.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05405; Thu, 15 Jul 93 08:27:30 PDT Received: from localhost by mailman.nsf.gov with SMTP id AA17089 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:31:57 -0400 Message-Id: <199307151531.AA17089@mailman.nsf.gov> From: "Ravin Asar" To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: MLM standards In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 15 Jul 93 00:35:14 -0800. Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:31:57 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The message I received from Alan Millar said: ... > (*I* am perfectly happy to tell people "I run Majordomo, send your > requests to listserv@blah.blah. You'll get a reply that > says From: Majordomo ". It is fine with me. > But will the Don't-call-it-listserv-when-it-isn't-Eric's-Revised-Listserv > people have a problem with it?) > - Alan ... Recent discussion (except for the brief flaming intermission) appears to boil down to "reserving" a name for the local part of an email address. So far, it appears, the only reserved address that has been deemed necessary is "postmaster" on the Internet (see RFC822 section 6.3) and "POSTMAST" on the BITNet (right?). The one single reason for this special case is so that there is a single POC for reporting mail system problems or querying a human at the site about email-related matters. It doesn't seem appropriate to set aside an address to suit the purpose of specialized email *software*. Usage of list server (I use the term generically) software is something we happen to be seeing a lot of these days. In the future there could conceivably be other software that happens to become commonly used. If reserved addresses were to become the rule of the day, network (Internet and BITNet) users and developers would constantly have to be up on the "Reserved Addresses of The Day" list. In my humble opinion (I've gotten tired of acronyms) the issue of consistent behaviour between MLMs might be better handled in the following manner: a) As AMillar@bolis.sf-bay.org seemed to imply, a standard MINIMAL command set be established for MLMs to comply with (ala sendmail, LISTSERV, etc). b) Leave the issue of setting up an email address for the list server in the hands of the email system administrators at each site - it really doesn't have to be anyones business what address one sets up at one's own site. I don't intend to restart a heaving debate on intellectual property rights, but in general local addresses are just that - local. They need *not* purport to be anything but that. Note: One might make a lot of enemies if one were to break with tradition (like aliasing "postmaster" to /dev/null on a Unix system) but the network users both inside and out would take care of setting the admin straight. Not to mention that they would probably get thrown off the Internet, too. This way if one used an MLM that was "compliant" with the minimal command set, it would at least respond predictably to commands such as, say, SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, HELP, etc. One of these commands (possibly HELP) could be one that returns the list of extra commands that were in use at that site or with that particular MLM. This would leave developers/hackers free to add features without affecting the acceptable or predictable behaviour of the MLM. -Ravin Note: Please pardon my lack of knowledge about BITNet conventions. __________________________________________________________________ Ravin Asar | National Science Foundation System Manager: Unix Systems | 1800 G St. NW #440 | Washington, DC 20550 Official: postmaster@nsf.gov | Phone: (202) 357-5934 Personal: rasar@nsf.gov | Fax: (202) 357-7663 __________________________________|_______________________________ IMHO From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 15:43:54 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05466; Thu, 15 Jul 93 15:43:54 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05459; Thu, 15 Jul 93 08:43:41 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa10112; 15 Jul 93 11:28 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10658; Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:31:30 EDT Message-Id: <9307151531.AA10658@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:31:30 EDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: In case you missed this... Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Eric makes good points, so I thought I'd forward them. --Mike --- Forwarded mail from Eric Thomas >From ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE Wed Jul 14 19:11:16 1993 From: Eric Thomas Subject: Re: The term "Unix-Listserv" To: "Forum on LISTSERV release 1.7" , "Michael H. Morse" On Wed, 14 Jul 1993 14:25:01 EDT "Michael H. Morse" said: >He has done his homework and talked to Eric Thomas about the use of the >term "listserv". He is very open to suggestions for improvement. Well excuse me, but this is bullshit. I have explicitly asked Tasos to change the name of his software and to remove the sentence in the help file that claims it is a unix implementation of my software (see below). While I admit I am not FTP'ing the software every day to see if these changes have been made, to the best of my knowledge he has always ignored my request, which sets him aside as the only person in the Internet who refused this simple courtesy. The EARN Association, representing 100k's of users, made a similar request in a formal, written letter; same results. Here is the quote I object to, in addition to the name the software uses to refer to itself (I understand that Tasos has no control over what individual sites decide to alias to his daemon): >LISTSERV is a system that was originally designed by Eric Thomas for >BITNET nodes (...) This version is a bitnet-flavored UNIX implementation >(not a port of the original LISTSERV), Most people expect two implementations of X to be compatible, with the possible exception of a limited number of OS-specific functions. If I give you a diskette and tell you it contains a MS-DOS implementation of emacs, which however is not a port of the original code, you will probably expect the controls to be the same as the GNU emacs on unix, except that directories might have backslashes. You certainly don't expect to find EDIT on the diskette. If you bought EDIT from me, thinking it was emacs, and liked it, the author of emacs would still have reason to be angry at me for creating all this confusion. Especially if you then went around to your friends and showed them "emacs", and they decided to stick with Notepad instead. Now let me tell you why this upsets me on a personal level. Like Tasos I have put enormous amounts of time in this, and because I didn't like the idea of turning into a marketing shark and had a good job with a comfortable salary, I provided the software free of charge for years. I will not bore you with all the unrelated problems that I got as a result of this naive decision. But one of these problems is that people like Tasos and you seem to think they have a constitutional right and duty to make me waste hours every month trying to explain to users that 'unix listserv' has nothing to do with LISTSERV, and that the reason "my" unix implementation of LISTSERV is not compatible with the VM implementation is that they have nothing to do with each other. Now, if I had started selling LISTSERV when there were enough sites using it to turn a serious profit, ie in 1987, the trademark would have been registered since that time. It might conceivably only have made it to the secondary register, but even in that case, after 5 years without any challenge from a business using the name for trade, it would have been upgraded to the primary register. Today, anyone using the name 'unix listserv' for a list manager without my consent would be in the same situation as someone selling computers under the brand name 'unix Apple'. But I wouldn't need to worry about that or even type this message, because the level of respect for private and corporate property in the US is such that everyone would find it perfectly normal that only I can use the name 'listserv' for list managers and only Apple can use the name 'Apple' for personal computers. But since I was naive enough to decide to make my efforts freely available, I am now in the situation I am in, with dozens of people claiming I am just a megalomaniac fascist who thinks he owns the letters that make up the word LISTSERV, and adding this to their list of punch-card jokes, hehe. Note that the fact that the trademark was not registered when the product was first released doesn't mean it cannot be registered now. In fact, it is common practice to register trademarks in only one country, and use a trademark under common law in all others until you need to have your rights enforced. I didn't try to register LISTSERV as a trademark when Tasos started using the name because we're talking $1-2k if it goes smoothly and lots of talking to individuals whose company I do not really enjoy, but there is nothing that says you have to register a trademark initially or never. Anyway, now things are a lot simpler. LISTSERV has finally become a product, and every time an organization without a mailing list manager installs Tasos's software because they thought it was the same as the VM LISTSERV, this is going to constitute a potential loss of business for the company that distributes LISTSERV. Sometimes the organization in question would not be interested in a VM version anyway, so it won't make much of a difference. And sometimes it will be a corporation with many IBM mainframes and the loss will be genuine (you can never be sure of course, but you can make a good estimate). So this is no longer a personal problem to be dealt with at an emotional level, this is a simple business problem that has to be handled as such. The company that sells LISTSERV is not interested in solving the personal problems I may have with various individuals, however they obviously want to make sure they don't lose business because the name is being abused (until Tasos started using it, and to the best of my knowledge, the VM LISTSERV was the only software that had ever used that name since 1986, and there was NO user confusion). A typical one-time initial license plus one year of service for a corporate site is around $10k (per machine running the software). Now, $10k is not worth getting angry and excited about, but if the confusion increases and it turns out, in 6-12 months, that $50k is closer to the mark, it will have become a serious business problem - something one might want to spend $10-20k to fix, with a good hope of return on this investment within the next year. The usual way to solve such problems in the corporate world is to feed a big pile of money to lawyers to cause them to extract another big pile of money from someone else, and in this game the only party that ever wins is the lawyers' lobby. It would be sad and unfortunate, but the logic is inescapable. If you tried this with Apple, you'd get a polite letter first, then threats, then a lawyer - and that's if you're lucky enough not to get the lawyer right away. The reason I am so pleased with the present setup is that it puts the moral responsibility out of my hands. Neither party has any interest in seeing this happen; there is little or nothing the vendor can do to avoid loss of business due to inaccurate (or at best misleading) claims made by other people, so the responsibility is entirely in Tasos's hands. He is free to claim that there is no possibility for misunderstanding because he doesn't see any, and if that is true there will indeed be no confusion, hence no loss of business can possibly be reported and there will be no problem. If on the other hand it turned out that confusion does exist and the distributor hears of enough (confirmed) cases where business was actually lost to be willing to flush $20k down the drain to remove this possibility, Tasos will have noone but himself to blame for anything that might happen. Eric From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 15:44:18 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05482; Thu, 15 Jul 93 15:44:18 GMT Received: from rip.psg.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05467; Thu, 15 Jul 93 08:44:10 PDT Received: by rip.psg.com (Smail3.1.28.1 #5) id m0oGVWT-000307C; Thu, 15 Jul 93 08:47 PDT Message-Id: From: randy@psg.com (Randy Bush) Subject: Re: MLM standards To: rasar@nsf.gov (Ravin Asar) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:47:05 -0700 (PDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <199307151531.AA17089@mailman.nsf.gov> from "Ravin Asar" at Jul 15, 93 11:31:57 am Content-Type: text Content-Length: 772 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > So far, it appears, the only reserved address that has been > deemed necessary is "postmaster" on the Internet (see RFC822 section > 6.3) and "POSTMAST" on the BITNet (right?). 'usenet' on all Usenet sites, 'hostmaster' on DNS serving hosts. There is documentation on the former, but I believe the latter is mere convention. And, if anyone is counting votes this time around this ancient discussion: o I support a universal means of detecting mail from a mailing list, if only to prevent annoyance from clueless vacation programs. o I do not support a universal list maintainer service interface, as different list maintainers wish to provide different services. A minimal command set might be useful, but I mean *minimal*, e.g. 'help'. Bah humbug. From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 16:06:30 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05575; Thu, 15 Jul 93 16:06:30 GMT Received: from ub-gate.UB.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05568; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:06:24 PDT Received: from bolis.UUCP by ub-gate.UB.com (4.1/SMI-4.1[UB-1.8]) id AA02027; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:09:30 PDT Received: by hock.bolis.sf-bay.org (Smail3.1.28.1 #6) id m0oGVGc-0002z6C; Thu, 15 Jul 93 08:30 PDT Message-Id: From: Alan Millar Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle To: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:30:41 -0800 (PDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: from "Chip Rosenthal" at Jul 15, 93 03:33:29 am Reply-To: Alan Millar X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 891 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Verily didst Chip Rosenthal rise up and spake thus: > > > Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, > > wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send > > to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? > > We should stick with the Internet convention of using a `-request' > address, and the local administrator should feel free to alias that > to whatever he or she feels inclined to do. This is fine for manually administered lists, but it seems silly to send a message to "foolist-request" with a message "subscribe foolist", doesn't it? ---- ,,,, Alan Millar amillar@bolis.SF-Bay.org __oo \ System Administrator =___/ I can't give you brains, but I can give you a diploma -Wizard of Oz to Scarecrow From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 16:06:50 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05591; Thu, 15 Jul 93 16:06:50 GMT Received: from ub-gate.UB.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05581; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:06:41 PDT Received: from bolis.UUCP by ub-gate.UB.com (4.1/SMI-4.1[UB-1.8]) id AA02039; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:09:41 PDT Received: by hock.bolis.sf-bay.org (Smail3.1.28.1 #6) id m0oGVj9-0002ywC; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:00 PDT Message-Id: From: Alan Millar Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle To: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 09:00:09 -0800 (PDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <9307151407.AA17047@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu> from "Wes Morgan" at Jul 15, 93 10:07:13 am Reply-To: Alan Millar X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 4870 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Verily didst Wes Morgan rise up and spake thus: > >Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, > >wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send > >to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? > > Well, there are a few stumbling blocks: > > - Some sites don't run an MLM of any sort. I do not; Huh? I wasn't even considering non-MLM lists. All I was talking about was getting consistency among MLMs. > - Some systems place limitations on usernames. As a > matter of fact, "LISTSERV" is a result of BITNET's > 8-character limit. 8) This isn't a stumbling block if we choose an 8-character name, such as "listserv".... > - Lists are running on everything from IBM 3090s to > Crays to AT&T 3B2s to PCs in indivdual homes. Ex- > pecting each of them to provide the same services > may be unrealistic. Maybe, but getting the few most-common MLMs such as Tasos' and Majordomo to use consistent syntax and addresses is hardly rocket science. Getting MOST of the MLMs in use to be consistent is still worth doing. > Well, I think that the common name would perpetuate the users' problems, > since "listserv" tells you nothing about the command set necessaary for > that particular piece of software. There is NO reason that all MLMs could not accept a simple subset that is consistent. I would bet that 80% or more of all traffic to an MLM consists of just "subscribe" and "unsubscribe", and 80% of the MLM users will probably only ever use those two commands. A distant third and fourth would probably be asking for a list of lists and a list of subscribers on a list. Pretty much all MLMs share these four features. What is the problem with making them consistent? Majordomo explicitly tests and rejects "subscribe list your name" instead of quietly ignoring "your name". What is the POINT?! > If folks assume (and they seem to do > so frequently) that "listserv@wherever" implies Eric Thomas' LISTSERV, > they'll be surprised by the results of their commands. I understand that all MLMs do not share the same functionality. So of course their command will be rejected. But why must it reject the two most common commands that most users will only ever use, instead of accepting them when it could? > Well, I don't think that "improve" should necessarily mean "set of > commands common to every single implementation." I think "common set of most often used commands for features that all MLMs already share anyways" is an improvement. What MLM doesn't allow you to subscribe to an open list? What MLM doesn't allow you to unsubscribe? What MLM doesn't allow you to get at list of the lists managed by this MLM? What MLM doesn't allow you to get a list of subscribers on a list? What is wrong with making these most-often-used commands consistent, and rejecting only the other misc commands? > The library cata- > loguing folks have been dealing with this very problem; if you surf > the Internet, you'll find catalogs running under NOTIS, INNOPAC, > DOBIS, and dozens of other programs. Is the library crowd screaming > for a global standard? No; they're collecting information across the > spectrum. Look at Billy Barron's UNT Guide to Online Library Resources; > in its appendices, it give the basic command set for the various catalog > facilities in use throughout the Internet. Why not do the same for > MLMs? Organize it conceptually; dedicate a page or two to "getting a > catalog of available mailing lists," and include the instructions for > doing so with LISTSERV, majordomo and others. Is there anything wrong > with that solution? Excuse me for oversimplifying, but a library card catalog is probably an order of magnitude more complex than a simple list server. I think library folks are not screaming for consistency because the catalogs are already established and would probably take a significant amount of programming to change. In addition, a catalog is highly interactive; it will get enough use for the user to learn its syntax and features. Having to learn different syntax for an MLM that the user will send one or two commands to every few months is different. > Remember, too, that LISTSERV represents a decade's work; you won't find > many packages that can match its abilities. In fact, may MLMs don't > even try to do so; the combination of an MLM and an ftp archive is > every bit as good as the 'single source' LISTSERV mail/file server > model. So why can't the MLM part of the MLM/ftp-archive pair be consistent? - Alan ---- ,,,, Alan Millar amillar@bolis.SF-Bay.org __oo \ System Administrator =___/ I can't give you brains, but I can give you a diploma -Wizard of Oz to Scarecrow From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 16:10:03 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05608; Thu, 15 Jul 93 16:10:03 GMT Received: from harper-hall.cit.cornell.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05599; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:09:54 PDT Received: from [132.236.69.173] ([132.236.69.173]) by harper-hall.cit.cornell.edu with SMTP id <511503>; Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:12:48 -0400 X-Sender: mss1@postoffice.mail.cornell.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 13:12:34 -0400 To: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan), List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: mss1@cornell.edu (Michael S Shappe) Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle Message-Id: <93Jul15.121248edt.511503@harper-hall.cit.cornell.edu> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 16.58 930714 -0400, Wes Morgan wrote: >Did you stop to think that this *might* just be a limitation of >the hardware, instead of the software? There's a big difference >between an IBM 3090 running LISTSERV and a Sun SPARCStation run- >ning Tasos' code (or Majordomo, or any other MLM). Wes' point is very well made. It also matters what else is running on the hardware at the same time. For example, when Unix-Listserver 5.5 shared an otherwise adequate SPARC 2 machine with our main campus gateway ('cornell.edu') and our central QI server, performance, frankly, sucked, once we had lots of lists, several with >500 subscribers. Now that Listserv is more or less on its OWN Sparc 2 (sharing with Gopher and IRC, both of which are comparatively lightweight here), it's happy. It will be even happier when that machine becomes a Sparc 10. We're running over 200 lists, now, including a couple of very-high-volume+large-subscription-base without difficulty. -- Michael S. Shappe From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 16:32:20 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05686; Thu, 15 Jul 93 16:32:20 GMT Received: from mailman.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05679; Thu, 15 Jul 93 09:32:11 PDT Received: from localhost by mailman.nsf.gov with SMTP id AA18707 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Thu, 15 Jul 1993 12:36:34 -0400 Message-Id: <199307151636.AA18707@mailman.nsf.gov> From: "Ravin Asar" To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 15 Jul 93 03:33:29 -0500. Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 12:36:34 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The message I received from Chip Rosenthal said: ... > We should stick with the Internet convention of using a `-request' > address, and the local administrator should feel free to alias that > to whatever he or she feels inclined to do. > Ummm....I wouldn't go so far as to call it an "Internet convention". I've mentioned it before, but isn't it actually an implementation convention? Sendmail, for example, uses owner-foo by default. But....it's like deja vu all over again... -Ravin From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 18:08:24 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05988; Thu, 15 Jul 93 18:08:24 GMT Received: from ub-gate.UB.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05981; Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:08:15 PDT Received: from bolis.UUCP by ub-gate.UB.com (4.1/SMI-4.1[UB-1.8]) id AA07404; Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:11:21 PDT Received: by hock.bolis.sf-bay.org (Smail3.1.28.1 #6) id m0oGXEo-0002z6C; Thu, 15 Jul 93 10:36 PDT Message-Id: From: Alan Millar Subject: Re: MLM standards To: rasar@nsf.gov (Ravin Asar) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 10:36:56 -0800 (PDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <199307151531.AA17089@mailman.nsf.gov> from "Ravin Asar" at Jul 15, 93 11:31:57 am Reply-To: Alan Millar X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 759 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Verily didst Ravin Asar rise up and spake thus: > Recent discussion (except for the brief flaming intermission) appears > to boil down to "reserving" a name for the local part of an email > address. So far, it appears, the only reserved address that has been > deemed necessary is "postmaster" on the Internet (see RFC822 section > 6.3) and "POSTMAST" on the BITNet (right?). Yes, I probably should not have said "reserve". The work "recommend" is probably better. - Alan ---- ,,,, Alan Millar amillar@bolis.SF-Bay.org __oo \ System Administrator =___/ "Windows/NT - From the people who brought you EDLIN" -Herb Peyerl From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 18:47:16 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA06498; Thu, 15 Jul 93 18:47:16 GMT Received: from rip.psg.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA06010; Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:14:27 PDT Received: by rip.psg.com (Smail3.1.28.1 #5) id m0oGXrp-000304C; Thu, 15 Jul 93 11:17 PDT Message-Id: From: randy@psg.com (Randy Bush) Subject: Re: MLM standards To: AMillar@bolis.sf-bay.org Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:17:17 -0700 (PDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: from "Alan Millar" at Jul 15, 93 10:26:37 am Content-Type: text Content-Length: 535 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >> o I do not support a universal list maintainer service interface, as >> different list maintainers wish to provide different services. A >> minimal command set might be useful, but I mean *minimal*, e.g. 'help'. > But which MLMs *don't* provide the service of "subscribe" and "unsubscribe"? And which text editors don't provide insertion and deletion? Please take all this control trip noise to some Usenet newsgroup. This used to be a useful list, but I and a bunch of others are about to join the rash of folk leaving it. From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 15 20:46:07 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA06949; Thu, 15 Jul 93 20:46:07 GMT Received: from larry.rice.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA06942; Thu, 15 Jul 93 13:45:59 PDT Received: by larry.rice.edu (AA12346); Thu, 15 Jul 93 15:51:42 CDT Newsgroups: rice.mlist.list-managers Path: cathyf From: cathyf@is.rice.edu (Catherine Anne Foulston) Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle Message-Id: Organization: Rice University References: <199307151636.AA18707@mailman.nsf.gov> Distribution: rice Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 20:51:32 GMT Apparently-To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Chip Rosenthal: >> We should stick with the Internet convention of using a `-request' >> address, and the local administrator should feel free to alias that >> to whatever he or she feels inclined to do. Ravin Asar >Ummm....I wouldn't go so far as to call it an "Internet convention". >I've mentioned it before, but isn't it actually an implementation >convention? Sendmail, for example, uses owner-foo by default. owner-foo is an implementation convention. It is for software. It is where (a particular kind of) software sends errors it detects. foo-request is an Internet convention. It is for people. If you hear that a new Internet mailing list for foo exists, you can guess that foo-request is the adminstrative address and be right a lot of the time. If I were setting up a simple mailing list without an MLM I would use foo-request for administrivia and alias it to the person running the list. I would alias owner-foo to foo-request. If I were using an MLM I would probably set up the "command-eating" address (e.g. listserv@foovm) and then alias foo-request to that address. (This may have been what Chip was suggesting.) Are there people using owner-foo in the way I am using foo-request? Is there software that treats foo-request like owner-foo or in some other special way? Cathy -- Cathy Foulston + Rice University + Network & Systems Support + cathyf@rice.edu A man's got to do what a man's got to do, even if it's really stupid. -- Royko From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 05:15:41 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08137; Fri, 16 Jul 93 05:15:41 GMT Received: from equinox.unr.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08130; Thu, 15 Jul 93 22:15:31 PDT Received: from unssun (unssun.scs.unr.edu) by equinox.unr.edu (4.1/1.34) id AA08507; Thu, 15 Jul 93 22:18:30 PDT Received: by unssun (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA09928; Thu, 15 Jul 93 22:18:28 PDT Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 22:18:28 PDT From: willis@unssun.scs.unr.edu (Glee Willis) Message-Id: <9307160518.AA09928@unssun> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: OPACs vs. MLMs Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Wes Morgan said: Wes> The library cata- Wes> loguing folks have been dealing with this very problem; if you surf Wes> the Internet, you'll find catalogs running under NOTIS, INNOPAC, Wes> DOBIS, and dozens of other programs. Is the library crowd screaming Wes> for a global standard? No; they're collecting information across the Wes> spectrum. Look at Billy Barron's UNT Guide to Online Library Resources; Wes> in its appendices, it give the basic command set for the various catalog Wes> facilities in use throughout the Internet. Why not do the same for Wes> MLMs? Organize it conceptually; dedicate a page or two to "getting a Wes> catalog of available mailing lists," and include the instructions for Wes> doing so with LISTSERV, majordomo and others. Is there anything wrong Wes> with that solution? Then Alan Millar said: Alan> Excuse me for oversimplifying, but a library card catalog is probably Alan> an order of magnitude more complex than a simple list server. I think Alan> library folks are not screaming for consistency because the catalogs Alan> are already established and would probably take a significant amount Alan> of programming to change. In addition, a catalog is highly interactive; Alan> it will get enough use for the user to learn its syntax and features. Alan> Having to learn different syntax for an MLM that the user will send one Alan> or two commands to every few months is different. Ummm. Hi to everyone who hasn't unsubbed from this list yet! This part of the "prattle" thread has prompted me to un-lurk for long enough to clue folks into Z39.50 -- an ANSI standard which was written *long* before WAIS (which uses it) appeared in Netland -- which is intended to enable transparent cross-OPAC searching, so that users will NOT, in the (near?) future, have to learn any but their own OPAC's command syntax. Implementation of Z39.50 in libraryland has been a hot topic for the past couple of years because ... it's FINALLY happening!! (For more info, you might wanna monitor the Z39.50-L list.) Hopefully we won't need Billy Barron's list much longer!! In other words, "the library crowd hasn't been screaming for a global standard" because we already HAVE one that we are working (quietly) toward implementing. Please don't delude yourself into thinking that librarians aren't interested in _decreasing_ the plethora of hoops our users have to jump through in order to access the library resources on the Net. Not ALL of libraryland is as contented with the status quo as it might appear to be ... Looking forward to the day when everyone can join all flavors of mailing lists as uniformly as they can read newsgroups, Glee -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==--==--==--==-<>-==--==--==--==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Glee Willis Internet: willis@unssun.scs.unr.edu Engineering Librarian Bitnet: willis@equinox Engineering Library (262) FAX: (702) 784-1751 University of Nevada Telephone: (702) 784-6827 Reno, NV 89557-0044 I don't `do' disclaimers. "Without leaps of imagination, of dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning." -- Gloria Steinem -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==--==--==--==-<>-==--==--==--==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 07:36:40 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08403; Fri, 16 Jul 93 07:36:40 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca ([137.207.192.3]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08396; Fri, 16 Jul 93 00:36:26 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA25506; Fri, 16 Jul 93 03:38:43 EDT Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1993 20:54:22 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header (was Re: all I can stand of this prattle) Message-Id: <930715.205422-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:30:41 -0800 (PDT) Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:30:41 -0800 (PDT) Alan Millar said on List-Managers: >Verily didst Chip Rosenthal rise up and spake thus: >> > Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, >> > wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send >> > to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? Do you mean with "one reserved name to send to" that the following line: HdrName: [Name of list] means: HdrName Fieldname indicating that the item wherein this is a header was posted AS-IS to a mailing list, the address of which follows in the value section of this header. This fieldname may only be used for this one purpose. Name of list Name of the relevant mailing list (optional). submit-posting-addr The address to which postings are to be submitted in order for the item to be distributed to the members of this mailing list. In other words, one does NOT use this field for anything else but to extract the address needed to be able to "post to that list", and to determine which mailing list this item was posted to AS-IS. Thus: - MTAs would ignore this line totally, and neither add nor delete such a line. I see no reason for them to take any action due to this line's presence or absence. - MUAs could make use of its presence and value in for example their reply and/or mail functions. It should not be a function of a MUA to add this header. (But see note 1) - All MLMs would add this header to postings being distributed to the list-members. - All MLMs should refuse items-submitted-for-distribution which contain this header. I'm assuming this should not be the way for MLM X to tell MLM Y to distribute the item. And if some person submits a posting including this header, then that item could be seen as "illegal". (But see note 1) - An item may have zero or more such headers (and/or addresses on such lines). This refers to the possibility of an item being distributed by more than one list. (Shaky... Useful?) I am not referring to any specific format of "submit-posting-addr", except that using it in "To:", "Cc:", or "Bcc:" will ensure that my item is distributed to the members of the mailing list to which that address is linked. Due to the various interpretations I've seen, it seems my original question wasn't clear enough. Does the above rephrasing need refining, or does it (by some miracel) cover the grounds fully enough for all the networks (ie. not only Internet and BITnet)? Possible values for "HdrName" have already been posted, some of which are "X-List" and "List". Tasos (or someone like him :-) ) suggested using "X-List" till all MLMs are sure the whole thing works as intended and "List" has been registered, and then switch to "List". Not knowing how this registering process works, I'll keep my mouth shut about it, though would appreciate info on how/ where to find out more about it. Rehash of rationale for my question/request: - Each MLM I've seen postings from has a different way of indicating the item was posted to mailing list XYZ. - Some are such that I cannot easily determine which mailing list the item was posted to. - Overall consistency is a nice goal to work towards. - Such consistency would make it easier for MUAs to be designed/ modified to process (replies to) mailing-list mail in a manner useful to the users. (Not relevant to MLMs, but it would make it possible for MUAs to group items per mailing list, something I've been wishing for since '89 or so...) Note 1: Alternatively, an item reaching an MLM: - WithOUT this header could be seen as an administrative item (like (un)subscribes, requests for help, to retrieve files, set options, etcetera). - WITH this header would be seen as an item to distribute to the list-members. According to this alternative, it *should* be a function of MUAs to add this header when the user indicates "post this", and leave it out when the user says "administrative stuff". Implementation of this alternative means that an item mailed to the submit-to-list-addr withOUT that header would have the same result as any item currently mailed to the administrative address (which is normally of the form , , , or ). This also implies that all four addr forms above could be dropped, with just being necessary. EXCEPT... when one doesn't know the name of the mailing list. For this it would seem that we'd need one (or more) addresses per site to deal with really *general* administrative stuff. The "or more" is based on the thought that though there's generally only one instance of "Revised LISTSERV" per site, this may not be the case with other MLMs. (Evan & others, see that Duane's comment about "MLM-capacity" - ie. maybe dependant on hardware, not software - IS relevant after all? Maybe Unix experts would see it automatically. It's not necessarily true for non-experts. What I'm saying is that it's perfectly normal for experts to assume that I do know this, so this might have been rejected out of hand, thus wasting possibly salvageable parts...) Anyway, let's assume it were possible to designate as general address for general administrativaria per site. In that case email to: with body: SUBSCRIBE SomeList John Doe should have the same result as mail (withOUT the "List" header) to: with body: SUBSCRIBE John Doe The first form is consistent with current behaviour. The second could imply simpler command syntax; the MLM gets the listname from the "To:" address (the addr in the "To:" field is , of course) so doesn't need it in the command itself anymore. Though I didn't think it was relevant in any way, shape or form, the rest of the original of this item (below) from Alan and Chip _did_ lead to the above alternative suggestion. (Life is funny... :-) ) >> We should stick with the Internet convention of using a `-request' >> address, and the local administrator should feel free to alias that >> to whatever he or she feels inclined to do. >This is fine for manually administered lists, but it seems silly to >send a message to "foolist-request" with a message "subscribe foolist", >doesn't it? Gentle readers, please tear the above to pieces; it seems to be too simple to be possible, but I can't think of any real objections... Regards. $$\ PS: Does X.400 acknowledge/support the concept of mailing lists in re reserved headers etc.? From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 13:22:52 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09236; Fri, 16 Jul 93 13:22:52 GMT Received: from UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09229; Fri, 16 Jul 93 06:22:44 PDT Received: from Taronga.COM by UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU with UUCP id AA29640 (5.67a/IDA-1.5 for greatcircle.com!list-managers); Fri, 16 Jul 1993 08:06:19 -0500 Received: by taronga.taronga.com (smail2.5) id AA00187; 16 Jul 93 06:50:17 CDT (Fri) Subject: Invalid request To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 6:50:15 CDT X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL16] Message-Id: <9307160650.AA00187@taronga.taronga.com> From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva) Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I keep getting these error messages. I have no idea why. Can anyone shed some light on it? > From blegga.omnigroup.com!server Fri Jul 16 05:13:27 1993 > Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 19:44:36 -0700 > Message-Id: <9307142058.AA06673@taronga.taronga.com> > Comment: Wizards of the Coast List Server > Errors-To: netsec@wizards.com > Reply-To: listserv@wizards.com > Sender: listserv@wizards.com > Version: 5.5 -- Copyright (c) 1991/92, Anastasios Kotsikonas > From: listserv@wizards.com > To: arielle@taronga.com > Subject: Invalid request > > >======= command failed ======= > > Unrecognized request ======= > > Report any problems to 'netsec@wizards.com'. > For a list of the available requests send a message to listserv@wizards.com > with the word 'help' in the body of the message. > > PS: Any subsequent requests that you might have submitted have been ignored. -- Stephanie da Silva Disney Afternoon Mailing List arielle@taronga.com ranger-list-request@taronga.com Moderator, rec.food.recipes Endorphins Mailing List GO !d p c+ l- m++/--- s-/s g- w+ t+ r- x++/-- endorphins-request@taronga.com Oh, what are you?? The Pirate Den Mother?! -- Baloo From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 15:07:20 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09407; Fri, 16 Jul 93 15:07:20 GMT Received: from Princeton.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09400; Fri, 16 Jul 93 08:07:12 PDT Received: from ponyexpress.Princeton.EDU by Princeton.EDU (5.65b/2.97/princeton) id AA28586; Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:10:19 -0400 Received: from clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU by phoenix.Princeton.EDU (5.65c/1.113/newPE) id AA27259; Fri, 16 Jul 1993 11:10:12 -0400 Received: by clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU (4.1/Staff_Cluster_Client) id AA08650; Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:08:59 EDT Message-Id: <9307161508.AA08650@clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:40:59 BST." <4066.742732859@livbird.liv.ac.uk> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 11:08:59 EDT From: John Wagner Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > On Thu, 15 Jul 1993 03:33:29 -0500 (CDT) Chip Rosenthal wrote: > >> Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, > >> wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send > >> to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? > > > >We should stick with the Internet convention of using a `-request' > >address, and the local administrator should feel free to alias that > >to whatever he or she feels inclined to do. > > The only problem with the above is that it's a convention. BITNET software > does not use it, many sendmail based software packages tend to use the > -owners convention. This is a misconception. VM sites have had support for listname-request (in mail addresses) for 10 years. On VM, it wasn't used since Eric's code didn't support it at the time. The Revised listserv now supports owner-listname and listname-request. Lmail and the VM Network Mailer both have support for routing names longer than 8 characters to approriate userids so any of the primary list server machines on the network are restricted from using this convention. As someone else has stated, owner- is a sendmailism but one you will find supported by real mail destinations on non-sendmail sites. Enough people know of it to make it a defacto standard. Add another vote for using -request as the appropriate place for all interactions to be sent. I don't care if a person or a program does the work. I do care when a user is confused by where to send his/her request. More users know about -request and it is more intuitive to a new user who learns about it. Try to picture yourself 20 years from now answering the question "Why do I have to send my subscription requests to listserv@hostname?" Do you have an answer that makes any sense in 20 years? John Wagner From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 15:16:48 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09430; Fri, 16 Jul 93 15:16:48 GMT Received: from Princeton.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09422; Fri, 16 Jul 93 08:16:40 PDT Received: from ponyexpress.Princeton.EDU by Princeton.EDU (5.65b/2.97/princeton) id AA29809; Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:19:49 -0400 Received: from clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU by phoenix.Princeton.EDU (5.65c/1.113/newPE) id AA27539; Fri, 16 Jul 1993 11:19:48 -0400 Received: by clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU (4.1/Staff_Cluster_Client) id AA08671; Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:18:35 EDT Message-Id: <9307161518.AA08671@clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:30:41 -0800." Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 11:18:34 EDT From: John Wagner Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Verily didst Chip Rosenthal rise up and spake thus: > > > > > Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, > > > wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send > > > to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? > > > > We should stick with the Internet convention of using a `-request' > > address, and the local administrator should feel free to alias that > > to whatever he or she feels inclined to do. > > This is fine for manually administered lists, but it seems silly to > send a message to "foolist-request" with a message "subscribe foolist", > doesn't it? Silly? If I was a (human) list manager with more than 2 lists I'd think it was splendid that I didn't have to do header scanning to determine what list the request was for. Software does break, some lists are restricted subscription, and (add your favorite this can't be done automatically here) and people do have to get involved. Sure, if the real destination address is listname-request, "foolist" is redundant. But if you explain to your users that: 1. listname-request is a convention that is used so the user won't have to know the email address for the list manager for everly list they belong to 2. The command syntax has been standardized so that both humans and automated processors can handle list management I doubt if your users will consider it silly. John Wagner From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 15:29:52 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09453; Fri, 16 Jul 93 15:29:52 GMT Received: from Princeton.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09445; Fri, 16 Jul 93 08:29:45 PDT Received: from ponyexpress.Princeton.EDU by Princeton.EDU (5.65b/2.97/princeton) id AA05664; Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:32:21 -0400 Received: from clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU by phoenix.Princeton.EDU (5.65c/1.113/newPE) id AA27786; Fri, 16 Jul 1993 11:32:20 -0400 Received: by clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU (4.1/Staff_Cluster_Client) id AA08705; Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:31:07 EDT Message-Id: <9307161531.AA08705@clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU> Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: all I can stand of this prattle In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 16 Jul 1993 11:08:59 EDT." <9307161508.AA08650@clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 11:31:06 EDT From: John Wagner Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > The Revised listserv now supports owner-listname and listname-request. > Lmail and the VM Network Mailer both have support for routing names longer > than 8 characters to approriate userids so any of the primary list server > machines on the network are restricted from using this convention. Oops. Missed a word. That should read ... machines on the network are NOT restricted from using this convention. John Wagner From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 15:33:58 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09482; Fri, 16 Jul 93 15:33:58 GMT Received: from Princeton.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09475; Fri, 16 Jul 93 08:33:51 PDT Received: from ponyexpress.Princeton.EDU by Princeton.EDU (5.65b/2.97/princeton) id AA11035; Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:36:55 -0400 Received: from clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU by phoenix.Princeton.EDU (5.65c/1.113/newPE) id AA27935; Fri, 16 Jul 1993 11:36:52 -0400 Received: by clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU (4.1/Staff_Cluster_Client) id AA08722; Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:35:38 EDT Message-Id: <9307161535.AA08722@clytemnestra.Princeton.EDU> To: "Ravin Asar" Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: MLM standards In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 15 Jul 1993 11:31:57 EDT." <199307151531.AA17089@mailman.nsf.gov> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 11:35:38 EDT From: John Wagner Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Recent discussion (except for the brief flaming intermission) appears > to boil down to "reserving" a name for the local part of an email > address. So far, it appears, the only reserved address that has been > deemed necessary is "postmaster" on the Internet (see RFC822 section > 6.3) and "POSTMAST" on the BITNet (right?). The one single reason for > this special case is so that there is a single POC for reporting mail > system problems or querying a human at the site about email-related > matters. There is no Bitnet standard. A standard was passed by Cren (the US portion of Bitnet) and I believe by Earn. The Cren standard requires support of both postmaster and postmast. John Wagner From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 15:34:43 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09499; Fri, 16 Jul 93 15:34:43 GMT Received: from avs.AVS.COM by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09492; Fri, 16 Jul 93 08:34:36 PDT Received: from phobos.avs.com by avs.AVS.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA05334; Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:37:29 EDT Received: by phobos.avs.com (1.1/1.2) id AA02921; Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:36:29 EDT Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 11:36:29 EDT From: tasos@AVS.COM (Anastasios Kotsikonas) Message-Id: <9307161536.AA02921@phobos.avs.com> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: "listmgr"? Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Just a simple question: is the string "listmgr" reserved by anyone (a la "listserv")? Tasos From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 15:37:26 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09516; Fri, 16 Jul 93 15:37:26 GMT Received: from ub-gate.UB.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09509; Fri, 16 Jul 93 08:37:17 PDT Received: from bolis.UUCP by ub-gate.UB.com (4.1/SMI-4.1[UB-1.8]) id AA00168; Fri, 16 Jul 93 08:40:04 PDT Received: by hock.bolis.sf-bay.org (Smail3.1.28.1 #6) id m0oGrbX-0002yzC; Fri, 16 Jul 93 08:21 PDT Message-Id: From: Alan Millar Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header (was Re: all I can stand of this prattle) To: Ophof@CS.UWindsor.Ca (F. Scott Ophof) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 08:21:44 -0800 (PDT) Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@Grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, Unix-Listserv@Stormking.com In-Reply-To: <930715.205422-0400@MReXX-0.18> from "F. Scott Ophof" at Jul 15, 93 08:54:22 pm Reply-To: Alan Millar X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2948 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Verily didst F. Scott Ophof rise up and spake thus: > > On Thu, 15 Jul 1993 08:30:41 -0800 (PDT) Alan Millar said on List-Managers: > >Verily didst Chip Rosenthal rise up and spake thus: > >> > Assuming that we could get consistent syntax among the MLMs, > >> > wouldn't it help the users to have one reserved name to send > >> > to? This seems fundamentally obvious to me; what am I missing here? > > Do you mean with "one reserved name to send to" that the following > line: > > HdrName: [Name of list] Actually, no. I just meant the administrative address, such as "listserv@...", "mailserv@...", "majordomo@...", etc. I'm receiving some flames as to why I am on such a control trip about this and so forth. But I really am seriously just asking why MLMs that have similar but different syntax for a common set of features couldn't or shouldn't share the same syntax for those features. The only answer I am getting so far is "because they don't have the same syntax". I am sorry that this question seems so offensive to some, but I only ask it because I have users that ask *me* these questions: why is it "listserv@here" and "majordomo@there"; why is it "subscribe list your name" here and "subscribe list your@address" there? I assume that if it confuses some, it probably confuses others also. > According to this alternative, it *should* be a function of MUAs to > add this header when the user indicates "post this", and leave it > out when the user says "administrative stuff". Getting new features or functionality into an MUA is going to be significantly harder than getting them into an MLM. There are so many MUAs out there, including many strange systems that are gatewayed to the Internet. Ironically, many of the "fringe" systems are much more likely to be using mailing lists than, say, usenet news simply because their gateways are mail-only. In addition, the sheer number of sites to be updated with new MLM software is probably several orders of magnitude above the number of MLMs that are serving them. This might almost imply that the reserved list Header: would have to be optional, but that may defeat much of its usefulness. > Implementation of this alternative means that an item mailed to the > submit-to-list-addr withOUT that header would have the same result > as any item currently mailed to the administrative address (which > is normally of the form , , > , or ). This would definitely be bad for all those sites that can't support the new header item. All messages intended for list submission would go to the administrative program and be rejected. - Alan ---- ,,,, Alan Millar amillar@bolis.SF-Bay.org __oo \ System Administrator =___/ MOSTLY harmless??!! From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 16:22:38 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09582; Fri, 16 Jul 93 16:22:38 GMT Received: from postoffice.mail.cornell.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09575; Fri, 16 Jul 93 09:22:32 PDT Received: from [132.236.69.173] (UNCLE-MIKEY.CIT.CORNELL.EDU) by postoffice.mail.cornell.edu with SMTP id AA13394 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4 for list-managers@greatcircle.com); Fri, 16 Jul 1993 12:25:30 -0400 Message-Id: <199307161625.AA13394@postoffice.mail.cornell.edu> X-Sender: mss1@postoffice.mail.cornell.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 12:25:32 -0500 To: tasos@cs-mail.bu.edu (Anastasios Kotsikonas), list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: mss1@cornell.edu (Michael S Shappe) Subject: Re: "listmgr"? Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 11.36 930716 -0400, Anastasios Kotsikonas wrote: >Just a simple question: is the string "listmgr" reserved by anyone (a la >"listserv")? > >Tasos We use 'listmgr@cornell.edu' to refer to the human beings behind the server... From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 16:22:57 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09598; Fri, 16 Jul 93 16:22:57 GMT Received: from UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09583; Fri, 16 Jul 93 09:22:47 PDT Received: from Taronga.COM by UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU with UUCP id AA01089 (5.67a/IDA-1.5); Fri, 16 Jul 1993 11:06:27 -0500 Received: by taronga.taronga.com (smail2.5) id AA03256; 16 Jul 93 10:03:24 CDT (Fri) Subject: Re: Invalid request To: Alan.Thew@livbird.liv.ac.uk (Alan Thew) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 10:03:21 CDT Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <6577.742836145@livbird.liv.ac.uk>; from "Alan Thew" at Jul 16, 93 4:22 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL16] Message-Id: <9307161003.AA03256@taronga.taronga.com> From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva) Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > The listserver is picking up your sig as commands. Except I don't have any ======='s in my sig. Also, as far as I know, I'm not *sending* anything to this listserv. Unless someone on my system is bouncing back to it. Still, it shouldn't bounce the bounces back to me, right? -- Stephanie da Silva Disney Afternoon Mailing List arielle@taronga.com ranger-list-request@taronga.com Moderator, rec.food.recipes Endorphins Mailing List GO !d p c+ l- m++/--- s-/s g- w+ t+ r- x++/-- endorphins-request@taronga.com Oh, what are you?? The Pirate Den Mother?! -- Baloo From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 17:15:53 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09798; Fri, 16 Jul 93 17:15:53 GMT Received: from mailman.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09790; Fri, 16 Jul 93 10:15:45 PDT Received: from localhost by mailman.nsf.gov with SMTP id AA20554 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Fri, 16 Jul 1993 13:20:14 -0400 Message-Id: <199307161720.AA20554@mailman.nsf.gov> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: "Ravin Asar" Subject: MLMs Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 13:20:14 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Catherine Anne Foulston said: > owner-foo is an implementation convention. It is for software. It > is where (a particular kind of) software sends errors it detects. > > foo-request is an Internet convention. It is for people. If you hear > that a new Internet mailing list for foo exists, you can guess that > foo-request is the adminstrative address and be right a lot of the time. I apologize. I was thinking "standard" while saying "convention". You are right, of course. In fact one can now clearly see the need for both conventions. (see below) John Wagner said: > As someone else has stated, owner- is a sendmailism but one you will find > supported by real mail destinations on non-sendmail sites. Enough people > know of it to make it a defacto standard. Yes, though probably more people know of "-request". However, see below. > Add another vote for using -request as the appropriate place for all > interactions to be sent. I don't care if a person or a program does the > work. I do care when a user is confused by where to send his/her request. > More users know about -request and it is more intuitive to a new user who > learns about it. Try to picture yourself 20 years from now answering the > question > > "Why do I have to send my subscription requests to listserv@hostname?" > > Do you have an answer that makes any sense in 20 years? (THIS IS THE "BELOW" referred to above :-) As Cathy pointed out, the "owner-" prefix is an Internet convention (probably thanks to sendmail), and is used to actually point to a human who can handle mail-related problems pertaining to that particular list. The suffix "-request", however, is intended to be used as a point of contact for administrative user *requests*, as in SUBSCRIBE, HELP, etc. Keeping both around is necessary, so that all users can be told to send list-related administrivia to "listname-request", and people concerned with communicating with the actual owner of the list (like postmasters, system administrators, etc. can send to "owner-listname". This allows one to alias *all* "listname-request" to an MLM, if necessary, and yet keep each "owner-listname" pointing to the owner(s) of the lists. In pratice, MLM's might play with headers and do something like: From: actual.sender@some.where Errors-To: owner-listname@some.other.place Reply-To: listname@some.other.place and users would, of course, send administrivia to: To: listname-request@some.other.place Evident, this is obviously what greater and wiser people had in mind when developing the conventions and standards. (Being slow as I am, it's all finally come together for me now :-) -Ravin From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 17:48:38 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09894; Fri, 16 Jul 93 17:48:38 GMT Received: from grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09887; Fri, 16 Jul 93 10:48:30 PDT Received: from localhost (wolf@localhost) by grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (8.3/8.3) id TAA25089; Fri, 16 Jul 1993 19:50:57 +0200 From: Christophe Wolfhugel Message-Id: <199307161750.TAA25089@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr> Subject: Re: MLMs To: rasar@nsf.gov (Ravin Asar) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 19:50:56 +0100 (MEST) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <199307161720.AA20554@mailman.nsf.gov> from "Ravin Asar" at Jul 16, 93 01:20:14 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 479 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Ravin Asar said: | As Cathy pointed out, the "owner-" prefix is an Internet convention Unfortunately "vacation" does reply to owner-* (except if the precedence has an adequate value). Now time to evolve vacation to ignore owner- (also -owner) as well as the new list precedence. Unfortunately this will need a while on vendor systems and not everyone will compile the publicly available source. -- Christophe Wolfhugel | Email: Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 22:20:54 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10605; Fri, 16 Jul 93 22:20:54 GMT Received: from Earth.MsState.Edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10598; Fri, 16 Jul 93 15:20:47 PDT Received: from Jester.CC.MsState.Edu by Earth.MsState.Edu using SMTP (5.65c/6.5m-FWP); id AA21637; Fri, 16 Jul 1993 17:23:55 -0500 From: Frank Peters Received: by Jester.CC.MsState.Edu (4.1/6.0c-FWP); id AA00526; Fri, 16 Jul 93 17:23:58 CDT Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 17:23:58 CDT Message-Id: <9307162223.AA00526@Jester.CC.MsState.Edu> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Invalid request Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > The listserver is picking up your sig as commands. > > Except I don't have any ======='s in my sig. > Also, as far as I know, I'm not *sending* anything to this listserv. > Unless someone on my system is bouncing back to it. Still, it > shouldn't bounce the bounces back to me, right? Are you the listserver manager? I see this when someone tries to send the command in the subject of a message with nothing but a .signature in the body of the message. The listserver ignores the subject and tries to interpret the first line of the signature as a command. The error message is sent to the person trying to subscribe with a CC to the listserver manager. Presumably you can adjust this behavior by modifying the owners file. From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 16 22:21:05 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10613; Fri, 16 Jul 93 22:21:05 GMT Received: from Earth.MsState.Edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10606; Fri, 16 Jul 93 15:20:56 PDT Received: from Jester.CC.MsState.Edu by Earth.MsState.Edu using SMTP (5.65c/6.5m-FWP); id AA21641; Fri, 16 Jul 1993 17:24:05 -0500 From: Frank Peters Received: by Jester.CC.MsState.Edu (4.1/6.0c-FWP); id AA00527; Fri, 16 Jul 93 17:24:07 CDT Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 17:24:07 CDT Message-Id: <9307162224.AA00527@Jester.CC.MsState.Edu> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: "listmgr"? Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > At 11.36 930716 -0400, Anastasios Kotsikonas wrote: > >Just a simple question: is the string "listmgr" reserved by anyone (a la > >"listserv")? > > > >Tasos > > We use 'listmgr@cornell.edu' to refer to the human beings behind the server... "listadm"?? From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 17 01:16:46 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11678; Sat, 17 Jul 93 08:11:19 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11650; Sat, 17 Jul 93 01:10:55 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA15583; Sat, 17 Jul 93 04:13:13 EDT Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1993 03:12:43 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: In case you missed this... Message-Id: <930717.031243-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: Cc: Cc: Cc: In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 15 Jul 1993 17:33:56 -0400 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 15 Jul 1993 17:33:56 -0400 Bob Parks said: >... >5. Again, where in all this is consideration for the users - the users >don't care whether they are using a MVS LISTSERV or a Unix Listserv - they >just care about being on the lists - and that listserv provides list >service. Somebody already mentioned the need for a common subset of commands, consistent for all MLMs. I second that suggestion. And I don't think (at least sincerely hope) that anybody will stake any claim to what can be considered a common command subset. >7. Too bad that Eric and Tasos can not get together, do peers and distribute >between the platforms *right* etc. I'm hoping that Christophe, Brent, Eric, Tasos, and some others will wish to get together. Peers, distribute, common command subset, and last but not least "TELL LISTSERV ..." (or "talk admin-addr ..." to use the Unix equiv.)... >Any one can feel free to send this onto Eric - My compliments and kudos to >him (the digest ability, originating I think in 5.5 Unix Listserv and then >`copied' into 1.7f LISTSERV, aside) and my compliments and kudos to Tasos - I'd like to know more about this, please? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 17 01:24:55 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11672; Sat, 17 Jul 93 08:11:14 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11648; Sat, 17 Jul 93 01:10:53 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA15568; Sat, 17 Jul 93 04:13:08 EDT Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1993 02:04:40 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header (was Re: all I can stand of this prattle) Message-Id: <930717.020440-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 16 Jul 1993 08:21:44 -0800 (PDT) Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, 16 Jul 1993 08:21:44 -0800 (PDT) Alan Millar said: >Verily didst F. Scott Ophof rise up and spake thus: >... >> According to this alternative, it *should* be a function of MUAs to >> add this header when the user indicates "post this", and leave it >> out when the user says "administrative stuff". >Getting new features or functionality into an MUA is going to be >significantly harder than getting them into an MLM. There are > [...] This might almost imply that the >reserved list Header: would have to be optional, but that may >defeat much of its usefulness. Of course adding such would take some time on the whole network. *IF* such were implemented, there would have to be an intro period, of course. But that's moot after what you say below. >> Implementation of this alternative means that an item mailed to the >> submit-to-list-addr withOUT that header would have the same result >> as any item currently mailed to the administrative address (which >> is normally of the form , , >> , or ). >This would definitely be bad for all those sites that can't support >the new header item. All messages intended for list submission >would go to the administrative program and be rejected. (OOPS!) Dead center, Alan. 'Twas too good to be true... Anything salvageable? And how about the original suggestion? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 17 02:50:32 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11676; Sat, 17 Jul 93 08:11:19 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11649; Sat, 17 Jul 93 01:10:53 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA15565; Sat, 17 Jul 93 04:13:07 EDT Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 20:54:38 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: How to recognize mail from an MLM Message-Id: <930716.205438-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of 14 Jul 1993 23:58:06 GMT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 14 Jul 1993 23:58:06 GMT Eric Thomas said: >On Wed, 14 Jul 1993 18:07:08 -0400 "F. Scott Ophof" >said: >>I think you will discover in RFC 822 that "Sender:" is not the formally >>correct header for this purpose. >I'm afraid you will find that most people disagree with you here - >including Internet people. The controversy is about whether it is >acceptable to have the list name, as opposed to 'owner-listname', in that >field. But if you look at the lists managed by the IETF itself, that is >where the list name indication is placed. (sigh) I should have stayed in the BITnet world, ignored the existance of the whole Internet, and timed myself to kick the bucket simultaneously with BITnet's demise (hopefully mid 21st century (or later..)). :-) But I would've missed loads of fun stuff, so I'm not complaining. (Heck, it's not every day one can offer to take and post a digitised picture to the relevant newsgroup, and have to retract the offer due to the 1-way-only trip to the HOT nether regions offered in return.) >;-) "Sender:" is not meant to function as "post to this addr" (as per RFC-822). The fact that there IS a controversy, and that MLMs *do* differ in what they put in that line is enough for me. That Revised LISTSERV has used it for years for that purpose, and consistently provided the user with what comes down to a clean and neat "point & shoot" solution, and that the IETF lists do too (as you say), only makes the problem worse. Nobody has yet come up with a definitive alternative, or pointed to some official document more recent than RFC-822 which defines the functions of "Sender:" more clearly and concisely. As far as I'm concerned, I just wish the problem could be solved easily. I know that the number of people used to Revised LISTSERV's use of "Sender:" is not small (understatement). I have no idea of the number of people used to what RFC-822 says the behaviour should be, nor how many (if any) use it in other ways. I understand that Revised LISTSERV (due to the way it's supported) would be relatively "easy" to update if some other solution than the current one were to become official enough to warrant its use. That's the "bad" side of the great support organization for Revised LISTSERV. (grin) How many people *are* involved with LISTSERV maint/support, btw? Is a figure of 300 or so instances of Revised LISTSERV about right? With over 3000 subscribers AVERAGE per instance of Revised LISTSERV? And no real idea of how many additional subscribers behind firewalls on local lists? RiceMAIL however may not be so easy to modify or to get those mods into the field, not to mention re-educating all those users. I have no idea how much effort/people would be involved in modifying and updating the instances of other MLMs, nor of other software products. Anyway, if it were to come down to a numbers game, then there's only one that I'm interested in, and that is of the number of PEOPLE involved in the whole thing. PEOPLE used to "Sender:" in the Revised LISTSERV world, PEOPLE used to "Sender:" elsewhere, PEOPLE who would need to accept a change. Regards. $$\ PS: My camera is broken, in case anyone is interested... >:-) From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 17 02:50:46 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11675; Sat, 17 Jul 93 08:11:18 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11647; Sat, 17 Jul 93 01:10:53 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA15562; Sat, 17 Jul 93 04:13:06 EDT Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 17:14:37 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: MLMs Message-Id: <930716.171437-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 16 Jul 93 13:20:14 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, 16 Jul 93 13:20:14 EDT Ravin Asar said: >Keeping both around is necessary, so that all users can be told to >send list-related administrivia to "listname-request", and people >concerned with communicating with the actual owner of the list (like >postmasters, system administrators, etc. can send to "owner-listname". >This allows one to alias *all* "listname-request" to an MLM, if >necessary, and yet keep each "owner-listname" pointing to the owner(s) >of the lists. OK, now what about "listname-OWNER", which is also in use? Does that imply the same as "owner-listname"? If so, would it be better to drop one, or to ADD "request-listname" so that users won't need to remember whether "listname" comes first or not, but only "listname" and the two words "request" (for list- related administrivia) and "owner" (the HUMAN)? >In pratice, MLM's might play with headers and do something like: > From: actual.sender@some.where > Errors-To: owner-listname@some.other.place > Reply-To: listname@some.other.place Looks nice, but as to the issue of the person reading an item with these headers, it doesn't "guarantee" for even a minute that this item was posted on "listname@some.other.place", nor that if posted, it was posted as-is. Because a person sending this item to someone else might've put that listname there. Not only that, there are enough mailing lists out there which allow the user to use the "Reply-To:" to refer replies back to themselves instead of the mailing list. In fact, some mailing lists are set up so that the poster's address is ALWAYS put in the "Reply-To:" field. So as identification of the mailing list ITSELF, we're still up the creek without a paddle. Another point of inconsistency is people who do the following: From: sender@some.where To: recipient@other.place Cc: somelistname@who.knows and the mailing list "listname" passes the item on to the subscribers with those headers, MAYBE adding: Sender: listname-request@where.ever Or switch the "To:" and "Cc:" for more fun... :-) Now tell me, is it in the above perfectly clear to the user that the item did INDEED come from a mailing list? And if so, which address the user is to reply (or mail) to? AND WHICH HEADER CONSISTENTLY GAVE THAT INFORMATION?? - Not from the "Sender:" line; that header-name has something to do with errors, according to RFC-822. - Not from the Cc:" field, because that header-name does NOT mean "the addr here is the submit-posting-to-list-address". - With the "To:" and "Cc:" switched, the same goes for the "To:". Well, I guess the item didn't come from a mailing list then, but straight from the "From:" addr. IMHO a perfectly valid conclusion, and totally wrong... A comparable case: I scan Netnews via a newsreader, saving what looks interesting to a file. Interesting items from my mailbox are added to that file. Then the file is downloaded for relaxed reading. Now it turns out that the only way I can consistently determine whether I got an item from Netnews or not is the ABSENCE of the "To:" field in the ones posted to Netnews. The PRESENCE in itself of the "Newsgroups:" header cannot be used consistently for this purpose. But when the "To:" field ain't there, then the presence of the "Newsgroups:" field plus its contents tell me it's a Netnews item, and which group(s) to it was posted in. So there is a very useful form of consistency here. How now to apply this to mailing lists? Which behaviour can all MLMs agree on so that mailing-list postings can be distinguished from other mail, and allow easy determination of the mailing list and its posting address? >and users would, of course, send administrivia to: > To: listname-request@some.other.place >Evident, this is obviously what greater and wiser people had in mind >when developing the conventions and standards. (Being slow as I am, >it's all finally come together for me now :-) Did I just mess it up again for you, Ravin? >:-) Have the greater and wiser people you refer to indeed taken into consideration the issue I'm referring to? If "yes", then what is the definite answer? If "no", then isn't it time that someone (I don't care who) thought about it, came up with a workable solution, and got the whole email world to use it as standard/convention/whatever? I've seen exactly ONE posting giving "no" as the answer, and one posting saying "no" to a related issue. The other postings all veer off to more or less important side issues (but side issues nonetheless). To me it seems the following issues are all interconnected and interdependant matters. Are there any other closely related issues? - Is the item from a list, and if so which posting addr? - [owner-|request-]listname[-owner|-request]. - Consistent name format for administrative requests. - Consistent (sub)set of features to be supported by all MLMs? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Sun Jul 18 14:58:44 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14529; Sun, 18 Jul 93 14:58:44 GMT Received: from wugate.wustl.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14522; Sun, 18 Jul 93 07:58:35 PDT Received: by wugate.wustl.edu (5.65c+/WUSTL-0.3) with SMTP id AA25642; Sun, 18 Jul 1993 10:02:42 -0500 Received: by wubios (4.1/SMI-4.1.1); Sun, 18 Jul 93 10:01:44 CDT From: phil@wubios.wustl.edu (J. Philip Miller) Message-Id: <9307181501.AA17340@wubios> Subject: Re: MLMs To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1993 10:01:44 -0500 (CDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Length: 1665 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk "F. Scott Ophof" writes: > > On Fri, 16 Jul 93 13:20:14 EDT Ravin Asar said: > >Keeping both around is necessary, so that all users can be told to > >send list-related administrivia to "listname-request", and people > >concerned with communicating with the actual owner of the list (like > >postmasters, system administrators, etc. can send to "owner-listname". > >This allows one to alias *all* "listname-request" to an MLM, if > >necessary, and yet keep each "owner-listname" pointing to the owner(s) > >of the lists. > > OK, now what about "listname-OWNER", which is also in use? > Does that imply the same as "owner-listname"? > If so, would it be better to drop one, or to ADD "request-listname" > so that users won't need to remember whether "listname" comes first > or not, but only "listname" and the two words "request" (for list- > related administrivia) and "owner" (the HUMAN)? > one of the reasons that the Bitnet folk have always liked the listserv@node address is that for Bitnet, almost all of the administrivia stuff can be done interactively (TELL CMS/SEND VMS). In most cases the user would be using an address typed from scratch (no alias) and thus making it as short as possible reduces the errors/frustration level greatly. If any of the Unix based MLM's ever get to the point of supporting interactive messages, either a similiar short name or a tool that would allow point and click selection would be necessary. -phil -- J. Philip Miller, Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Box 8067 Washington University Medical School, St. Louis MO 63110 phil@wubios.WUstl.edu - (314) 362-3617 [362-2693(FAX)] From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 19 15:44:47 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17405; Mon, 19 Jul 93 15:44:47 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17398; Mon, 19 Jul 93 08:44:38 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa29077; 19 Jul 93 10:44 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA13281; Mon, 19 Jul 93 10:47:20 EDT Message-Id: <9307191447.AA13281@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 10:47:20 EDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: Alan Millar , "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header Cc: LSTSRV-L@uga.cc.uga.edu, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > I'm receiving some flames as to why I am on such a control trip > about this and so forth. But I really am seriously just asking > why MLMs that have similar but different syntax for a common set > of features couldn't or shouldn't share the same syntax for those > features. The only answer I am getting so far is "because they > don't have the same syntax". > > I am sorry that this question seems so offensive to some, but I > only ask it because I have users that ask *me* these questions: > why is it "listserv@here" and "majordomo@there"; why is it > "subscribe list your name" here and "subscribe list your@address" > there? I assume that if it confuses some, it probably confuses > others also. A serious request deserves a serious answer. These questions have been discussed so many times, that perhaps some of us have forgotten that there are new-comers to any list... Intuitively, you might think that there should be agreement on a very common command, such as "subscribe". However, the history is that no concensus has been reached, and probably won't be. IMHO, the reason there is different syntax is that different list managers have different needs, and in some cases, these needs are incompatible, so no one syntax meets all needs. For example, many list managers need to have a way to allow a user to put *any* address on the list. Other list managers need a way to prevent users from putting any address on the list other than their own. Some managers really want the users "real name", others could care less about it. Yes, a syntax could be agree upon that meets all the needs, but probably it would be so complex that users would have trouble with it. Instead, I have always argued that the MLM's should become more flexible in what they accept (my suggestions have been accepted to some extent). For example, suppose a MLM receives the following sample requests: 1. subscribe If the message was sent to a list-request address, then the MLM should get the user's address from the header, and subscribe the user to the appropriate list. If the request was sent to a generic "listmaster@host" address, then the MLM sends back a nice response saying "subscribe to what?". 2. subscribe mmorse@nsf.gov The MLM says, hmmm, the second word is an address (has an @ sign in it, or more sophisticated parsing). First, do I have a list name, as in #1? If so, does the list manager allow folks to specify addresses? Does the list manager need a "real name"? Depending on the answer, MLM either puts the address on the list, or sends back a message saying "Sorry you can't specify an address other than your own," or "Sorry we really need your real name to do this request". You get the idea. It wouldn't be perfect, but the MLM could reasonably reply to 99% of the requests it receives. The problem is that doing this requires work on the part of the MLM authors. Also, there is honest disagreement among the authors and list managers as to whether "coddling" users is a Good Thing. --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 20 06:51:06 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20224; Tue, 20 Jul 93 06:51:06 GMT Received: from ub-gate.UB.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20217; Mon, 19 Jul 93 23:50:52 PDT Received: from bolis.UUCP by ub-gate.UB.com (4.1/SMI-4.1[UB-1.8]) id AA09165; Mon, 19 Jul 93 23:54:00 PDT Received: by hock.bolis.sf-bay.org (Smail3.1.28.1 #6) id m0oIBOX-00030aC; Mon, 19 Jul 93 23:41 PDT Message-Id: From: Alan Millar Subject: Re: Consistent MLM syntax To: mmorse@z.nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 23:41:47 -0800 (PDT) Cc: Ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca, LSTSRV-L@uga.cc.uga.edu, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com In-Reply-To: <9307191447.AA13281@z.nsf.gov> from "Michael H. Morse" at Jul 19, 93 10:47:20 am Reply-To: Alan Millar X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2178 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > about this and so forth. But I really am seriously just asking > > why MLMs that have similar but different syntax for a common set > > of features couldn't or shouldn't share the same syntax for those > > features. The only answer I am getting so far is "because they > > don't have the same syntax". > A serious request deserves a serious answer. These questions have > been discussed so many times, that perhaps some of us have forgotten > that there are new-comers to any list... Yes, thank you for the response. > Instead, I have always argued that the MLM's should become more > flexible in what they accept (my suggestions have been accepted to > some extent). I think this is one of the things that bothers me most: where MLMs could be more accomodating but aren't. I'll use Majordomo as an example, not because it is bad but because I am familiar with it (Majordomo is the MLM I use). Majordomo wants a subscription message in the format "subscribe list [your@address]". It explicitly checks for and rejects messages in the Bitnet style "subscribe list your name", with a message to the user that this is Majordomo and not Revised Listserv. Now, if it is going to go to that trouble, why not just accept the request? The reason I chose Majordomo is because it is in perl and is easy to customize. It was a one line fix to quietly accept the Bitnet-style subscription request. (Later I will fix it to give an explicit response stating that it ignored the "your name" part.) It is another one line fix to accept "review" in addition to Majordomo's "who" command. And so on. > You get the idea. It wouldn't be perfect, but the MLM could reasonably > reply to 99% of the requests it receives. The problem is that doing > this requires work on the part of the MLM authors. True. Hopefully fixes from other people can merge into the official releases, which should offload the authors' workload. - Alan ---- ,,,, Alan Millar amillar@bolis.SF-Bay.org __oo \ System Administrator =___/ MOSTLY harmless??!! From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 20 12:31:28 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20806; Tue, 20 Jul 93 12:31:28 GMT Received: from seq1.loc.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20794; Tue, 20 Jul 93 05:31:20 PDT Received: by seq1.loc.gov (5.61/1.35) id AA23576; Tue, 20 Jul 93 08:31:08 -0400 Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 08:31:08 -0400 From: rgue@seq1.loc.gov (Rebecca Guenther) Message-Id: <9307201231.AA23576@seq1.loc.gov> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: UNIX lists Cc: leck@leck.loc.gov Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk (First, please excuse me if I refer to the UNIX-listserv software by the incorrect name. I have seen the many discussions on it.) We at the Library of Congress have just begun managing our own discussion lists. I have been moderator of the USMARC-L list running out of the University of Maine, using Eric Thomas' Listserv software. We moved it here recently where it is using the Kotsikonas software. We have a few questions which the documentation hasn't yet answered for us. 1. The "get" function, where one retrieves a file from the file archives. It is currently running in batch mode, where it only sends the file when it runs overnight, rather than immediately. The other functions (set, help, etc.) are executed soon after the person sends the message. How can the "get" be reset to work like the others? 2. Someone wants to set up a private list, where the moderator approves the subscribers before they're subscribed and the name of the list doesn't appear when someone sends the command "lists" to see which lists are at this host. How to do this? We'd appreciate any answers to these. Thanks. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^ Rebecca S. Guenther ^^ ^^ Senior MARC Standards Specialist ^^ ^^ Network Development and MARC Standards Office ^^ ^^ Library of Congress ^^ ^^ Washington, DC 20540-4020 ^^ ^^ (202) 707-5092 (voice) (202) 707-6269 (FAX) ^^ ^^ rgue@seq1.loc.gov -or- rebecca@rgue.loc.gov ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 20 18:24:58 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA21388; Tue, 20 Jul 93 18:24:58 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20274; Tue, 20 Jul 93 00:08:20 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA16779; Tue, 20 Jul 93 03:10:45 EDT Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 02:27:22 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header Message-Id: <930720.022722-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: Cc: Cc: In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 19 Jul 1993 10:47:20 EDT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, 19 Jul 1993 10:47:20 EDT Michael H. Morse said on List-Managers: >> why is it "listserv@here" and "majordomo@there"; why is it >> "subscribe list your name" here and "subscribe list your@address" >> there? I assume that if it confuses some, it probably confuses >> others also. >... >Intuitively, you might think that there should be agreement on a very >common command, such as "subscribe". However, the history is that no >concensus has been reached, and probably won't be. >... >Yes, a syntax could be agree upon that meets all the needs, but >probably it would be so complex that users would have trouble with it. In that case, it might be more productive to see if there's a way so that the USERS (ie. subscribers, list-owners, etc) think there's a consistent syntax as far as THEY are concerned, even if the MLMs themselves differ enormously. > Also, there is >honest disagreement among the authors and list managers as to whether >"coddling" users is a Good Thing. Computers are tools, just like a hammer, a needle, a spoon. The prime characteristic of any GOOD tool is that it's designed to make it easy for the USER to work with. So IMHO users should be able to type at their keyboard: Please accept my subscription to the Listmanagers magazine and the user's commputer should figure out what it means, where to send it to, in what format, and what to expect in return. If that means sending email to with: Add John Doe or doing an interactive message to with: SUB List-Managers John Doe fine, by all means let the USER's computer do so. Shift the burden of such stuff to where it really belongs (imho), and let the MLM do what it's really supposed to do: manage mailing lists. I don't believe this is "coddling users", but simply improving on an existant product (even if in two parts, like a client-server). Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 20 18:50:55 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA21998; Tue, 20 Jul 93 18:50:55 GMT Received: from groan.Berkeley.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA21981; Tue, 20 Jul 93 11:50:48 PDT Received: by groan.Berkeley.EDU (5.57/1.41) id AA11611; Tue, 20 Jul 93 11:53:29 -0700 Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 11:53:29 -0700 From: rusty@groan.Berkeley.EDU (Rusty Wright) Message-Id: <9307201853.AA11611@groan.Berkeley.EDU> To: Ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, LSTSRV-L@uga.cc.uga.edu, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com In-Reply-To: <930720.022722-0400@MReXX-0.18> "Ophof@CS.UWindsor.Ca" Subject: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 02:27:22 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: Cc: Cc: X-Sequence: 164 Computers are tools, just like a hammer, a needle, a spoon. The prime characteristic of any GOOD tool is that it's designed to make it easy for the USER to work with. So IMHO users should be able to type at their keyboard: Please accept my subscription to the Listmanagers magazine and the user's commputer should figure out what it means, where to send it to, in what format, and what to expect in return. Yeah, and I'd like to be able to get in my car and say out loud "take me home" and have the car drive me there. Wake up and smell the flowers; we don't live in a perfect world. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 20 20:24:14 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22357; Tue, 20 Jul 93 20:24:14 GMT Received: from diemen.utas.edu.au by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA16457; Mon, 19 Jul 93 00:09:01 PDT Received: from cam (cam.compserv.utas.edu.au) by diemen.utas.edu.au with SMTP id AA28689 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for LIST-MANAGERS@greatcircle.com); Mon, 19 Jul 1993 17:12:02 +1000 Received: from [144.6.10.2] (mac12) by cam (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04983; Mon, 19 Jul 93 17:11:52 EST Message-Id: <9307190711.AA04983@cam> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 17:11:43 -0200 To: LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM From: gduckett@cam.compserv.utas.edu.au Subject: Enlist your assistance Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Greetings to all list managers, I hope I'm not intruding on sacred territory by writing you on your group list. The reason I'm writing to you is I have a project that requires me to subscribe to each and every one of the list you all manage. What I'm looking to do is to see if I might enlist your assistance in the posting of a message to all and sundry. If it is remotely possible I will be happy to send you all details as to what the project is all about. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ George Duckett at gduckett@cam.compserv.utas.edu.au University of Tasmania at Launceston P.O. Box 1214 - Launceston, Tas. 7250 Aust. (In Australia STD Code (003) Phone +61 03 243319 Fax +61 03 243025 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 21 04:34:10 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25574; Wed, 21 Jul 93 04:34:10 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25567; Tue, 20 Jul 93 21:33:58 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA08498; Wed, 21 Jul 93 00:34:10 EDT Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 21:26:52 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Consistent user interface: where? Message-Id: <930720.212652-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: Cc: Cc: Cc: In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 20 Jul 93 11:53:29 -0700 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 20 Jul 93 11:53:29 -0700 Rusty Wright said: > Computers are tools, just like a hammer, a needle, a spoon. > The prime characteristic of any GOOD tool is that it's designed to > make it easy for the USER to work with. > So IMHO users should be able to type at their keyboard: > Please accept my subscription to the Listmanagers magazine > and the user's commputer should figure out what it means, where to > send it to, in what format, and what to expect in return. >Yeah, and I'd like to be able to get in my car and say out loud "take >me home" and have the car drive me there. Would be a good idea for the MADD people (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) to bug the auto manufacturers with that idea... >Wake up and smell the flowers; we don't live in a perfect world. They do smell nice, don't they? :-) Aside from that, one of the basics of many in the computer world is to produce improvements. So one of the questions I want to ask y'all is whether the idea of moving the whole concept of user interface consistency to the user's side is a good one or not. And why (not). Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 21 04:34:29 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25590; Wed, 21 Jul 93 04:34:29 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25575; Tue, 20 Jul 93 21:34:17 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA08510; Wed, 21 Jul 93 00:34:14 EDT Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 23:33:51 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Some important announcements Message-Id: <930720.233351-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: Cc: In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 17 Jul 1993 18:49:58 -0400 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Tasos says the following item apparently didn't make it to LSTSRV-L. I haven't seen it there either. In the interest of the whole MLM community, I felt it to be a good idea to forward this item with announcements from Tasos to some MLM-related lists. Please see this as FYI. I hope to make this my last posting on the subject. Regards. $$\ --------------------(fwd)--------------------- On Sat, 17 Jul 1993 18:49:58 -0400 Anastasios Kotsikonas said: >I would like to address the threats that appeared recently on lstsrv-l and >forwarded to this list, and make some announcements. My reply of last Thursday >on this issue to this list seems to have gone to /dev/null due to local mail >configuration problems. Also a separate message had been sent from >tasos@avs.com (where mail does go out) on late Thursday night (after >discovering the local problems) to lstsrv-l, but apparently never got posted!! >I wonder why. >Briefly, Mr. Thomas' claims about our help files are plain false. You only >need to look in your copies of the help files to see that the wording he is >complaining about was long changed. We sure all now know we had changed the >name of the system as well -- Mr. Thomas refuses to recognize even that. In >addition, the comments in the original help file were placed there after HIS >request to clarify things, he did not agree with them, we changed them but he >never cared to review the new ones; then he gets on the net making the false >claims we have seen. >At this point I will let you be the judge. As far as I am concerned it is >my duty to protect myself and you from anybody's menacing threats, however >unfounded as they may seem. For the time being you should not feel uneasy >about the system raising confusion: the X-Listserver-Version: and Version: >header lines adequately protect you as identifiers of the system. Users >who get confused simply have not simply looked at them, and they place >themselves in the same situation as "- But officer I did not see the No Parking >sign. - It is there and is your duty to look for it." >This flaming war will end; I have no more desire to be forwarded Mr. Thomas' >nonsense. It is true I asked for it; my efforts to bring a rather-common >interface to users have failed. I have realized there is very little common >sense out there. >The only solution is to remove the famous "listserv" string from the entire >system. Coming this Monday, I will rename the system to UNIX ListProcessor >(sounds like a food processor, doesn't it). I will suggest that people use >the "listproc" alias instead of "listserver" or whatever have you, but as >before you are all free to choose your own. Of course you may still use >the "listserver" alias as a pointer to "listproc", but don't advertise it. >The version will be marked 6.0a and there will be an upgrade script from all >current versions (6.0, 5.5, etc). This script will also tell you to use the >env var ULISTPROC_UMASK instead of ULISTSERVER_UMASK, and ulistproc as the >internet service instead of ulistserv. Some source files will also be renamed. >I would like to rename this mailing list to unix-listproc also. My intention >is to remove all hooks so as to silence as many big mouths as possible. >Version 6.0a will also contain all bug fixes made since April 1 (some not >posted), as well as the concurrent server as discussed last week -- tested >and well-functioning :-). To remove all liability on your part I would >strongly suggest you do the upgrade, but by no means are you required to do >so. >The whole situation does not certainly strike anyone as professional, and I >take full responsibility for it. I forward my sincerest apologies to all of >you and your users for the inconvinience, and I am sure this is the last we >ever heard of this subject. >Feel free to forward these announcements to listsrv-l -- I seem to be refused >access. >And one last note: I WILL trademark all names used by the new system. Other >developers however WILL be allowed to use them WITHOUT my consent; I simply do >not want someone else making this an issue again. >Sincerely, >Tasos >PS: Scott (tuc) I will log in to stormking once the new system is installed >to make some changes so that requests for unix-listserv are handled properly. >I will be in telephone contact also. From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 21 06:41:42 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26761; Wed, 21 Jul 93 06:41:42 GMT Received: from diemen.utas.edu.au ([131.217.1.19]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26754; Tue, 20 Jul 93 23:41:13 PDT Received: from cam (cam.compserv.utas.edu.au) by diemen.utas.edu.au with SMTP id AA10833 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for LIST-MANAGERS@greatcircle.com); Wed, 21 Jul 1993 16:41:49 +1000 Received: from [144.6.10.2] (mac12) by cam (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA22388; Wed, 21 Jul 93 16:41:44 EST Message-Id: <9307210641.AA22388@cam> Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 16:41:38 -0200 To: LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM From: gduckett@cam.compserv.utas.edu.au Subject: Re: Enlist your assistance-Clarification of request Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk To all list managers, >From some of the responses I have received it looks as if I might not have stated clearly what I want to do. I'm not really a crank just trying to get it right. I don't wish to subscribe to each list all at the same time. I have a project on Gopher I want to publicize and to do it would require me to sign on send message and sign off about 400 times or so. What I was hoping to do was to send the message to the majordomo list and hope the managers would post it off for me so I would not have to sign on and off each list. The project would have the person on the other end go to Gopher to get the information I want them to have. If the returns follow the trend that the last round did I do not expect to receive more than 3 returns from each list. Sorry I did not make that clear in my first message and hope this clears up any misunderstandings. The reason I'm asking is I'm working on a computer literacy project and want to distribute to as many list as I can advertising the project and wonder if you offer the service for distribution of this type of information. To give you an idea as to what I up to: If you fire up your Gopher package and find ; Other Archive, Information & Gopher Services. Then find; All the Gopher Servers in the world. Look for; University of Tasmania. This should connect you with the University of Tasmania. From this point look for the following files, Departments/Education/Computer Literacy Project... You are now in the project files Have a look around!! I have just started putting this project together but I'm not ready to advertise it at this point in time. I'm just exploring ways to accomplish the job with the minimum amount of trouble. Thanks for your time. George ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ George Duckett at gduckett@cam.compserv.utas.edu.au University of Tasmania at Launceston P.O. Box 1214 - Launceston, Tas. 7250 Aust. (In Australia STD Code (003) Phone +61 03 243319 Fax +61 03 243025 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 22 02:22:31 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA00645; Thu, 22 Jul 93 02:22:31 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA00613; Wed, 21 Jul 93 19:14:46 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA23905; Wed, 21 Jul 93 22:14:54 EDT Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 20:15:12 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header Message-Id: <930721.201512-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of 19 Jul 1993 22:03:20 GMT Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 19 Jul 1993 22:03:20 GMT Eric Thomas said: >On Mon, 19 Jul 1993 10:47:20 EDT "Michael H. Morse" >said: >>2. subscribe mmorse@nsf.gov >... >when posting. I guess it is obvious to a programmer that you don't need >to retype the hostname since you're mailing to that particular server, >while it is obvious to a user that it is "safer" to retype it since there >is then no possible ambiguity, "the computer" would surely rather have >redundant information than not enough :-) It's this kind of thing I mean; thinking like a user. A user who doesn't necessarily (need to) realise that "the computer" has other sources of info. On the other hand, what may be obvious to a user (inferred or assumed), may not be so to "the computer". Take a user (unlikely to know of RFC-822 etc.) reading a LISTSERV item and wanting to post a reply. Heesh sees the following hdrs: From: * Reply-To: listname Sender: listname * To: Multiple recipients of listname OK, the hdrs with an "*" might not contain the above addr or text. Still, it's clear to heesh that telling the MUA to reply-to-SENDER is a valid assumption, especially after having seen a couple of items with the same type of display. When the "To:" field contains the above text, heesh gets the message even more clearly, and might use a reply-to-TO function (if available). All this without knowing of RFC-822 etc. It's even more obvious to heesh when "Sender:" and "Reply-To:" are displayed right under each other, with the values starting in the same column. In the Internet world this doesn't seem possible to achieve, since at least some MTAs there will under *ALL* conditions rewrite header fields containing addresses, reducing the whitespace between header-name and -value to one character. But that's a side note. The header-setup of ListProcessor resembles Revised LISTSERV, except that only in the "To:" field is the list-name mentioned. Here's an example: Errors-To: * Reply-To: Sender: From: * To: Multiple recipients of list If "Errors-To" (the header-NAME) had been one character longer, the optical pointer cwould have been even more pronounced, even though slanted. OK, so "Errors-To:" wouldn't really interest heesh as casual reader/poster, the pointer is clearer by its repetition. But omission of the list-name in "Reply-To:" and "Sender:" lines makes it less easy for a USER to see what's going on, especially since the list-name IS mentioned in "To:"... As to items distributed by for example Majordomo and TULP, the contents of the above-mentioned headers seem to depend on the whim of the poster without a consistent pointer to the list in question or . Exception: Majordomo puts "listname-request" in the "Sender:" line, which after some time might trigger heesh to sort of "block off" the "-request" part in order to determine the . Due the above, I'd like to suggest as a start the inclusion of the list-name in the relevant headers of ListProcessor postings. Could the authors of Majordomo, TULP, and other MLMs specify what they see as hard indicator for the casual user of what list the item was posted to and its ? In other words, if heesh's MUA has a "reply-to-xxx" function, which header-name should replace the "xxx" in order to get that reply to the list? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 22 02:40:31 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA00711; Thu, 22 Jul 93 02:40:31 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA00693; Wed, 21 Jul 93 19:39:48 PDT Message-Id: <9307220239.AA00693@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: "F. Scott Ophof" Cc: LSTSRV-L@UGA.cc.uga.edu, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@Grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, ListProcessor@Stormking.com Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 21 Jul 1993 20:15:12 -0400 Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 19:39:47 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk By the way, do we really need to keep Cc'ing this discussion to 4 different mailing lists? I don't even recognize the ones other than List-Managers; which (if any) of these lists are really appropriate for this discussion? # Take a user (unlikely to know of RFC-822 etc.) reading a LISTSERV # item and wanting to post a reply. Heesh sees the following hdrs: # From: # * Reply-To: listname # Sender: listname # * To: Multiple recipients of listname # OK, the hdrs with an "*" might not contain the above addr or text. # Still, it's clear to heesh that telling the MUA to reply-to-SENDER # is a valid assumption, especially after having seen a couple of # items with the same type of display. When the "To:" field contains # the above text, heesh gets the message even more clearly, and might # use a reply-to-TO function (if available). # All this without knowing of RFC-822 etc. The "Sender:" field is where well-behaved mailers send bounces. Thus, you _don't_ want to use your "submit-posting-addr" as the "Sender:" field. If you've got something automated on the -request address, like the "request-answer" script that comes with Majordomo, then you don't want "Sender:" to be the "-request" address; you want those bounces to come to a person, not the thing that sends the recording to users who send to the "-request" address. # As to items distributed by for example Majordomo and TULP, the # contents of the above-mentioned headers seem to depend on the whim # of the poster without a consistent pointer to the list in question # or . # Exception: Majordomo puts "listname-request" in the "Sender:" line, # which after some time might trigger heesh to sort of "block off" the # "-request" part in order to determine the . Majordomo does nothing of the sort. Majordomo does NOT handle stuff sent to a list; it only handles maintenance of the list of names itself. The Majordomo distribution _does_ include a little script called "resend" that folks can use to do header hacking on their mailing lists. How "resend" is configured is completely up to the person setting up the aliases. People are perfectly free to use something other than "resend" to do their header hacking. My sample aliases for "resend" included with the Majordomo distribution do NOT set "Sender:" to "listname-request". "resend" will set the "Sender:" field to "listname-request" ONLY if the alias doesn't specify a "-f" flag to "resend"; all my samples show an appropriate "-f" flag. The mailing lists here at GreatCircle.COM also do not operate the way you state. List-Managers (and all the rest) set "Sender:" to "List-Managers-Owner" (which is an alias that, in turn, points to me, the person who gets to deal with bounces). # Due the above, I'd like to suggest as a start the inclusion of the # list-name in the relevant headers of ListProcessor postings. # Could the authors of Majordomo, TULP, and other MLMs specify what # they see as hard indicator for the casual user of what list the item # was posted to and its ? In other words, if # heesh's MUA has a "reply-to-xxx" function, which header-name should # replace the "xxx" in order to get that reply to the list? I've about decided to start adding a "Reply-To:" field to the headers for all my mailing lists. There was a reason I didn't do it when I first set all these lists up, but I can't recall what it was; if I can't remember what it was in the next few days, I'll probably just go ahead and do it and see what breaks next. -Brent -- Brent Chapman Great Circle Associates Brent@GreatCircle.COM 1057 West Dana Street +1 415 962 0841 Mountain View, CA 94041 From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 22 03:42:42 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA00948; Thu, 22 Jul 93 03:42:42 GMT Received: from equinox.unr.edu (equinox.ccs.unr.edu) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA00941; Wed, 21 Jul 93 20:42:32 PDT Received: from unssun (unssun.scs.unr.edu) by equinox.unr.edu (4.1/1.34) id AA27927; Wed, 21 Jul 93 20:43:28 PDT Received: by unssun (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17389; Wed, 21 Jul 93 20:43:26 PDT Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 20:43:26 PDT From: willis@unssun.scs.unr.edu (Glee Willis) Message-Id: <9307220343.AA17389@unssun> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: One last cent's worth ... Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I promise this will be my last post on this topic! But I just find the Z39.50 parallel to this latest "homogenizing these MLMs" thread to be ironically apropos. Perhaps, sometime henceforth, we'll simply use smart interfaces that go sniff around at a given MLM's node, ask it what kind of MLM it's running, and they will issue the commensurate MLM commands, on behalf of the user.* Oops!! This'd be "coddling" the user, wouldn't it??? :-) From Current Cites 4, no. 7 (1993) Carson, Sylvia MacKinnon and Dace I. Freivalds. "Z39.50 and LIAS: Penn State's Experience" Information Technology and Libraries 12(2) (June 1993):230-237. Carson and Freivalds describe their experience developing and deploying a Z39.50 client/server pair for their local online catalog system. The client has allowed them to successfully connect to a number of remote databases across the US, and the server allows remote users to access the Penn State system. One of the interesting things the authors noted is the Z39.50 paradox: when Z39.50 is successful, users don't know it is there and can't understand what the excitement is about. The users wonder why it took the developers two years to make their catalog look the same! - DR Glee * p.s. I've heard that one such interface already exists, but I believe it only interacts with LISTSERV nodes ... From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 22 05:49:06 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA01215; Thu, 22 Jul 93 05:49:06 GMT Received: from grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA01208; Wed, 21 Jul 93 22:48:58 PDT Received: from localhost (wolf@localhost) by grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (8.3/8.3) id HAA16403; Thu, 22 Jul 1993 07:49:58 +0200 Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 07:49:58 +0200 From: Christophe Wolfhugel Message-Id: <199307220549.HAA16403@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk [ note that all the junk recipients have been removed, this discussion belongs to list-managers; I will consider anyone who extend distribution on a followup to this message to publish a private message without my authorization. ] Scott Ophof saiz: > Due the above, I'd like to suggest as a start the inclusion of the > list-name in the relevant headers of ListProcessor postings. > Could the authors of Majordomo, TULP, and other MLMs specify what - The sender if any will point to either the -request or owner- address. - The SMTP also - All headers stay unchanged except "Reply-to" if the list owner has forced change of it. - It is particularly not acceptable to change the "To" to have that stupid "Multiple recipients of blah..." A new header or a "Comment: message sent to list blah" need to be introduced then. Another design which seems nice (but I've never decided if I should use it) is to add the list name and sequence number in the subject: Subject: (ewg-secur 15) Re: Blah blah Subject: (ewg-secur 16) Re: Blah blah ... It is not a complete address, but it is pretty explicit. Chris From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 22 18:19:50 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03669; Thu, 22 Jul 93 18:19:50 GMT Received: from rip.psg.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03659; Thu, 22 Jul 93 11:19:40 PDT Received: by rip.psg.com (Smail3.1.28.1 #5) id m0oJ526-000305C; Thu, 22 Jul 93 11:06 PDT Message-Id: From: randy@psg.com (Randy Bush) Subject: Re: automatic handling of subdomains? To: sam@oxford.chez.sgi.com Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 11:06:22 -0700 (PDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Content-Type: text Content-Length: 900 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > I get lots of Majordomo requests forwarded to me because > user@host.domain asks that user@domain be subscribed/unsubscribed. > For example, > > sam@flake.asd.sgi.com > > asks to be subscribed as > > sam@asd.sgi.com > > Is there a problem with having Majordomo automatically recognize > and accept these cases (other than the obvious one that some sites > might be so stupid as have duplicate account names in different > subdomains)? I figure you'll need some control over the stripping Well, I might not do it automagically, but I can certainly see sending a message to the list admin and maybe the unsubscribe requestor (if the list does not hide its subscribers) something like sam@asd.sgi.com has asked to unsubscribe to listname, but seems not to be a subscriber. I thought you might want to know that sam@asd.sgi.com is a subscriber, and they migh be one and the same. From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 22 18:42:29 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03756; Thu, 22 Jul 93 18:42:29 GMT Received: from ncar.UCAR.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03749; Thu, 22 Jul 93 11:42:22 PDT From: woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) Message-Id: <9307221843.AA19011@ncar.ucar.EDU> Received: by ncar.ucar.EDU (5.65/ NCAR Central Post Office 03/11/93) id AA19011; Thu, 22 Jul 93 12:43:25 MDT Subject: Re: automatic handling of subdomains? To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Thu, 22 Jul 93 12:43:24 MDT X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > Apparently-From: sam@oxford.chez.sgi.com > > sam@flake.asd.sgi.com > > > > asks to be subscribed as > > > > sam@asd.sgi.com > > > > Is there a problem with having Majordomo automatically recognize > > and accept these cases (other than the obvious one that some sites > > might be so stupid as have duplicate account names in different > > subdomains)? Before you use potentially inflammatory words like "stupid", consider that postmasters at some sites (like ours; could you guess? :-) do not get to control what user names are assigned on every machine in every subdomain. In our case, there are a number of cases like user@sub1.ucar.edu != user@sub2.ucar.edu, and there is nothing we can do about it. But only one of these can be user@ucar.edu. So I'd say that in the general case, it is not safe to assume that user@host.domain is the same user as user@domain. > From: randy@psg.com (Randy Bush) > > Well, I might not do it automagically, but I can certainly see sending > a message to the list admin and maybe the unsubscribe requestor (if > the list does not hide its subscribers) something like > > sam@asd.sgi.com has asked to unsubscribe to listname, but seems not > to be a subscriber. I thought you might want to know that > sam@asd.sgi.com is a subscriber, and they migh be one and the same. That might be a reasonable thing to do. --Greg From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 23 00:57:25 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04780; Fri, 23 Jul 93 00:57:25 GMT Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04768; Thu, 22 Jul 93 17:57:17 PDT Received: from spool.uu.net (via LOCALHOST) by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA16701; Thu, 22 Jul 93 20:58:11 -0400 Received: from telesoft.UUCP by spool.uu.net with UUCP/RMAIL (queueing-rmail) id 205644.13972; Thu, 22 Jul 1993 20:56:44 EDT Received: from pulsar.alsys.com by flash.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2b) id AA21615; Thu, 22 Jul 93 17:09:52 PDT Message-Id: <9307230009.AA21615@flash.alsys.com> Received: by pulsar.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2) id AA29941; Thu, 22 Jul 93 17:09:51 PDT From: mnejat@pulsar.alsys.com Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 17:09:51 PDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.2 4/12/91) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Listserver 6.0 tasos question Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I am running tasos listserver 6.0 and I need to set it up in a way that subscription has to be approved by list owner. How is this possible? Thanks in advance. --Mehregan Nejat From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 23 02:29:53 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04981; Fri, 23 Jul 93 02:29:53 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca ([137.207.192.3]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04974; Thu, 22 Jul 93 19:29:40 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA10050; Thu, 22 Jul 93 22:29:22 EDT Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 20:57:05 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header Message-Id: <930722.205705-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 22 Jul 1993 07:49:58 +0200 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 22 Jul 1993 07:49:58 +0200 Christophe Wolfhugel said: >[ note that all the junk recipients have been removed, this discussion > belongs to list-managers; I will consider anyone who extend distribution > on a followup to this message to publish a private message without my > authorization. ] WOW! I thought postings to public lists were public, not private. To my knowledge none of List-Managers, ListNix, Unix-Listserv, or LSTSRV-L were closed lists. >- The sender if any will point to either the -request or owner- address. >- The SMTP also Are you referring to a specific header the casual list subscriber would see? If so, which? If not, then I don't see why any SMTP envelop stuff would be relevant to the casual user who couldn't see it anyway. >- All headers stay unchanged except "Reply-to" if the list owner has > forced change of it. >- It is particularly not acceptable to change the "To" to have that > stupid "Multiple recipients of blah..." Would it be correct to conclude that the philosophy behind TULP is to distribute the item as close as possible to how the poster sent it? In other words to NOT see the headers as the cover of a real- life magazine? But you do see that the casual user on seeing "Multiple recipients ..." might well say "Hey, THAT is what I need to reply to the LIST", especially if the user wants to reply to the list, not to the person stated in the "Reply-To:"? >A new header or a "Comment: message sent to list blah" need to be >introduced then. Another design which seems nice (but I've never >decided if I should use it) is to add the list name and sequence >number in the subject: >Subject: (ewg-secur 15) Re: Blah blah >Subject: (ewg-secur 16) Re: Blah blah >... >It is not a complete address, but it is pretty explicit. Hmm.. The "Comment:" suggestion doesn't strike me as particularly obvious to the casual subscriber. Though it might be made to be parseable by software for automation purposes. As to the "Subject:" idea, I see two reasons why that may not be very useful: - It doesn't contain the . - It reduces what the user can see of the real subject. - Instant breakage of the algorithm some MUAs use to parse for that "Re:" and display it in a consistent format. Crosspostings from mailing lists to Netnews would cause breakage there too. On the other hand: - Adding that address and modifying the MUAs to hide that extra info on their index screens would solve the first two points. - Your "Comments:" suggestion wouldn't cause any breakage, I think. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 23 02:30:01 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04988; Fri, 23 Jul 93 02:30:01 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca ([137.207.192.3]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA04973; Thu, 22 Jul 93 19:29:40 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA10041; Thu, 22 Jul 93 22:29:18 EDT Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 16:02:33 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header Message-Id: <930722.160232-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 21 Jul 93 19:39:47 -0700 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 21 Jul 93 19:39:47 -0700 Brent Chapman said on List-Managers: >By the way, do we really need to keep Cc'ing this discussion to 4 >different mailing lists? I don't even recognize the ones other than >List-Managers; which (if any) of these lists are really appropriate >for this discussion? I started crossposting this thread to all lists I thought relevant, since there didn't seem to be a single most suited list. As I see it, the most relevant lists are: LISTSRV-L Revised LISTSERV only ListNix TULP only Unix-Listserv ListProcessor only List-Managers General re the Unix MLMs? (?) Majordomo (?) (?) I'll gladly restrict my postings to one list and Cc those who are interested but not on that list (hoping the others interested will include that CC-ed group), as soon as some consensus is reached. In the meantime, I hope you don't mind this crossposting too much. Also, as far as I know, items posted to a non-private mailing list or to Netnews are considered public postings, therefore free to be cross/re-posted to other lists/groups. Am I wrong? Your suggestions re the above are most welcome; I don't want to bug people not interested any more than absolutely necessary. To restate the subject of my question: For all MLMs, a consistent header which from the point-of-view of the casual subscriber: 1: Shows "this posting is from list 'listname'", regardless of how the item got to that list. 2: Shows "what is this list's reply-to address". 3: Combines (1) and (2) in a single header. 4: Can be used by a MUA for reply-to-list functionality. A posting from Eric reminded me that the subject line doesn't cover my real question, so after the false start, I'd better come up with a decent title... Suggestions? To me point (3) is so obvious (to the casual list subscriber) as to be completely redundant. If I'm wrong, *please* break the bad news to me HARD & FAST, if only to get it over with. :-) ># Take a user (unlikely to know of RFC-822 etc.) reading a LISTSERV ># ... ># Still, it's clear to heesh that telling the MUA to reply-to-SENDER ># is a valid assumption, especially after having seen a couple of ># ... ># All this without knowing of RFC-822 etc. >The "Sender:" field is where well-behaved mailers send bounces. Thus, >you _don't_ want to use your "submit-posting-addr" as the "Sender:" >field. First, please define "mailer". I know what the terms MUA (Mail User) Agent) and MTA (Mail Transport Agent) mean, and it confuses me that "mailer" seems usable in both senses. Second, what EXACTLY does "bounce" mean? I've seen it used to mean "resend item to a new recipient as if I never saw it" and as "return item to because of some error". Third, Eric posted a quote of the definition of "Sender:" from what looks suspiciously like RFC-822, and I include it here. > 4.4.2. SENDER / RESENT-SENDER > This field contains the authenticated identity of the AGENT > (person, system or process) that sends the message. It is > intended for use when the sender is not the author of the mes- > sage, or to indicate who among a group of authors actually > sent the message. For experts on RFC-822, MLMs, and email, I can understand that "Sender:" MIGHT not necessarily cover ANY of the points in my question. However, for the casual mailing list subscriber who does NOT know (of) RFC-822 (NOR SHOULD THEY BE EXPECTED TO!), "Sender:" as used by Revised LISTSERV and ListProcessor certainly would cover all my points. Since imho we should be concerned about how the casual USERS of email in general see it, the issue of "Sender:" remains a hot topic. Note that if I forward an item I received, *I* feel that it would be very appropriate to have the author's name/addr remain in the "From:", with the values for me going into "Sender:". Either that, or use "From:" for the author, and use "Resent-From:" for my name/addr. The difference between those two is too vague to me as casual user to be meaningful. Therefore, *I* would find it entirely valid to see "Resent-From:" or "Sender:" used to cover all four points in my question. Erm.. I could go for "Sender:" if from a list, but "Resent-From:" if a PERSON forwards the item. Though what "Resent-Sender:" could mean would imho be a mystery to the casual list/email user. If we limit ourselves to headers already defined (in RFC-822), the "Sender:" or "Resent-From:" would be the most appropriate choices. The way "To:" is used by Revised LISTSERV and ListProcessor makes it another possible choice. However, taking into account the casual user, it would seem that limiting oneself to RFC-822 doesn't allow a good solution to the problem. The introduction of "List:" for that purpose would then be more appropriate, imho. >If you've got something automated on the -request address, >like the "request-answer" script that comes with Majordomo, then you >don't want "Sender:" to be the "-request" address; you want those >bounces to come to a person, not the thing that sends the recording to >users who send to the "-request" address. Since both "-request"/"request-" and "-owner"/"owner-" are defined to reflect neither "submit-posting-addr" nor "this-is-from-listname+ addr", I don't see the relevance of our comment. But I left it in pending definition of "bounce" and "mailer". ># Exception: Majordomo puts "listname-request" in the "Sender:" line, ># which after some time might trigger heesh to sort of "block off" the ># "-request" part in order to determine the . >Majordomo does nothing of the sort. Majordomo does NOT handle stuff >sent to a list; it only handles maintenance of the list of names itself. >The Majordomo distribution _does_ include a little script called >"resend" that folks can use to do header hacking on their mailing >lists. How "resend" is configured is completely up to the person >setting up the aliases. People are perfectly free to use something >other than "resend" to do their header hacking. Oh. Then maybe I have been misusing the term MLM all along? I thought the basic functionality of an MLM was: - Take care of admin. requests appropriately, including things like (un)subscriptions. - Distribute incoming postings to the relevant subscribers (this may or may not include playing the role of MTA). - And of course whatever error-stuff is relevant. Corrections gladly accepted. >The mailing lists here at GreatCircle.COM also do not operate the way >you state. List-Managers (and all the rest) set "Sender:" to >"List-Managers-Owner" (which is an alias that, in turn, points to me, >the person who gets to deal with bounces). Correction noted. I should've said "-Owner" instead of "-request". ># Could the authors of Majordomo, TULP, and other MLMs specify what ># they see as hard indicator for the casual user of what list the item ># was posted to and its ? >I've about decided to start adding a "Reply-To:" field to the headers >for all my mailing lists. There was a reason I didn't do it when I >first set all these lists up, but I can't recall what it was; if I >can't remember what it was in the next few days, I'll probably just go >ahead and do it and see what breaks next. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I hope nothing. :-) Maybe your reason in some way had to do with the multitude of ways "Reply-to:" can be used in for example Revised LISTSERV? If you include a "Reply-To:", then: - If you set it to always point to the "submit-posting-addr", then posters can't override it to point to themselves. - If you set it to always point at the poster's addr, then one can't call it a discussion list; it becomes a distribution of items for discussion off-list because users then don't have an easy way to reply-to-the-list. I know enough MUAs exist which don't provide the user with all the neat facilities one would want. So besides providing the good MUAs with a way to automate reply-to-list, something answering to points 1-3 would make life easier for the less privileged users. As always, whatever is chosen, paramount is imho that the CASUAL email/list user/subscriber should be able to understand it and its meaning without needing to read an RFC or such. If the header & its meaning/contents aren't clear at first glance for such people then a user help file should state it in terms clear to all, and if necessary rather verbose. To assume users understand opsys X just because they're subscribed to lists run by an MLM on opsys X doesn't take reality into account, and automatically restricts that MLM to a subset of possible users. This may well be the express intention of the MLM author, and should be respected. Would those MLM-authors please make it known? It wouldn't be fair to bug them with something they don't want anyway. The fact that "Sender:" means different things to at least two separate groups of people won't make it easier to get people to see and use it in a single consistent manner. Therefore introduction of "List:" might be a relief to a lot of casual users, though it would mean some work on the side of MLM authors, not to mention the maintainers/owners of MLMs/lists. It would also mean extra work for authors/maintainers of MUAs which provide their users with neat facilities. The only people being spared work would be those involved with MTAs, I think... But for those who see ease-of-use by the USERS as prime goal, this one-time cycle of work might be gladly taken, especially since it may well be the last they see of the whole problem. People involved in instruction of MLM/MUA useage would also have it easier, methinks. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 23 02:31:23 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05019; Fri, 23 Jul 93 02:31:23 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05012; Thu, 22 Jul 93 19:31:04 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA10044; Thu, 22 Jul 93 22:29:19 EDT Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 19:50:53 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header Message-Id: <930722.195053-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 21 Jul 1993 18:43:24 -0400 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 21 Jul 1993 18:43:24 -0400 Joel Plutchak said on Unix-Listserv: >> The prime characteristic of any GOOD tool is that it's designed to >> make it easy for the USER to work with. > That analogy only goes so far. The computer is a bit more complex >a tool than a hammer, and hence demands a more intelligent approach >to using it (intelligently, at least). The more intelligent a person is, the more heesh can get out of a tool, any tool. Your example of the Apple 1-button mouse clearly shows Apple to have overkilled in one direction without appropriate attention given to other factors. > What if the user speaks only Farsi well? What if they *really* wanted >some other "magazine?" What if they want to subscribe from a different >address than they're sending from (or that their mailer sends it from)? As to your last point specifically, if the MLM in question doesn't have the functionality to recognize that, then the user would be told by his own interface that it's a no-go. And the user would be told before any message ever left the user's machine. Fast response. As to the rest in general, that would all be up to the interface on the user's side, and the MLM couldn't care less as long as the syntax is correct for THAT MLM. And yes, having the interface on the USER-side introduces the possibility of national languages there without the need for MLMs to be aware of that fact. >Once you develop such a discriminating interface for this international >network of computers, let me know; I'll use it. Would you be willing to collaborate if work on such an interface were ever started? I mean discussion, specification, documentation, implementation, or any subset. > Until then, in my >humble opinion as a user support-type person with over ten years of >experience, I believe it's sufficient to have a fairly strict, though >well-designed, command syntax, coupled with helpful feedback from the >software. (Just to keep this message loosely related to the charter of >this mailing list... this last point needs work in *all* varieties of >list management software I've dealt with.) Agreed re need for improvements in helpful feedback. At least until that interface were to become so common that NOBODY communicates directly with MLMs anymore. (in the year 2525...) >(Any bets on whether there are more spoken languages and dialects than >computer languages and dialects? :) I think I'll bet on the computer side... :-( Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 23 15:07:50 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA06693; Fri, 23 Jul 93 15:07:50 GMT Received: from ncar.UCAR.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA06686; Fri, 23 Jul 93 08:07:42 PDT From: woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) Message-Id: <9307231455.AA11687@ncar.ucar.EDU> Received: by ncar.ucar.EDU (5.65/ NCAR Central Post Office 03/11/93) id AA11687; Fri, 23 Jul 93 08:55:28 MDT Subject: Re: Consistent "submit-postings-to-this-addr" header To: Ophof@CS.UWindsor.Ca (F. Scott Ophof) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 8:55:27 MDT Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <930722.160232-0400@MReXX-0.18>; from "F. Scott Ophof" at Jul 22, 93 4:02 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Also, as far as I know, items posted to a non-private mailing list > or to Netnews are considered public postings, therefore free to be > cross/re-posted to other lists/groups. Am I wrong? It's not necessarily a matter of legalities. It is generally considered that netnews postings can be freely redistributed unless explicitly stated otherwise, but there are some who will argue even with this (I am not a lawyer, this comes only from what I perceive as a general agreement from years of reading the net). Even publishing an article in a magazine does not imply that it can be reproduced and used however anyone wants; there are still restrictions. Mail lists are a grey area. It isn't exactly private, but it is a restricted group of sorts. It's not QUITE the same thing as posting to netnews. In any case, I think that if the author explicitly asks for something not to be reposted, then those wishes should be respected as a matter of common courtesy. --Greg From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 24 06:45:09 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08412; Sat, 24 Jul 93 06:45:09 GMT Received: from deepthought.cs.utexas.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08403; Fri, 23 Jul 93 23:45:01 PDT Received: from im4u.cs.utexas.edu by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA13938; Sat, 24 Jul 93 01:45:55 -0500 Received: from chinaca by im4u.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.18/uucp) with UUCP id AA26187; Sat, 24 Jul 93 01:45:32 -0500 Received: from coldsnap.unicom.com by chinacat.unicom.com with smtp (smail3.1.28.1) id m0oJdL6-0001VGC; Sat, 24 Jul 93 01:44 CDT Received: from localhost by coldsnap.unicom.com (smail3.1.28.1) id m0oJdLE-00025cC; Sat, 24 Jul 93 01:44 CDT Message-Id: From: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal) Subject: Reply-To munging [Was: Consistent submit-postings ...] To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1993 01:44:21 -0500 (CDT) In-Reply-To: <9307220239.AA00693@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> from "Brent Chapman" at Jul 21, 93 07:39:47 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23alpha] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1758 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Brent Chapman writes: > I've about decided to start adding a "Reply-To:" field to the headers > for all my mailing lists. There was a reason I didn't do it when I > first set all these lists up, but I can't recall what it was Are you *really* sure you want to do this? I ask because I agree that it sounds appealing. I used to do so myself on my mailing list exploders. In practice, however, it's a bad idea. The problem is that people get surprised all the time. They try to compose a response to the author, and it ends up being redistributed to the entire list. Can be majorly embarrassing! I received a lot of complaints when I munged Reply-To's. I poopooed them, and explained politely `this really is good for you and you really do want it.' Then one day I was surprised (on one of my own lists, no less), and sent a private message out to the list. The next day I dropped all Reply-To munging and have kept it that way ever since. One thing I do on some lists, which is kind of wretched but helps address some problems, is munge the To: address to ensure the list is in there somewhere. This allows people to reply easily to the individual or to the list. Under Elm, for example, my MUA of choice, I do the former with the r)eply command and the latter with the g)roup-reply command. So, although it is theoretically appealing to set a Reply-To on mailing list messages, in practice it turns out to be quite unhelpful and annoying. It took me a long time to see the light, but I'm fairly convinced now. -- Chip Rosenthal 512-447-0577 | I'm going out where the lights don't shine so Unicom Systems Development | bright. When I get back you can treat me like | a Saturday night. -Jimmie Dale Gilmore From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 24 13:10:43 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09062; Sat, 24 Jul 93 13:10:43 GMT Received: from rip.psg.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09055; Sat, 24 Jul 93 06:10:36 PDT Received: by rip.psg.com (Smail3.1.28.1 #5) id m0oJjMJ-000306C; Sat, 24 Jul 93 06:09 PDT Message-Id: From: randy@psg.com (Randy Bush) Subject: Re: Reply-To munging [Was: Consistent submit-postings ...] To: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1993 06:09:55 -0700 (PDT) Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: from "Chip Rosenthal" at Jul 24, 93 01:44:21 am Content-Type: text Content-Length: 582 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > So, although it is theoretically appealing to set a Reply-To on mailing > list messages, in practice it turns out to be quite unhelpful and > annoying. It took me a long time to see the light, but I'm fairly > convinced now. As o a user of Chip's list(s) who whined at Chip, o a user of other lists where I have made the embarrassing error, and o a manager of too many lists I strongly second Chip's position. As users, we don't always look at the generated address when we hit the r(eply key. Yes, we should, and I certainly try to. But, [un]fortunately, we're human. From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 24 17:41:53 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09515; Sat, 24 Jul 93 17:41:53 GMT Received: from lokkur.dexter.mi.us (dexter-gw.dexter.msen.com) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09499; Sat, 24 Jul 93 10:41:38 PDT Received: by lokkur.dexter.mi.us (5.65c/IDA-1.2.8) id AA12745; Sat, 24 Jul 1993 13:40:54 -0400 From: Steve Simmons Message-Id: <199307241740.AA12745@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Subject: Re: Reply-To munging [Was: Consistent submit-postings ...] To: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1993 13:40:53 -0400 (EDT) Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: from "Chip Rosenthal" at Jul 24, 93 01:44:21 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL11] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2046 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I once suffered thru a list where the manager put a Reply-To: field which, if you used it, sent the reply to the manager of the list. When you did this, he bitched because you should have sent your reply to the list, not just him. Curiously, he had some decent arguements (which I don't recall in detail but mostly involved some of the broken mailers the list was going to) why the list should be set up that way. Having listened to various arguements back and forth, I'm convinced there is no one answer to the question. IMHO, the most compelling arguements I can see are two: First, as Chip and others have pointed out, *on the whole* those who reply to lists expect the reply to go to the sender, not the entire list (the Least Surprise principle). Most user mail agents have reply vs. group-reply commands, and the general expectation of most users is that reply is to the sender, not the re-sender. Also, the Least Damage principle says that a the error which affects only two people (replies go to original sender rather than whole list) is better than the error which affects the entire list. Second, having the list do it's own Reply-To: field is superceding special handling which the original sender may have done. The sender may be struggling with badly administered local mailers which blow the return address. He may be requesting responses go to his entire local support group. Should a list override those directives? IMHO, no. [[ An aside: For those who argue a list should be able to create and/or override reply-to, I would argue that you have difficulties when considering *which* re-sender should be authoritative. The first exploder? The last? I would argue that there is *no* correct answer. This being the case, the best we can do is remind developers of user mail agents they have some responsibility to show the user who the response is going to, and users have responsibility for that response. If the user ignores clearly offered information, then it's his own problem. ]] Steve From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 24 19:35:05 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09901; Sat, 24 Jul 93 19:35:05 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09891; Sat, 24 Jul 93 12:34:59 PDT Message-Id: <9307241934.AA09891@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Listserver 6.0 tasos question In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 22 Jul 1993 17:09:51 PDT Date: Sat, 24 Jul 93 12:34:58 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk # I am running tasos listserver 6.0 and I need to set it up # in a way that subscription has to be approved by list owner. How is this # possible? I'd like to avoid having the List-Managers mailing list become the place for detailed how-to questions about specific packages. There should be package-specific mailing lists for questions such as this; for instance, for Majordomo, there's Majordomo-Users@GreatCircle.COM. I don't know if there's a similar list for Listserver 6.0, but I assume there is. For everybody's benefit, here's a reminder of the charter of the List-Managers mailing list. There's been a lot of (in my opinion) marginally-relevant stuff sent to the list lately, and a number of people who had been frequent and valued contributors in the past have chosen to un-subscribe because of this. Let's see if we can keep things a little more focused. This list is for discussions of issues related to managing Internet mailing lists, including (but not limited to) software, methods, mechanisms, techniques, and policies. -Brent -- Brent Chapman Great Circle Associates Brent@GreatCircle.COM 1057 West Dana Street +1 415 962 0841 Mountain View, CA 94041 From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 24 20:42:17 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10211; Sat, 24 Jul 93 20:42:17 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10203; Sat, 24 Jul 93 13:42:12 PDT Message-Id: <9307242042.AA10203@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Reply-To munging [Was: Consistent submit-postings ...] In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 24 Jul 1993 01:44:21 -0500 (CDT) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 93 13:42:11 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I _knew_ there was a reason I explicitly omitted "Reply-To:" headers when I set up all these mailing lists; thanks for reminding me of what it was. In a way, it's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you do, the list ends up getting a lot of "private" messages that someone meant to send directly to someone else, in reply to a posting. If you don't, then you get a lot of complaints from folks that they don't know who to reply to, particularly folks living behind mail gateways who try to translate RFC822 To/From/Cc/Sender/Reply-To fields and semantics into the similar but not quite identical fields and semantics used by some other mailer. Since the majority of the users on my lists are not behind such gateways, and making the change would cause a lot of confusion for a lot of people, I think I'll leave bad enough alone and leave my lists the way they are: without an explicit "Reply-To:" header. Thanks! -Brent -- Brent Chapman Great Circle Associates Brent@GreatCircle.COM 1057 West Dana Street +1 415 962 0841 Mountain View, CA 94041 From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 24 20:52:52 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10274; Sat, 24 Jul 93 20:52:52 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10266; Sat, 24 Jul 93 13:52:47 PDT Message-Id: <9307242052.AA10266@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Reply-To munging [Was: Consistent submit-postings ...] In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 24 Jul 1993 13:40:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 93 13:52:46 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Steve Simmons writes: # Second, having the list do it's own Reply-To: field is superceding special # handling which the original sender may have done. The sender may be # struggling with badly administered local mailers which blow the return # address. He may be requesting responses go to his entire local support # group. Should a list override those directives? IMHO, no. I think it's clear that if you _are_ going to add a "Reply-To:" field, you should only do it if there isn't already one there. -Brent -- Brent Chapman Great Circle Associates Brent@GreatCircle.COM 1057 West Dana Street +1 415 962 0841 Mountain View, CA 94041 From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 24 23:23:00 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10821; Sat, 24 Jul 93 23:23:00 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10811; Sat, 24 Jul 93 16:21:57 PDT Message-Id: <9307242321.AA10811@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: Alan Millar Cc: mmorse@z.nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse), Ophof@cs.uwindsor.ca, LSTSRV-L@uga.cc.uga.edu, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, ListNix@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr, Unix-Listserv@stormking.com Subject: Re: Consistent MLM syntax In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 19 Jul 1993 23:41:47 -0800 (PDT) Date: Sat, 24 Jul 93 16:21:55 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk # > Instead, I have always argued that the MLM's should become more # > flexible in what they accept (my suggestions have been accepted to # > some extent). # # I think this is one of the things that bothers me most: where # MLMs could be more accomodating but aren't. I'll use Majordomo # as an example, not because it is bad but because I am familiar # with it (Majordomo is the MLM I use). # # Majordomo wants a subscription message in the format # "subscribe list [your@address]". It explicitly checks for and rejects # messages in the Bitnet style "subscribe list your name", with a # message to the user that this is Majordomo and not Revised Listserv. # Now, if it is going to go to that trouble, why not just accept the request? Historical accident. When I wrote it, Majordomo didn't have that test. After I installed it and started using it to run 30+ mailing lists, I started getting lots of LISTSERV-style "subscribe" requests. I was in a hurry, so I added code to simply reject these requests, telling the user why. The _right_ thing to do would have been to subscribe the address determined from the headers, and send the user a note saying "you goofed, but I've done what I think you wanted anyway". I'm a strong believer that you should tell folks what they're doing wrong rather than do it for them, because if you do it for them, they'll never learn. This is a trivial enough case, though, that it's probably OK to bend that rule. # The reason I chose Majordomo is because it is in perl and is # easy to customize. It was a one line fix to quietly accept the # Bitnet-style subscription request. (Later I will fix it # to give an explicit response stating that it ignored the "your # name" part.) It is another one line fix to accept "review" # in addition to Majordomo's "who" command. And so on. I didn't add all the LISTSERV commands mainly because I didn't know what they were. I looked at the UNIX LISTSERV, and decided it was far too complex; that's when I decided to write Majordomo. I wasn't trying to duplicate LISTSERV; I was trying to create something simple that happened to provide much of the same functionality as LISTSERV. On reflection, I should have done more research on LISTSERV and either made Majordomo totally different or made it more compatible. The sort of half-way natural compatibility that's there now just annoys folks. But, since I wasn't familiar with LISTSERV, and was on a very limited timeline, I just charged ahead. Mia culpa. If you or your users don't like Majordomo, use LISTSERV. -Brent -- Brent Chapman Great Circle Associates Brent@GreatCircle.COM 1057 West Dana Street +1 415 962 0841 Mountain View, CA 94041 From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jul 24 23:55:01 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11020; Sat, 24 Jul 93 23:55:01 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca ([137.207.192.3]) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11011; Sat, 24 Jul 93 16:54:51 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA14607; Sat, 24 Jul 93 19:55:07 EDT Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1993 17:41:46 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Reply-To munging [Was: Consistent submit-postings ...] Message-Id: <930725.174146-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 24 Jul 1993 13:40:53 -0400 (EDT) Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sat, 24 Jul 1993 13:40:53 -0400 (EDT) Steve Simmons said: >Curiously, he had some decent arguements (which I don't recall in detail >but mostly involved some of the broken mailers the list was going to) This is of course putting the cart before the horse. :-) Modifying MLM-behaviour to account for incorrect design of software doesn't give the author of the B.A.D. software incentive to make repairs. It also perpetuates the problem, till somewhere down the line it creates a problem that might then be much harder to fix. >IMHO, the most compelling arguements I can see are two: >First, as Chip and others have pointed out, *on the whole* those who reply >to lists expect the reply to go to the sender, not the entire list (the >Least Surprise principle). I truly wonder about this, and wouldn't mind seeing more hard facts, like maybe an opinion-sampling of mailing list subscribers. In fact, I can't think of a single person I mail with regularly who has told me heesh sees reply-to-author as default (yes, I full well realize I'm just one in a HUGE group, which is why I'm saying this, and asking for more definitive info). Also, *IF* what you say is truly so, then the definition of mailing list (to promote discussion amongst the list members (or something roughly like that)) might need to be revised. Discussing stuff off-list doesn't help much in bringing opinions/views/facts to all subscribers of that list. But I be wrong in thinking that "discussion list" and "mailing list" are two synonyms, and welcome corrections. >Most user mail agents have reply vs. group-reply commands, and the general >expectation of most users is that reply is to the sender, not the re-sender. I don't think that what kind of commands MUAs have should be of much importance to the possibilities an MLM might be capable of offering. More important would seem to be which facilities the subscribers want an MLM to offer, irrespective of what current MUAs might offer. Of course afterwards, MUA implementors would hopefully update their program to offer MUA users the chance to use that MLM-facility. >Also, the Least Damage principle says that a the error which affects >only two people (replies go to original sender rather than whole list) >is better than the error which affects the entire list. This would seem to be a really valid point, yes. >Second, having the list do it's own Reply-To: field is superceding special >handling which the original sender may have done. The sender may be >struggling with badly administered local mailers which blow the return >address. This again is something the item's author should take up with the relevant admin people. I don't feel that other list subscribers should by default be saddled with the consequences of such problems. > Should a list override those directives? IMHO, no. IMHO that depends on the views of the subscribers to each list separately. >[[ An aside: For those who argue a list should be able to create and/or > override reply-to, I would argue that you have difficulties when > considering *which* re-sender should be authoritative. The first > exploder? The last? I would argue that there is *no* correct answer. Rather than go for a single authoritive answer - which I agree doesn't seem to exist - why not leave it up to each list separately? I'd find it very hard to accept ANY single consistent behaviour for ALL mailing lists in existance. I can think of at least four-five ways how to define setting of the "Reply-To:" header, including enforcement of its ABSENCE for list X, regardless of whether a poster includes one or not. > This being the case, the best we can do is remind developers of user mail > agents they have some responsibility to show the user who the response > is going to, and users have responsibility for that response. If the > user ignores clearly offered information, then it's his own problem. ]] Fully agreed. And for the same reasons, it would seem to me that it's the responsibility of MLM authors/maintainers and list-owners/ maintainers to show the user clearly the relationship between the item in question and the mailing list it pertains to. (I had to get in a mention of the original subject somehow, didn't I? ;-) ) Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Sun Jul 25 00:07:33 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11071; Sun, 25 Jul 93 00:07:33 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11060; Sat, 24 Jul 93 17:07:28 PDT Message-Id: <9307250007.AA11060@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Is it time for a separate mailing list for MLM issues? Date: Sat, 24 Jul 93 17:07:27 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk # On Wed, 21 Jul 93 19:39:47 -0700 Brent Chapman said on List-Managers: # >By the way, do we really need to keep Cc'ing this discussion to 4 # >different mailing lists? I don't even recognize the ones other than # >List-Managers; which (if any) of these lists are really appropriate # >for this discussion? # # I started crossposting this thread to all lists I thought relevant, # since there didn't seem to be a single most suited list. # As I see it, the most relevant lists are: # LISTSRV-L Revised LISTSERV only # ListNix TULP only # Unix-Listserv ListProcessor only # List-Managers General re the Unix MLMs? # (?) Majordomo # (?) (?) List-Managers was chartered and intended to be a discussion group for people managing lists (i.e., "list managers", the people), NOT primarily as a discussion group about the various MLM software. MLM software was certainly expected to come up frequently, but not for the kind of knock-down drag-out battles that have been going on here lately. I suppose I should go clarify the charter to reflect this distinction; here's how it stands right now: This list is for discussions of issues related to managing Internet mailing lists, including (but not limited to) software, methods, mechanisms, techniques, and policies. I think it's probably time for a separate list to discuss MLM issues in the detail they've been discussed here recently. Does somebody want to volunteer to set up and manage this list? Until such a list exists, I suppose List-Managers is still the most-relevant list for these discussions. I'm not interested in hosting it here at GreatCircle.COM, because I have no interest in participating in it if it's going to be anything like what we've seen on List-Managers in the last month or so. Some might criticize me for not participating in such a list, despite being the author of one of the relevant packages. Fuck 'em; I've got better things to do with my time. I wrote Majordomo to do what _I_ needed it to do. I put it up for anonymous FTP because I thought other folks might find it useful as well (and judging from the response, quite a few do). I do a certain amount of maintenance on Majordomo, and have added a certain number of features, as a public service to the community, but there's a limit to how much time and energy I'm willing to spend on the damn thing. I'm real tired of hearing various pompous asses tell me what I simply _must_ do to make their lives complete. - -Brent - -- Brent Chapman Great Circle Associates Brent@GreatCircle.COM 1057 West Dana Street +1 415 962 0841 Mountain View, CA 94041 ------- End of Forwarded Message From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 26 02:19:12 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14088; Mon, 26 Jul 93 02:19:12 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14071; Sun, 25 Jul 93 19:19:00 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA03133; Sun, 25 Jul 93 22:18:51 EDT Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1993 18:32:51 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Is it time for a separate mailing list for MLM issues? Message-Id: <930725.183251-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 24 Jul 93 12:54:37 -0700 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sat, 24 Jul 93 12:54:37 -0700 Brent Chapman said: ># On Wed, 21 Jul 93 19:39:47 -0700 Brent Chapman said on List-Managers: ># >By the way, do we really need to keep Cc'ing this discussion to 4 ># >different mailing lists? I don't even recognize the ones other than ># >... ># I started crossposting this thread to all lists I thought relevant, ># since there didn't seem to be a single most suited list. ># ... > This list is for discussions of issues related to managing > Internet mailing lists, including (but not limited to) software, > methods, mechanisms, techniques, and policies. >I think it's probably time for a separate list to discuss MLM issues >in the detail they've been discussed here recently. I second your suggestion, and hope someone will offer to host it. A list where one can discuss the concepts on which MLMs are based (regardless of opsys), standardisation issues, etc. would be much appreciated. I'm already asking here & there, but have no high hopes. >Until such a list exists, I suppose List-Managers is still the >most-relevant list for these discussions. Thank you for your indulgence. I'll try to keep my postings (and subject matter) down to a fair level in the meantime. :-) Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 26 02:19:15 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14091; Mon, 26 Jul 93 02:19:15 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA14073; Sun, 25 Jul 93 19:19:01 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA03141; Sun, 25 Jul 93 22:18:53 EDT Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1993 21:18:00 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Consistent MLM syntax Message-Id: <930725.211800-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: Cc: Cc: Cc: In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 24 Jul 93 16:21:55 -0700 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sat, 24 Jul 93 16:21:55 -0700 Brent Chapman said: ># > Instead, I have always argued that the MLM's should become more ># > flexible in what they accept (my suggestions have been accepted to ># > some extent). ># I think this is one of the things that bothers me most: where ># MLMs could be more accomodating but aren't. I'll use Majordomo ... >I'm a strong believer that you should tell folks what they're doing >wrong rather than do it for them, because if you do it for them, >they'll never learn. This is a trivial enough case, though, that it's >probably OK to bend that rule. There's probably a lot of cases where pointing out the booboo but also honouring the most probable intention could be a Good Thing (TM?). Another nice touch would be to add "If you wanted something else, then undo what I assumed with [blah blah]". >On reflection, I should have done more research on LISTSERV and either >made Majordomo totally different or made it more compatible. The sort >of half-way natural compatibility that's there now just annoys folks. But it need not annoy people who could use an interface on their machine which took care of those diffs if/when present. Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 26 13:46:09 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA16005; Mon, 26 Jul 93 13:46:09 GMT Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA15998; Mon, 26 Jul 93 06:45:58 PDT Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef) id AA10893; Mon, 26 Jul 93 09:08:26 EDT Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA15449; Mon, 26 Jul 93 09:21:59 EDT Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 09:21:59 EDT From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Message-Id: <9307261321.AA15449@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Another "Internet Directory"..... Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk This little item appeared in my mailbox over the weekend. It seems that this fellow is publishing, essentially, the "Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists" document (and, probably, its BITNET counterpart). His editing of my entry missed the point completely in several respects, and I found the entire thing distasteful. In addition, I don't really like the fact that he's apparently going to publish all the posting addresses; I think that the vast majority of list managers would pre- fer to tell subscribers ourselves, via the MLM or human interface, during the subscription process. I have too many nonsubscribers posting dreck to the list *now*; I shudder to think what will happen when this book comes out....... Comments? --Wes >Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1993 12:09:19 -0400 >From: Eric Braun >Apparently-To: starserver-request@engr.uky.edu > >Dear List Moderator/Owner, > >I am verifying mailing list data for a Directory to the Internet to be >published soon by Random House. I would greatly appreciate it if you could >send me back a note if the information given below for your list is >inaccurate or if the description of the list is not satisfactory (please >note that the description given is not the final version and it will be >copy-edited by the publisher). The information given below is everything >that I am planning to put in the directory for your list, so if there is >anything missing make sure to send it to me. For example: if there is a >separate contact address (and a name!) for questions that aren't >subscription requests, or there is some limitation on who may join, or if >there is an archive of the list not mentioned, or if the list is conducted >completely in sanskrit, PLEASE tell me! > >Thank you for your help. -Eric Braun >List Name: starserver > >List Description: For owners, operators, and administrators of AT&T >StarServer systems. Mostly about system administration/operation. Unix >questions and answers" resources are available. > >Subscription Requests To: starserver-request@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) > >Post To: starserver@engr.uky.edu From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 26 15:00:06 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA16171; Mon, 26 Jul 93 15:00:06 GMT Received: from UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA16155; Mon, 26 Jul 93 07:59:55 PDT Received: from Taronga.COM by UUCP-GW.CC.UH.EDU with UUCP id AA04496 (5.67a/IDA-1.5 for greatcircle.com!list-managers); Mon, 26 Jul 1993 09:32:19 -0500 Received: by taronga.taronga.com (smail2.5) id AA19404; 26 Jul 93 08:30:08 CDT (Mon) Subject: Another "Internet Directory"..... To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 8:30:07 CDT X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL16] Message-Id: <9307260830.AA19404@taronga.taronga.com> From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva) Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > This little item appeared in my mailbox over the weekend. I received it too, and was more than a bit surprised since this was the first I had heard of it. Was kind of funny, cause it was hot on the heels of another letter telling me someone had published the Publicly Accessible List of Lists, but upon scoping it out, we discovered it was actually the Bitnet List of Lists (unfortunately, the book was sold out so we couldn't see it for ourselves). Anyhow, I mailed off a note to him and told him he was violating my copyright, and we've been discussing the matter in email (he had incorrectly assumed the PALoL was in the public domain). > It seems > that this fellow is publishing, essentially, the "Publicly Accessible > Mailing Lists" document (and, probably, its BITNET counterpart). I don't know about that, but he says he's compiling an Internet dictionary -- basically what's there and available on the Internet. > His editing of my entry missed the point completely in several respects, > and I found the entire thing distasteful. Tell him. Correct it or else refuse him permission to publish your list. > In addition, I don't really > like the fact that he's apparently going to publish all the posting > addresses; I pointed this out to him. He doesn't understand why (I'm going to explain it to him), but has already agreed to not do this. -- Stephanie da Silva Disney Afternoon Mailing List arielle@taronga.com ranger-list-request@taronga.com Moderator, rec.food.recipes Endorphins Mailing List GO !d p c+ l- m++/--- s-/s g- w+ t+ r- x++/-- endorphins-request@taronga.com Oh, what are you?? The Pirate Den Mother?! -- Baloo From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 26 15:43:24 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA16253; Mon, 26 Jul 93 15:43:24 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA16246; Mon, 26 Jul 93 08:42:27 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa01939; 26 Jul 93 10:00 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17653; Mon, 26 Jul 93 10:03:51 EDT Message-Id: <9307261403.AA17653@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 10:03:50 EDT In-Reply-To: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) "Another "Internet Directory"....." (Jul 26, 9:21am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: Wes Morgan , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Another "Internet Directory"..... Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > This little item appeared in my mailbox over the weekend. It seems > that this fellow is publishing, essentially, the "Publicly Accessible > Mailing Lists" document (and, probably, its BITNET counterpart). His > editing of my entry missed the point completely in several respects, > and I found the entire thing distasteful. In addition, I don't really > like the fact that he's apparently going to publish all the posting > addresses; I think that the vast majority of list managers would pre- > fer to tell subscribers ourselves, via the MLM or human interface, > during the subscription process. I have too many nonsubscribers posting > dreck to the list *now*; I shudder to think what will happen when this > book comes out....... I prefer the type of directory where the list-manager must take the initiative to get into it (for example the old Internet Resource Guide). In other words, the default is that you're *not* in the directory. But... Everybody's out to make a buck today, and he was polite enough to inform you before the fact and give you a chance to make corrections. His message is impolite in that it doesn't explicitly give you the option to say "I don't want to be in your list- of-lists at all", but assuming that's an option, I don't have a lot of problem with this. --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 26 17:55:18 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA16753; Mon, 26 Jul 93 17:55:18 GMT Received: from garlic.inset.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA16746; Mon, 26 Jul 93 10:55:09 PDT Received: from localhost by garlic.inset.com (Sendmail:8.1B/Cf:Jr.2.7) id NAA21053; Mon, 26 Jul 1993 13:52:51 -0400 From: "Adam S. Moskowitz" Message-Id: <199307261752.NAA21053@garlic.inset.com> Subject: Re: Reply-To munging [Was: Consistent submit-postings ...] To: Ophof@CS.UWindsor.Ca (F. Scott Ophof) Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 13:52:37 EDT Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <930725.174146-0400@MReXX-0.18>; from "F. Scott Ophof" at Jul 25, 93 5:41 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In <930725.174146-0400@MReXX-0.18>, "F. Scott Ophof" wrote: > On Sat, 24 Jul 1993 13:40:53 -0400 (EDT) Steve Simmons said: >> This being the case, the best we can do is remind developers of user >> mail agents they have some responsibility to show the user who the >> response is going to, and users have responsibility for that >> response. If the user ignores clearly offered information, then it's >> his own problem. ]] > > Fully agreed. And for the same reasons, it would seem to me that > it's the responsibility of MLM authors/maintainers and list-owners/ > maintainers to show the user clearly the relationship between the > item in question and the mailing list it pertains to. On the BB-LISA (Back Bay Large Installations Systems Administration) list, we solved (well, maybe "solved" is too strong a word) the problem by tacking this simple "signature" onto *every* message that goes out to the list: Send mail for the `bblisa' mailing list to `bblisa@inset.com'. Send list subscription requests to `bblisa-request@inset.com'. It's not perfect, but it helps. AdamM -- Adam S. Moskowitz [adamm@inset.com] Systems Administrator [postmaster@inset.com] The Instruction Set VOICE: +1 617 890 4930 Waltham, MA FAX: +1 617 890 4952 (The keepers of bblisa@inset.com) From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 26 19:10:22 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17071; Mon, 26 Jul 93 19:10:22 GMT Received: from antares.mcs.anl.gov (antares9.mcs.anl.gov) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17064; Mon, 26 Jul 93 12:10:13 PDT Received: from skeeve.mcs.anl.gov by antares.mcs.anl.gov with SMTP id AA13560 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 26 Jul 1993 14:11:21 -0500 Message-Id: <199307261911.AA13560@antares.mcs.anl.gov> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: rackow@mcs.anl.gov Subject: The upcoming random house book. Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 14:11:19 -0500 From: Gene Rackow Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk For those of you that have, or are about to get a "verification" notice about the "Directory of the Internet", here is a little food for thought. I've had the pleasure/pain of dealing with some mailing addresses that have been published everywhere. Once things get put into print, don't expect to be able to change them without people getting upset. The best example of this is the "netlib" software packages automated mail server. Originally it was run from a machine I maintained called anl-mcs.arpa which later became anl-mcs.mcs.anl.gov and has now been turned off for several years. Even though the arpanet has been gone for some time, people still attempt to use that address. Netlib was relocated to another machine within mcs.anl.gov for a couple of years, then moved to ornl.gov. The netlib name has been forcedto remain as a "vacation" style program that tells people that the netlib archives have moved to ornl.gov about 5 years ago. There are still 3 to 20 messages that get addressed to netlib@mcs.anl.gov a week. Some of these still make reference to the .arpa address. The only reason that I keep the address around at all is to reduce the amount of phone or postmaster calls that I get because someone wants to get that address. The information as to where to get access has been updated, but not everyone can/will get the new version of the book/publication when it came out. The "netlib" address was directed towards people that were specificly looking for numerical software packages and parallel programming tools. Many of these people have a clue as to what the internet is all about which allowed them to track the arpa addresses to the new machine names, but publishing a general populace reference is going to open things up to a whole new class of newbies. Think long and hard about exactly what you may want going into the book if anything. Also be warned that if you put something into the book you may very well have to live with it for a long (in computer) time before it will go away. --gene PS: Don't get me wrong. I think that longevity of a mailing list is a good thing. It's what happens when things want/need to move that can cause problems. (Ask the people at rice about "sun-spots" ;-) From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 26 19:56:41 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17132; Mon, 26 Jul 93 19:56:41 GMT Received: from soda.berkeley.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17125; Mon, 26 Jul 93 12:56:33 PDT Received: from localhost.Berkeley.EDU by soda.berkeley.edu (5.65/KAOS-1) id AA11728; Mon, 26 Jul 93 12:53:43 -0700 Message-Id: <9307261953.AA11728@soda.berkeley.edu> To: Gene Rackow Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: The upcoming random house book. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 26 Jul 1993 14:11:19 CDT." <199307261911.AA13560@antares.mcs.anl.gov> Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 12:53:42 -0700 From: "Shannon D. Appel" Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >I've had the pleasure/pain of dealing with some mailing addresses >that have been published everywhere. Once things get put into >print, don't expect to be able to change them without people getting >upset. The best example of this is the "netlib" software packages >automated mail server. Originally it was run from a machine I maintained >called anl-mcs.arpa which later became anl-mcs.mcs.anl.gov and has >now been turned off for several years. Even though the arpanet has >been gone for some time, people still attempt to use that address. >Netlib was relocated to another machine within mcs.anl.gov for a couple of >years, then moved to ornl.gov. I really don't see why there has been such a ruckus over the Random House book. As far as I can tell, it is a good thing (tm). It will help provide people with information that they might not otherwise be able to get. This is especially true of users on Compuserve, American On Line and GEnie, who might not be able to access the Usenet groups which contain the electronic versions of these documents. I consider that a huge plus, since it will bring in scores of users who would not have joined the mailing list. Granted, when addresses for a mailing list get published, you have to be slightly careful about maintaining whatever address was published. Fortunately, this is _very_ simple to do, via MX records (if a machine has changed names) and forwards in alias files(if a mailing list has moved). It's really not a big deal. Something you have to consider, sure, but well worth it when you consider how many additional people you might be able to contact. Shannon From List-Managers-Owner Mon Jul 26 20:12:37 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17215; Mon, 26 Jul 93 20:12:37 GMT Received: from antares.mcs.anl.gov (antares9.mcs.anl.gov) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17208; Mon, 26 Jul 93 13:12:27 PDT Received: from skeeve.mcs.anl.gov by antares.mcs.anl.gov with SMTP id AA15180 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 26 Jul 1993 15:13:34 -0500 Message-Id: <199307262013.AA15180@antares.mcs.anl.gov> To: "Shannon D. Appel" Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, rackow@mcs.anl.gov Subject: Re: The upcoming random house book. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 26 Jul 1993 12:53:42 PDT." <9307261953.AA11728@soda.berkeley.edu> Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 15:13:32 -0500 From: Gene Rackow Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk What you say has some merit. Maybe what we as list admins need to do is put in MX or CNAMES for our lists that point to "list.host.dom.ain" so as to make future transitions easier. Better to do it now while things can still be changed and before being published. Before jumping on the "compuserve is great" bandwagon, remember that people using compuserve have a 100 message limit. Giving many new users (week-end only users)a book of lists will find a high number of bouncing messages when their mailboxes fill up. Yes it would be nice to pull more people into the electronic age, but be careful. Many times it turns out to be a kid in a candy store. If your mailing list generate more than a few messages a week, a warning should probably be added to the description stating something to that effect. --gene From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 02:18:02 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17831; Tue, 27 Jul 93 02:18:02 GMT Received: from st6000.sct.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17824; Mon, 26 Jul 93 19:17:56 PDT Received: by st6000.sct.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA35858; Mon, 26 Jul 1993 22:12:07 -0400 Message-Id: <9307270212.AA35858@st6000.sct.edu> Subject: Beginner's question... To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 22:12:07 EDT From: tfore@st6000.sct.edu (Tied Up In Yello) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi! I'm new to this list, and I hope I don't offend anybody if I am off-topic here. I've read the charter, but it seems to be a bit vague. All I want to do is start two, small, simple mailing lists. I'm not that good at compiling, and I have no root access, and I'm just a beginner, anyway. I'd like to think I could get some root access/permission if necessary, but my SysAdmin is a bitch. I would just like some sort of small, simplistic mailing list to start out with. Does such a thing exist? If not, what's its nearest equivalent? I use Elm, and I'm wondering if I could maybe configure IT to handle it. I dunno. Any ideas? Again, if I'm off-topic, I apologize. If you think I am, please respond to me direct: tfore@st6000.sct.edu That way, we can smoothly circumvent my little faux pas. :) Thanks in advance! ____________________________________________________________________________ Troy Fore -- tfore@st6000.sct.edu -- Eliphion (in IRC) Made from Earth... Drinks Water... Breathes Air... Makes Fire... Feels PAIN. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 06:56:28 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA18560; Tue, 27 Jul 93 06:56:28 GMT Received: from netcom.netcom.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA18553; Mon, 26 Jul 93 23:56:20 PDT Received: from mirador.com by netcom.netcom.com (5.65/SMI-4.1/Netcom) id AA23916; Mon, 26 Jul 93 23:58:17 -0700 Received: by Mirador.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA20039; Mon, 26 Jul 93 23:58:26 PDT Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 23:58:26 PDT From: eric@Mirador.COM (Eric Black) Message-Id: <9307270658.AA20039@Mirador.COM> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Which address caused the bounce? Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I administer a few mailing lists (for ANSI technical committees), and find I have quite a time figuring out precisely which address on a list has caused a bouncy-gram. It's not always possible to determine it from the Received-By: and other headers of the returned message. Some other mailing lists I receive have an "X-Envelope-To:" header added to each digest or distribution to show which recipient on the list each message is intended for. This sure helps when messages bounce, or for sorting out return receipts! The only way I can understand this happening is for sendmail or whatever delivery agent is being used to send each recipient an individual copy with a different header for each one. This is fine, since a separate copy is sent to each domain anyway. But neither the version of sendmail I have on my SunOS 4.1.3 SPARC nor IDA sendmail 5.62 seem to do this, unless I am missing something. Does anyone know how I can get an "X-Envelope-To:" or analogous header inserted into each recipient's copy of a mailing list distribution? Or perhaps a different and/or better way to solve the problem of figuring out which address out of hundreds caused a mail message to bounce? -Eric ---- Eric Black "Garbage in, Gospel out" Mirador Computing Systems, P. O. Box 308, La Honda, CA 94020 USA Email: eric@Mirador.COM Voice: +1 415 747 0101 FAX: +1 415 747 0101 From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 13:06:28 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19321; Tue, 27 Jul 93 13:06:28 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19314; Tue, 27 Jul 93 06:06:20 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa27584; 27 Jul 93 8:59 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA18617; Tue, 27 Jul 93 09:02:44 EDT Message-Id: <9307271302.AA18617@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 09:02:43 EDT In-Reply-To: tfore@st6000.sct.edu (Tied Up In Yello) "Beginner's question..." (Jul 26, 10:12pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: Tied Up In Yello , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Beginner's question... Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > All I want to do is start two, small, simple mailing lists. I'm not that > good at compiling, and I have no root access, and I'm just a beginner, > anyway. I'd like to think I could get some root access/permission if > necessary, but my SysAdmin is a bitch. I would just like some sort of > small, simplistic mailing list to start out with. Does such a thing > exist? If not, what's its nearest equivalent? I suggest you make peace with your sysadmin. If you think she (?) is a bitch now, wait until your list inundates her with bounced mail, mail loops, and high CPU load, all things that are very easy to do if you are not experienced in this area. --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 13:10:38 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19339; Tue, 27 Jul 93 13:10:38 GMT Received: from halcyon.com (chinook.halcyon.com) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19332; Tue, 27 Jul 93 06:10:30 PDT Received: by halcyon.com id AA05705 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for list-managers@greatcircle.com); Tue, 27 Jul 1993 06:11:28 -0700 From: Ralph Sims Message-Id: <199307271311.AA05705@halcyon.com> Subject: Re: Beginner's question... To: mmorse@z.nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 06:11:24 -0700 (PDT) Cc: tfore@st6000.sct.edu, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <9307271302.AA18617@z.nsf.gov> from "Michael H. Morse" at Jul 27, 93 09:02:43 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL13] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 529 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > All I want to do is start two, small, simple mailing lists. I'm not that > > good at compiling, and I have no root access, and I'm just a beginner, > > anyway. I'd like to think I could get some root access/permission if > a bitch now, wait until your list inundates her with bounced mail, > mail loops, and high CPU load, all things that are very easy to do if > you are not experienced in this area. One might think about a couple of mail aliases to do this. It doesn't sound as if 'formal' list software is needed. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 15:06:42 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19471; Tue, 27 Jul 93 15:06:42 GMT Received: from charlie.CES.CWRU.Edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19464; Tue, 27 Jul 93 08:06:30 PDT Received: by charlie.CES.CWRU.Edu (5.64+/ane.09.11.90.2) id AA13639; Tue, 27 Jul 93 11:07:03 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 11:07:03 -0400 From: Aydin Edguer Message-Id: <9307271507.AA13639@charlie.CES.CWRU.Edu> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: The upcoming random house book. Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > I really don't see why there has been such a ruckus over the Random > House book. As far as I can tell, it is a good thing (tm). Hmmm. I guess you missed all the earlier messages... :-) :-) To summarize: #1 - Mailing lists (and many other Internet services) are constantly undergoing change. Services come and go. Services change method of operation. Services change location. Services change management. The problem is that a printed document cannot begin to keep up with these changes. This is the why we no longer have hosts.txt files and why there is such a large interest in directory services. Pointers to electronic directories are a much better idea than printed lists of services. #2 - Mailing List managers DO NOT have a final say in the description of their mailing lists - "the description given is not the final version and it will be copy-edited by the publisher". A good copy editor will not change the meaning, but not every copy editor is a good one. #3 - Books tend to have size limitations. I doubt that the book is going to publish the full "Sun-Managers Summary of Charter and Rules" and yet it really should be read before people decide the join the Sun-Managers mailing list. > This is especially true of users on Compuserve, American On Line and GEnie, > who might not be able to access the Usenet groups which contain the > electronic versions of these documents. Some would say that if they cannot properly access a service they desire, they should change service vendors. However, I won't and in point of fact your statement is simply incorrect. These days, thanks to mail-servers for both documents and anonymous FTP services, anyone who can use mail can obtain copies of the electronic directories. Periodic Informational Postings can be obtained from the rtfm.mit.edu server directly. Information lookup via ARCHIE can be performed via electronic mail. Generic files can be obtained from the DEC and other anonymous FTP mail services. RFCs and other Internet specific documents are available from the InterNIC. It is simply not true that USENET is the only (or even best) way to obtain elecronic versions of documents. > Fortunately, this is _very_ simple to do, via MX records (if a machine > has changed names) and forwards in alias files(if a mailing list has > moved). It's really not a big deal. Yes, MX records _can_ help. Yes, mail _can_ be forwarded. These are both good suggestions but... if a site decides it permanently wants out of the game, it can be a big deal. #1 - not all mailers on the Internet support MX records. They should since it is a host requirement, but we are talking about reality here. And reality is that not all hosts are on the Internet and not all hosts on the Internet meet the host requirements. #2 - forwarding hosts still have to deal with the mail. For a large list like Sun-Managers or netlib this can be non-trivial, especially during the months following a change. Having printed lists will only make matters worse. I would also recommend [as Gene Rackow pointed out] using an auto-responder (a vacation-like program) in addition to simply forwarding the mail, to help point out to users that a change has occurred. > I consider that a huge plus, since it will bring in scores of users who > would not have joined the mailing list. Not all mailing lists consider their size to be a measure of their success. In fact, I prefer the smaller lists with little or no discussion. If numbers are all you are looking for then USENET is what you want, since mailing lists restrict readership greatly. Ahem... I am all for more books helping new users to become involved with networks. I think that the networks will see a growing number of new users with or without books to guide them and thus favor books that will help new users become good net citizens as quickly as possible. But the way to do this, IMO, is to explain the procedures and perhaps give a few examples, not to give a shopping list of information that will quickly become outdated. Aydin Edguer From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 16:41:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19858; Tue, 27 Jul 93 16:41:39 GMT Received: from skigo.graphics.cornell.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19851; Tue, 27 Jul 93 09:41:30 PDT Received: by skigo.graphics.cornell.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA29516; Tue, 27 Jul 1993 12:42:44 -0400 Message-Id: <9307271642.AA29516@skigo.graphics.cornell.edu> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: mkc@graphics.cornell.edu Subject: Re: The upcoming random house book. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 27 Jul 93 11:07:03 EDT." <9307271507.AA13639@charlie.CES.CWRU.Edu> Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 12:42:44 -0400 From: Mitch Collinsworth X-Mts: smtp Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Gang, I am including below my response to Eric Braun and his response to mine. It appears that he is in fact listening and your requests are being honored. What more than that could you ask for? -Mitch Collinsworth ------- To: Eric Braun In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 24 Jul 93 12:03:16 EDT." <199307241603.AA01213@panix.com> Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 15:01:00 -0400 From: Mitch Collinsworth Eric, I have thought about this a little and have decided that while there are valid reasons to object to your publishing the list of lists in hardcopy, in my case the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and I will consent to your printing my lists. I am aware that not all list managers are giving similar responses and I do hope that you plan to abide by the wishes of the individual list managers. One objection that has been raised that I agree with is that you should not publish the "Post To:" addresses, only the "Subscription Requests To:" addresses. The reason for this is that believe it or not, no matter how clearly you spell it out, a good number of people will get it wrong and send their subscription requests to the posting address. You may or may not choose to believe this statement but that doesn't change its validity. Trust us list managers. We are on the front lines and we see it daily. Below are the changes I wish to make to your listings for my lists: [deleted] Thank you for your consideration of the above requests and good luck with your book. -Mitch Collinsworth mitch@graphics.cornell.edu ------- Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 21:55:30 -0400 Message-Id: <199307270155.AA05509@panix.com> To: mkc@graphics.cornell.edu From: gbs@panix.com (Eric Braun) Subject: publishing lists and more > I am aware that not all list managers are > giving similar responses and I do hope that you plan to abide by the wishes > of the individual list managers. I'm glad that you want to be included in my book, and I am most certainly going to abide by the wishes of all list owners. > One objection that has been raised that I agree with is that you should not > publish the "Post To:" addresses, only the "Subscription Requests To:" > addresses. The reason for this is that believe it or not, no matter how > clearly you spell it out, a good number of people will get it wrong and > send their subscription requests to the posting address. You may or may > not choose to believe this statement but that doesn't change its validity. > Trust us list managers. We are on the front lines and we see it daily. I have already been convinced. There will be no "Post To:" field in my book, except for the rare occasion when a list manager perfers that I have one. Your other changes have been made as well. -Eric ______________________________________________________________________ Eric Braun gbs@panix.com Glass Bead Software > Trust us list managers. We are on the front lines and we see it daily. I have already been convinced. There will be no "Post To:" field in my book, except for the rare occasion when a list manager perfers that I have one. Your other changes have been made as well. -Eric ______________________________________________________________________ Eric Braun gbs@panix.com Glass Bead Software From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 17:29:05 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19981; Tue, 27 Jul 93 17:29:05 GMT Received: from heifetz.msen.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19971; Tue, 27 Jul 93 10:28:51 PDT Received: by heifetz.msen.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.22.1 #22.11) id ; Tue, 27 Jul 93 13:18 EDT Received: by hamjudo (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA11567; Tue, 27 Jul 93 13:15:20 EDT Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 13:15:20 EDT From: paulh@hamjudo.mi.org (Paul Haas) Message-Id: <9307271715.AA11567@hamjudo> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, eric@Mirador.COM Subject: Re: Which address caused the bounce? Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk My last mystery bouncer problem got resolved before I wrote my spiffy bounce finder, but I designed one. I will probably write it sometime during August. The bounce finder would send indivual status messages to each user. Something like: ------------Cut here------------- Message-Id: To: USER@SUB.DOMAIN.DOMAIN Subject: Mailing list status for USER@SUB.DOMAIN.DOMAIN From: majordomo-owner@hamjudo.mi.org Reply-To: majordomo-owner@hamjudo.mi.org Errors-To: majordomo-owner@hamjudo.mi.org Dear USER@SUB.DOMAIN.DOMAIN you are on the following mailing list(s) at hamjudo.mi.org: LIST1 2 sentence discription of LIST1 LISTb 2 sentence discription of LISTb To unsubscribe to any of the above lists, send a message to majordomo@hamjudo.mi.org with unsubscribe LIST1 USER@SUB.DOMAIN.DOMAIN unsubscribe LISTb USER@SUB.DOMAIN.DOMAIN in the body of the message. etc... ------------Cut here------------- The bounce finder will do the normal sorts and joins to build a table of email addresses and the associated list names. It will then iterate through the list sending a status message to each address. Note this doesn't set precedence bulk, so I should get bounces that are normally suppressed. All mailer agents have their own unique way of doing bounces. I'm trying to make it so I can trace back a bounce, even if I have only the subject or the Message-Id. I'm also trying to put enough content in the message so that folks won't complain, when I start running this monthly. The sample has majordomo'isms because that is what I'm running. You will have to translate to your own mailing list manager. The hardest part for me will be writing the help text. The part in the sample where I used "etc...". -- Paul Haas New work # (313) 998-0196, New home #: (313) 487-8739 Email addresses, the only thing that stays the same when you move: work: paulh@ox.com home: paulh@hamjudo.mi.org From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 17:29:06 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19983; Tue, 27 Jul 93 17:29:06 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19967; Tue, 27 Jul 93 10:28:22 PDT Message-Id: <9307271728.AA19967@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: eric@Mirador.COM (Eric Black) Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Which address caused the bounce? In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 26 Jul 93 23:58:26 PDT Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 10:28:21 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk # I administer a few mailing lists (for ANSI technical committees), and # find I have quite a time figuring out precisely which address on a list # has caused a bouncy-gram. It's not always possible to determine it # from the Received-By: and other headers of the returned message. I agree; this is a major pain in the ass. I've gotten very good at divining which email address generated a particular bounce; unfortunately, that's not a skill I particularly wanted to develop. Sometimes, I can't do any more than figure out what site is causing the problem, and I have to drop all the folks at that site. Other times, I can't even figure out what site it is, particularly with sites that get their mail via UUCP and have MX records pointing to their forwarder. The UUCP name (which is what the bounce usually gives) usually has no relation to the site or network name. Knowing which forwarding site is sending me the bounce doesn't help either, unless I want to check the MX records for every site on my lists to see who forwards through there. # Some other mailing lists I receive have an "X-Envelope-To:" header # added to each digest or distribution to show which recipient on the # list each message is intended for. This sure helps when messages # bounce, or for sorting out return receipts! # # The only way I can understand this happening is for sendmail or # whatever delivery agent is being used to send each recipient an # individual copy with a different header for each one. This is fine, # since a separate copy is sent to each domain anyway. But neither the # version of sendmail I have on my SunOS 4.1.3 SPARC nor IDA sendmail # 5.62 seem to do this, unless I am missing something. # # Does anyone know how I can get an "X-Envelope-To:" or analogous # header inserted into each recipient's copy of a mailing list # distribution? Or perhaps a different and/or better way to solve the # problem of figuring out which address out of hundreds caused a # mail message to bounce? The trick with Sendmail is that you can't add a new header, but you can put this info into the "Received:" headers. Look for a pair of lines like the following in your sendmail.cf file: HReceived: $?sfrom $s $.by $j ($v/$V) id $i; $b and change them to something like HReceived: $?sfrom $s $.by $j ($v/$V) id $i to $u; $b This will cause "to " to be added to the second Received: line of your messages. Some of you may notice that I don't do this here at GreatCircle.COM, and wonder why. All my outgoing mail goes out to one site, which then delivers it to its ultimate destination, duplicating the message as necessary. This means that, for any message to any of my mailing lists, one copy of the message with hundreds or thousands (in the case of the Firewalls mailing list) of recipients is sent to my relay. My relay then turns this in to hundreds or thousands of messages to one recipient each. If I put the "to $u" hack in my sendmail.cf, it would try to show the entire mailing list in the "Received:" line, which obviously wouldn't work very well. -Brent -- Brent Chapman Great Circle Associates Brent@GreatCircle.COM 1057 West Dana Street +1 415 962 0841 Mountain View, CA 94041 From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 18:26:05 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20324; Tue, 27 Jul 93 18:26:05 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20317; Tue, 27 Jul 93 11:25:56 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa03961; 27 Jul 93 14:01 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA18794; Tue, 27 Jul 93 14:05:08 EDT Message-Id: <9307271805.AA18794@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 14:05:08 EDT In-Reply-To: Aydin Edguer "Re: The upcoming random house book." (Jul 27, 11:07am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: Aydin Edguer , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: The upcoming random house book. Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Ahem... > I am all for more books helping new users to become involved with networks. > I think that the networks will see a growing number of new users with or > without books to guide them and thus favor books that will help new users > become good net citizens as quickly as possible. But the way to do this, > IMO, is to explain the procedures and perhaps give a few examples, not > to give a shopping list of information that will quickly become outdated. Well said. Teach them to farm rather than give them food. --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 18:55:56 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20454; Tue, 27 Jul 93 18:55:56 GMT Received: from st6000.sct.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20447; Tue, 27 Jul 93 11:55:50 PDT Received: by st6000.sct.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA46926; Tue, 27 Jul 1993 14:50:12 -0400 Message-Id: <9307271850.AA46926@st6000.sct.edu> Subject: Re: The upcoming random house book. To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List-Managers Mailing List) Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 14:50:12 EDT From: tfore@st6000.sct.edu (Tied Up In Yello) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Well, they could follow thru with a monthy magazine that would announce changes, additions, and deletions to Internet resources. I know, I know. That would be ideal, but it ain't gonna happen. *sigh* A magazine like that WOULD be very useful. Maybe someone else should start one, and have it use/refer-to the book? ____________________________________________________________________________ Troy Fore -- tfore@st6000.sct.edu -- Eliphion (in IRC) Made from Earth... Drinks Water... Breathes Air... Makes Fire... Feels PAIN. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jul 27 20:04:16 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20819; Tue, 27 Jul 93 20:04:16 GMT Received: from netcom.netcom.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20811; Tue, 27 Jul 93 13:04:06 PDT Received: from mirador.com by netcom.netcom.com (5.65/SMI-4.1/Netcom) id AA28750; Tue, 27 Jul 93 13:06:04 -0700 Received: by Mirador.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA20731 to brent@GreatCircle.COM; Tue, 27 Jul 93 12:12:33 PDT Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 12:12:33 PDT From: eric@Mirador.COM (Eric Black) X-Envelope-To: brent@GreatCircle.COM Message-Id: <9307271912.AA20731@Mirador.COM> To: brent@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Which address caused the bounce? Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Well, I think I have arrived at a solution to the problem. It's not pretty, but heck, what good are cycles if you can't spend them? Brent suggested using the $u macro in a sendmail header expansion. I tried this, and found that it did not behave as I expected; it expanded to the *first* name in the alias I was sending to, and did so for every recipient on the list, even though individual copies of the message were sent to hosts in different domains. I would have been less surprised if it expanded for each domain to the first name on the list which was in that domain, but it did it for *all* messages. BTW, this is the stock Sun Microsystems sendmail 4.1 which comes with SunOS 4.1.3. What I ended up doing was adding an "X-Envelope-To: $u" header to the list of header definitions, and changing the mailer flags on the mailer to say that it would not accept multiple recipients for a single message (I removed the 'm' flag). This burns more cycles, and more net bandwidth, but it does exactly what I wanted. For each address on the mailing list alias, a separate message is sent (same Message-Id, but a separate SMTP transaction), and for each message the correct receipient's address is inserted in a new "X-Envelope-To:" header. There should be one of those up at the top of this message. I expect that I'll be turning this "feature" on and off as required to debug obscure bounces from a list, but in practice since very few addresses on any of my lists are in the same domain, it probably pretty much turns out to be a wash. Thanks to Brent for the suggestion that got me going. The "bounce tester" Paul described sounds like an interesting idea for performing periodic maintenance of the lists (which seem to grow "legacy" addresses as people move on and forget to tell anyone). -Eric ---- Eric Black "Garbage in, Gospel out" Mirador Computing Systems, P. O. Box 308, La Honda, CA 94020 USA Email: eric@Mirador.COM Voice: +1 415 747 0101 FAX: +1 415 747 0101 From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 28 06:08:36 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22663; Wed, 28 Jul 93 06:08:36 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22651; Tue, 27 Jul 93 23:08:22 PDT Message-Id: <9307280608.AA22651@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: "F. Scott Ophof" Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Consistent MLM syntax In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 25 Jul 1993 21:18:00 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 23:08:20 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk # >On reflection, I should have done more research on LISTSERV and either # >made Majordomo totally different or made it more compatible. The sort # >of half-way natural compatibility that's there now just annoys folks. # # But it need not annoy people who could use an interface on their # machine which took care of those diffs if/when present. If you're going to write such a front-end, what platform would you create it for? UNIX? Which flavor of UNIX? QuickMail? VMS? Microsoft Mail? Profs? How many other mailers can you name that are all tied, one way or another, to the Internet? We've only relatively recently gotten to the point where we can pass simple text messages more or less reliably between these various systems. Simple text is pretty much the "lingua franca" of the electronic world. I think, for that reason, we're going to have to keep putting the "smarts" in the back-ends, not the front-ends, for the forseeable future. -Brent -- Brent Chapman Great Circle Associates Brent@GreatCircle.COM 1057 West Dana Street +1 415 962 0841 Mountain View, CA 94041 From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 28 06:33:44 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22809; Wed, 28 Jul 93 06:33:44 GMT Received: from KENTVM.KENT.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA22802; Tue, 27 Jul 93 23:33:32 PDT Message-Id: <9307280633.AA22802@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> Received: from KENTVM.KENT.EDU by KENTVM.KENT.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6397; Wed, 28 Jul 93 02:33:27 EST Received: from KENTVM (NJE origin DKOVACS@KENTVM) by KENTVM.KENT.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 9053; Tue, 27 Jul 1993 20:52:41 -0500 Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 20:52:25 EST From: Diane Kovacs Subject: Call for Articles, EJVC: Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture To: comp-Soc@LIMBO.INTUITIVE.com, COM-PRIV@PSI.com, INFO-FUTURES@ENCORE.com, LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM, NREN-DISC@PSI.com, PLEARN-L%UBVM.bitnet@KENTVM.KENT.EDU, RISKS@CSL.SRI.com, comP-PRIVACY@PICA.ARMY.MIL Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The _Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture_ a refereed scholarly journal is now accepting submissions for Fall 1993 and Spring 1994 issues. The _Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture_ (EJVC) is a refereed scholarly journal that fosters, encourages, advances and communicates scholarly thought on virtual culture. Virtual culture is computer-mediated experience, behavior, action, interaction and thought, including electronic conferences, electronic journals, networked information systems, the construction and visualization of models of reality, and global connectivity. EDITORIAL GUIDLINES FOR AUTHORS FORM AND STYLE 1. Use a recognized standard form and style, preferably the APA Publication Manual published by the American Psychological Association, as modified by the following requirements. 2. Do not have any line that exceeds 60 characters in length. 3. Do not use any figure or diagram. 4. Do not have more than 1000 lines in any article. 5. Do not submit any draft in any format other than ASCII. SUBMISSION An article may be submitted at any time to the EJVC for peer-review with the understanding that the peer-review requires time. Acknowledgements of the arrival of any article shall be made within 24 hours of arrival. Notification of acceptance or rejection shall be sent to authors within 30 days of the arrival of the submission. Submissions are acceptable only by electronic mail or send/file. Submissions may be made to either the Editor-in-Chief or the Co-Editor. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF CO-EDITOR Ermel Stepp Diane Kovacs Marshall University Kent State University BITNET: BITNET: M034050@Marshall DKOVACS@Kentvm Internet: Internet: M034050@Marshall.WVNET.edu DKOVACS@Kentvm.Kent.edu SUBSCRIPTION To subscribe to the EJVC send electronic mail to LISTSERV@KENTVM or LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU, including a blank subject line and the sole line of text: subscribe EJVC-L Yourfirstname Yourlastname VAX/VMS may require that the sole line be within quotes to register names in other than uppercase. EJVC ANONYMOUS FTP Information about the EJVC and issues of the EJVC may be retreived by anonymous FTP to byrd.mu.wvnet.edu in subdirectory /pub/ejvc. From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 28 03:49:33 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23492; Wed, 28 Jul 93 10:18:32 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23475; Wed, 28 Jul 93 03:18:11 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA26553; Wed, 28 Jul 93 06:18:33 EDT Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 04:33:12 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Minimizing copies of crossposts Message-Id: <930728.043312-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: To: Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The following has probably already been discussed at some time. There are times when a subject is crossposted for some reason. >From personal experience over the past few years, I've seen that it is quite difficult to keep the crossposts going to the correct lists. Ie. people sometimes reply to only one list instead of all of them. Leaving out the instances when they do this on purpose (which is their right), it's the ones who want to reply to the whole set of lists which are in constant trouble. Of course one can do a group reply (REPLY ALL in RiceMAIL terms), but that generally means that copies also go to the PERSONS whose addrs are in the "From:" (and maybe "Reply-To:") fields. Not only that, but when one is subscribed to more than one of the crossposted lists, one gets a copy from each of them. This set of circumstances is not at all uncommon, and I realise that a definitive solution might mean changes to both MUAs and MLMs (maybe even MTAs?). The one obvious solution is conscientious checking/editing of the headers by posters. But since I'm obviously more interested in automated solutions, has there been any advace or even partial solution discussed, or better yet, implemented? Regards. $$\ From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 28 03:51:52 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23494; Wed, 28 Jul 93 10:18:34 GMT Received: from CS.UWindsor.Ca (csgate.lamf.uwindsor.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23474; Wed, 28 Jul 93 03:18:11 PDT Received: by CS.UWindsor.Ca (4.1/SMI-DDN) id AA26556; Wed, 28 Jul 93 06:18:34 EDT Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 03:27:12 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Consistent MLM syntax Message-Id: <930728.032712-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 27 Jul 93 23:08:20 -0700 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 27 Jul 93 23:08:20 -0700 Brent Chapman said: ... ># >of half-way natural compatibility that's there now just annoys folks. ># But it need not annoy people who could use an interface on their ># machine which took care of those diffs if/when present. >If you're going to write such a front-end, what platform would you >create it for? UNIX? Which flavor of UNIX? QuickMail? VMS? >Microsoft Mail? Profs? How many other mailers can you name that are >all tied, one way or another, to the Internet? I realize that a lot of you may be programmers of some kind, so let me first state that I'm writing this as a decidedly *casual* programmer who always tries to look at things the way a user would who isn't really interested in computers but simply USES them. BTW, in what meaning do you use the word "mailer" here? First of all, I would like to see it defined in such a way that it could be implemented on any opsys/machine. This in itself would be quite a task, if you will excuse the not-so-slight understatement. Second, the quality of the definition should be so high that there would be no need for others to make implementations that work like it but are slightly different. Does that sounds like heresy? ;-) Third, it should not need to be tied in with any other specific product in order to work as advertised. Ie., it need not HAVE to make use of for example Elm to send/receive mail items; any MUA should do as well as any other. Fourth, the thing should have two areas which are user-configurable, with one or more sets of defaults: - The side the user sees. If the user for example wants it to look like an Amiga even though the machine is VM/CMS running Unix, then it should be possible. This probably means some sort of "plug-in" module concept which the user (re)configures to display/ accept the neutral I/O to/from the thing. - The network side. Here one could have a plug-in module for each type of MLM, with each type of module translating the syntax for one particular type of MLM into a neutral syntax. Note: I have no idea how the concept of for example Z39.50 might fit in, since I haven't read a detailed definition of it yet. And this is just a suggestion as food for thought, though the points of user-configurability are so highly desirable that they should not be nibbled at. To the contrary, they should be expanded in every possible way. Fifth, methinks the concepts of ease-of-use and open-endedness are of prime importance here. Ie., adding another MLM-translation module should not imply "difficult" things like (re)compilation; *any* user should be able to do it by for example simply stating the wish in some config file. Sixth, I canNOT write such a thing. By that I don't mean that it's too HUGE for me (since that was obvious from the start). What I mean is that the only programming language I can use to some extent is REXX. Though I've written a subset of "make" for VM/CMS, some DVMs (daemons is the VMS/Unix term I think), and a number of editor macros (etc.), I would *not* call myself a programmer. Seventh, it should now also be obvious that I'm looking for people who are interested in such a project, willing to see it from the user's side and implement it thus, even if darned near impossible from the programmer's side. Eighth, this thing will need much discussion. A part (don't ask me how much) is obviously relevant to people who are heavily into some aspect of MLMs. As soon as I can find someone who's willing to host a relevant list, I'd like to announce it on any and all MLM-related mailing-lists/newsgroups. I hope to see a number of you join in various capacities, even if only as monitors, though preferably as active members. >We've only relatively recently gotten to the point where we can pass >simple text messages more or less reliably between these various >systems. Simple text is pretty much the "lingua franca" of the >electronic world. I think, for that reason, we're going to have to >keep putting the "smarts" in the back-ends, not the front-ends, for >the forseeable future. I agree that having smart back-ends will be necessary for a *very* long time to come, probably forever. I do feel however that putting effort in smart front-ends is becoming a viable concept. Take Gopher for instance. The "smarts" are clearly in the front end, in the sense that it doesn't really matter how smart the server is. It's the client which determines how a user sees it. Mm.. Can mailing list servers be approached by Gopher clients? If not, could it be made possible? Regards. $ From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 28 12:15:47 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23661; Wed, 28 Jul 93 12:15:47 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23654; Wed, 28 Jul 93 05:15:38 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa28319; 28 Jul 93 8:08 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA19215; Wed, 28 Jul 93 08:11:55 EDT Message-Id: <9307281211.AA19215@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 08:11:54 EDT In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof" "Re: Consistent MLM syntax" (Jul 28, 3:27am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: "F. Scott Ophof" , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Consistent MLM syntax Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > I agree that having smart back-ends will be necessary for a *very* > long time to come, probably forever. I do feel however that putting > effort in smart front-ends is becoming a viable concept. > Take Gopher for instance. The "smarts" are clearly in the front > end, in the sense that it doesn't really matter how smart the server > is. It's the client which determines how a user sees it. Ideally, you would have a client-server implementation such as Gopher to handle user interaction with the list processor software. Then, each user would learn just one client implementation, sites would teach their own users, and provide support for their own users, and list managers would only have to run a simple server program. The problem is that this isn't going to happen for a while. First, all the MLM authors would have to agree on a protocol, and agreed to implement a server. Then, folks would have to write and install clients on a myriad of operating systems. But even if all this happened (which it won't), there would still be millions (?) of users who couldn't access the servers simply because they are not on TCP/IP networks. You've got BITNET users, plus all the commercial systems such as compuserve and MCI. IMHO, the main reason the consensus won't be reached is the security issues are unsolvable at this time. A totally open system is possible (anyone can add or remove any address from any list), but a secure system (such as Tasos') requires that each user have a password for their "list-account". I believe that this would be a nightmare for list managers, since it's unlikely that large numbers of users would remember their passwords for a system they might only use once a year or so. > Mm.. Can mailing list servers be approached by Gopher clients? > If not, could it be made possible? I'm pretty sure it is possible, but a bit kludgy. Gopher wasn't really designed for this. But the protocol is simple, and servers could be easily written. One big stumbling block is that current Gopher servers do not receive a username, just the host name, so users would have to enter their e-mail address manually, which is beyond the capability of many e-mail users. Also, you have the security issues mentioned above. --Mike From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 28 14:27:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23895; Wed, 28 Jul 93 14:27:39 GMT Received: from Princeton.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23888; Wed, 28 Jul 93 07:27:32 PDT Received: by Princeton.EDU (5.65b/2.97/princeton) id AA01603; Wed, 28 Jul 93 10:28:46 -0400 Received: by silence.princeton.nj.us (5.65c/1.101) id AA21262; Wed, 28 Jul 1993 10:27:55 -0400 Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 10:27:55 -0400 From: Jay Plett Message-Id: <199307281427.AA21262@silence.princeton.nj.us> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: The upcoming random house book. Reply-To: jay@Princeton.EDU Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Isn't this problem exactly the sort of thing that the DNS was designed to solve? > Granted, when addresses for a mailing list get published, you have to > be slightly careful about maintaining whatever address was published. > Fortunately, this is _very_ simple to do, via MX records Wouldn't it be nice if the NIC would establish a new top-level domain, .list, populated with MX records pointing to mailing list hosts? So that, for example, the list-managers posting address would be list-managers@list-managers.list. Then it wouldn't matter where the list happens to be maintained this week. A list's address would never change, and it would be easier for users to remember. When a list dissolves, mail would bounce as "unknown host", meaning "list is gone", and no host would be bothered with the next 5 years of bogus mail. > ... and forwards in alias files(if a mailing list has > moved). It's really not a big deal. With lists the size of sun-managers, forwarding could be a very big deal. If the MX records were in a domain independent of the list's home, forwarding would never be needed. ...jay From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 28 10:19:34 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA24401; Wed, 28 Jul 93 16:53:58 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA24393; Wed, 28 Jul 93 09:53:51 PDT Message-Id: <9307281653.AA24393@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: The upcoming random house book. In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 28 Jul 1993 10:27:55 -0400 Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 09:53:49 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk # Isn't this problem exactly the sort of thing that the DNS # was designed to solve? # # > Granted, when addresses for a mailing list get published, you have to # > be slightly careful about maintaining whatever address was published. # > Fortunately, this is _very_ simple to do, via MX records # # Wouldn't it be nice if the NIC would establish a new top-level # domain, .list, populated with MX records pointing to mailing # list hosts? So that, for example, the list-managers posting # address would be list-managers@list-managers.list. Then it # wouldn't matter where the list happens to be maintained this # week. A list's address would never change, and it would be # easier for users to remember. When a list dissolves, mail would # bounce as "unknown host", meaning "list is gone", and no host # would be bothered with the next 5 years of bogus mail. Somebody could register "LISTS.NET" or "LISTS.ORG", but that's only a very small part of what it would take to make this work. The first problem is that somebody would then have to administer the domain. Keeping track of thousands of users on a single list is difficult; keeping track of thousands of lists should be at least as difficult. The second problem is that the mailer on each host that's home to a mailing list would have to be hacked (in the sendmail.cf, for instance, if you're using sendmail) to recognize ".list.org" as an alias for that host, or to translate @.list.org" to "@" or some such. That makes it a lot more difficult than it already is to set up a mailing list. On the other hand, if we were going to adopt this "new architecture" for mailing lists, why the redundancy? I.e., why not "request@.list.org" and "submit@.list.org", instead of "@.list.org" and "-request@.list.org"? It's an intriguing idea. # > ... and forwards in alias files(if a mailing list has # > moved). It's really not a big deal. # # With lists the size of sun-managers, forwarding could be a very # big deal. If the MX records were in a domain independent of # the list's home, forwarding would never be needed. Speaking as someone who manages a large number of mailing lists _and_ a large number of DNS domains, managing DNS is much more difficult than managing mailing lists, and that's fairly difficult to begin with. Working with DNS today is like working in assembly language; there are lots of fascinating ways to shoot yourself in the foot without even realizing it. -Brent -- Brent Chapman Great Circle Associates Brent@GreatCircle.COM 1057 West Dana Street +1 415 962 0841 Mountain View, CA 94041 From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jul 28 20:43:02 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27005; Wed, 28 Jul 93 20:43:02 GMT Received: from st6000.sct.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26998; Wed, 28 Jul 93 13:42:54 PDT Received: by st6000.sct.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA33207; Wed, 28 Jul 1993 16:37:49 -0400 Message-Id: <9307282037.AA33207@st6000.sct.edu> Subject: Beginner's Question's results To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List-Managers Mailing List) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 16:37:48 EDT Cc: hbarnes@st6000.sct.edu From: tfore@st6000.sct.edu (Tied Up In Yello) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Well, I got a few very good responses to my question as to how to start out a small mailing list or two. The one I favored the most was just adding the Mailing aliases to the aliases file so the mail is directed either to me, or to a file listing the addresses of the members. Would you believe that the "powers that be" here said "no"?? All I asked for was the addition of six lines to the aliases file. The following: Key-West: :include:/u/b/tfore/Mail/Key-West/members Key-West-Request: tfore Owner-Key-West: tfore Kathy-Ireland: :include:/u/b/tfore/Mail/Kathy-Ireland/members Kathy-Ireland-Request: tfore Owner-Kathy-Ireland: tfore And they said "no." Their reasoning is something along the lines of they can't give every student who wants one an alias, even though faculty and staff have their own mailing lists. Can someone please explain to me this elitist point of view?? Can someone tell me what is so BAD about what I asked for?? Can someone tell me the arguments I could put forth in my own favor?? Can someone tell me why they acted like it would be oh so much trouble?? I just don't understand. I'm not talking about lists with a thousand members, or even a hundred. Maybe a dozen or so each, that's all. Someone please explain to me their point of view, whether or not it is wrong, and what I can do to convince them? ____________________________________________________________________________ Troy Fore -- tfore@st6000.sct.edu -- Eliphion (in IRC) Made from Earth... Drinks Water... Breathes Air... Makes Fire... Feels PAIN. From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 29 00:51:55 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29846; Thu, 29 Jul 93 00:51:55 GMT Received: from Athena.MIT.EDU (ATHENA-AS-WELL.MIT.EDU) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29839; Wed, 28 Jul 93 17:51:47 PDT Received: from NINJA.MIT.EDU by Athena.MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA29403; Wed, 28 Jul 93 20:52:58 EDT From: pshuang@Athena.MIT.EDU Received: by ninja.MIT.EDU (5.57/4.7) id AA27884; Wed, 28 Jul 93 20:52:56 -0400 Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 20:52:56 -0400 Message-Id: <9307290052.AA27884@ninja.MIT.EDU> To: tfore@st6000.sct.edu Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: Tied Up In Yello's message of Wed, 28 Jul 93 16:37:48 EDT <9307282037.AA33207@st6000.sct.edu> Subject: Beginner's Question's results Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Can someone please explain to me this elitist point of view?? Can someone > tell me what is so BAD about what I asked for?? Can someone tell me the > arguments I could put forth in my own favor?? Can someone tell me why > they acted like it would be oh so much trouble?? I just don't understand. I may be able to help you understand their point of view by talking a little about Project Athena at MIT. Here anyone with an Athena account can request and create mailing lists, which are easily maintainable through a home-grown list database called Moira. However, Athena often seems "fascist" to users when they are told that they cannot change their usernames (with the exception that within a few days of their account creation *IF* and only if they have chosen an username which qualified as a swear word -- embarassing isn't sufficient reason to justify getting a change). It is true that changing a single user's username doesn't take all *THAT* long for someone to do. However, if just 1% of the registered Athena users change their username every year, that costs hundreds of hours of administrators' time. Scalability should be an important issue when administrators decide what services they can and cannot offer to users. (You say faculty/staff have mailing lists: are these mailing lists for departments themselves, or arbitrary mailing lists which any faculty/staff member can ask to be created? There is a difference, the scope/impact of the former is much smaller than the latter.) Maybe you're only request six lines of change in the aliases file, and that doesn't seem like much. Consider what happens with hundreds of other users who start up their own small, innocuous mailing lists -- now we're talking about additional thousands of lines of changes. What happens when people graduate and their accounts go away, along with their local mini-aliases file? And not all users will be clueful so they might misformat the entries in their mini-aliases file, and that could confuse the mail delivery agent and completely halt mail service in the worst case until a system administrator has a chance to put the pieces back together. Furthermore, mailing lists often generate bounces to the postmasters which has to be dealt with. What kind of machine is the mailer running on? Many lists (even small ones) can tax the performance of the hardware. (MIT.EDU and ATHENA.MIT.EDU are heavily loaded DECstation 5000's that deliver 300,000 pieces of mail a week, much of which is Athena-based mailing lists traffic.) Etc. In short, I think characterizing the attitudes of your school's system administrators as "ELITIST" is probably unfair. --- Yours in Leadership, Friendship, and Service, Ping Huang (INTERNET: pshuang@athena.mit.edu), probably speaking for himself Generality, Speed, or Spiffy Features: pick any one of three. From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 29 00:55:21 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29863; Thu, 29 Jul 93 00:55:21 GMT Received: from st6000.sct.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29856; Wed, 28 Jul 93 17:55:13 PDT Received: by st6000.sct.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA28647; Wed, 28 Jul 1993 20:50:10 -0400 Message-Id: <9307290050.AA28647@st6000.sct.edu> Subject: Beginner's Idea To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List-Managers Mailing List) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 20:50:09 EDT Cc: hbarnes@st6000.sct.edu, bharbort@st6000.sct.edu From: tfore@st6000.sct.edu (Tied Up In Yello) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Ok, how about this approach? 1. I am studying to become a SysAdmin. Running a Mailing list can be valuable experience in dealing with the quircks of mail-handling. 2. We have been talking about aliases, and how there are too many students for them all to have aliases. Well, I'm not just talking about an alias. It's not like I'm saying tfore@sct.edu just doesn't say enough, I want to be The-Big-Stud@sct.edu. No. I want to run a couple of mailing lists, which requires diligence and responsibility on my part. I'm not saying give an alias to everybody, I'm saying that giving an alias to someone who will use it in a working manner for a purpose -- i.e. a mailing list -- might be considered acceptable. If there are any problems in the system because I am not handling the mail right, then remove the aliases. Is this a fair argument? Feedback, please! ____________________________________________________________________________ Troy Fore -- tfore@st6000.sct.edu -- Eliphion (in IRC) Made from Earth... Drinks Water... Breathes Air... Makes Fire... Feels PAIN. From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 29 01:01:37 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29892; Thu, 29 Jul 93 01:01:37 GMT Received: from st6000.sct.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29885; Wed, 28 Jul 93 18:01:28 PDT Received: by st6000.sct.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA25644; Wed, 28 Jul 1993 20:56:25 -0400 Message-Id: <9307290056.AA25644@st6000.sct.edu> Subject: Re: Beginner's Question's results To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List-Managers Mailing List) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 20:56:25 EDT In-Reply-To: <9307290052.AA27884@ninja.MIT.EDU>; from "pshuang@Athena.MIT.EDU" at Jul 28, 93 8:52 pm From: tfore@st6000.sct.edu (Tied Up In Yello) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Valid points. When I said "Elitist" I was referring to the fact that, on our system, the faculty and staff have access to creating their own mailing list, and telnetting. I can't even telnet. I find this offensive. I'm PAYING to go there, while the faculty and staff are PAID to go there. The faculty and staff don't even have to pay their parking tickets here. That, I'm afraid, is elitist. Quantity of students aside, that kind of division of benefits is elitist. IMHO, that is. :) ____________________________________________________________________________ Troy Fore -- tfore@st6000.sct.edu -- Eliphion (in IRC) Made from Earth... Drinks Water... Breathes Air... Makes Fire... Feels PAIN. From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 29 02:41:55 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA00220; Thu, 29 Jul 93 02:41:55 GMT Received: from st6000.sct.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA00213; Wed, 28 Jul 93 19:41:43 PDT Received: by st6000.sct.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA34703; Wed, 28 Jul 1993 22:36:38 -0400 Message-Id: <9307290236.AA34703@st6000.sct.edu> Subject: The Beginner gets a glimmer... To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List-Managers Mailing List) Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 22:36:38 EDT From: tfore@st6000.sct.edu (Tied Up In Yello) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I appreciate everyone's responses, explaining to me the way things are viewed from the administrative point of view. I believe I've always sympathized with it, but I got a little peeved when they can't afford to do one little thing for me. I officially thank everyone for putting me back on track. But, I am still left with a problem. As I stated previously, I am trying to think up other points of view, to maybe convince the powers that be that it's ok to give me those few aliases. The suggestion of getting a faculty member to act as a sort of "sponser" is a good one, and I think that I'll try that route. Or, getting another account on another system that offers that option, is a possibility. I am looking into both. What I need now are arguments FOR setting up those aliases for me. I'll tell you up front, that the two little mailing lists I'd start would NOT be technical in any way. I've already suggested a couple of ideas -- the experience, and the fact that it's not just an alias, but a responsibility. Not very good, I will admit. Most of you HAVE lists. How did YOU get over these obsticles? If I can't even get the aliases, there's no way I could ever run a MLM. Did you ever feel like you're being thwarted at every turn?? I know, I know, starting a little mailing list is a petty ambition, but hey, it's an ambition. :) Last, and least, this has to do with mailing lists if you really stretch the term... It was suggested to me to simply set up personal mail aliases to sent my mail to the "list" of people I want in the list. Well, I'm trying that. I'm using Elm, and I set up the alias: Key-West = Fellow Key West Fans = :include:/u/b/tfore/Mail/Key-West/members I'm getting the mail bounced back to me, tho, with the error: 554 :include:/u/b/tfore/Mail/Key-West/members... sendmail: 0832-178 Cannot mail directly to :include:files. What am I doing wrong? Thanks (for everything) in advance! ____________________________________________________________________________ Troy Fore -- tfore@st6000.sct.edu -- Eliphion (in IRC) Made from Earth... Drinks Water... Breathes Air... Makes Fire... Feels PAIN. From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 29 12:48:57 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03500; Thu, 29 Jul 93 12:48:57 GMT Received: from d.ecc.engr.uky.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03493; Thu, 29 Jul 93 05:48:49 PDT Received: from s.ecc.engr.uky.edu by d.ecc.engr.uky.edu (5.59/25-eef) id AA04482; Thu, 29 Jul 93 08:11:09 EDT Received: by s.ecc.engr.uky.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14714; Thu, 29 Jul 93 08:24:40 EDT Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 08:24:40 EDT From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Message-Id: <9307291224.AA14714@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu> To: pshuang@Athena.MIT.EDU, tfore@st6000.sct.edu Subject: Re: Beginner's Question's results Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >Consider what happens with hundreds of other users who start up their own >small, innocuous mailing lists [...] What happens when people graduate and >their accounts go away [...] And not all users will be clueful [...] that >could confuse the mail delivery agent and completely halt mail service [...] What you've said is absolutely correct. HOWEVER....... I see no problem with a bit of experimentation. Almost every admin can create dire "what if everyone did this" scenaria, but the simple fact is that NOT every user is going to do these things or make these mistakes. Here's what I tell prospective list managers: - Sure, I can do that for you. - Here's your alias "foofraw" -- "foofraw-request" and "foofraw- owner" point to you. - Create the file /usr/.../.../members. This will be your list of subscribers. - When someone sends a subscription request, reply to it and request confirmation; this makes sure that you can deliver email to them at that address. - If it's confirmed, add them to /usr/.../.../members. If you have problems, come to me; we might need to hack on the address. - If your list grows, we may need to move it around or change to a digest format; I can show you how to do that if needed. - If lots of people start requesting mailing lists, I might have to shut them all down -- we don't have the resources to support hundreds of lists. I have four or five user-managed lists, plus several that I manage; the aggregate subscriber count is less than 200, and even our old AT&T 3B2s are handling the load quite well.......remember that we aren't talking about sun-spots here. 8) >In short, I think characterizing the attitudes of your school's system >administrators as "ELITIST" is probably unfair. I'd probably use "gunshy" instead of "elitist".........why not give it a shot? If everyone involved understands that problems will result in termination, I don't see a problem with the attempt. If you're still going to be picky, why not require a "sponsor" from among the faculty and staff? If a user wants to run a mailing list, I consider it an opportunity to teach them more about networking/email -- this is a Very Good Thing. --Wes From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 29 13:27:31 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03723; Thu, 29 Jul 93 13:27:31 GMT Received: from antares.mcs.anl.gov (antares9.mcs.anl.gov) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03716; Thu, 29 Jul 93 06:27:23 PDT Received: from skeeve.mcs.anl.gov by antares.mcs.anl.gov with SMTP id AA04918 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Thu, 29 Jul 1993 08:27:06 -0500 Message-Id: <199307291327.AA04918@antares.mcs.anl.gov> To: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) Cc: pshuang@Athena.MIT.EDU, tfore@st6000.sct.edu, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Beginner's Question's results In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 29 Jul 1993 08:24:40 EDT." <9307291224.AA14714@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu> Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1993 08:27:03 -0500 From: Gene Rackow Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk One other thing to add to your "todo" list is to have a "readme" file for the list. There is nothing worse than having to determine what lists are what, who they were really set up for, what the intended audience ws, etc after several years. Also what happens when the student leave? Either it gets handed off or it dies. I have way too many lists that were set up before I even started here that are from what I can tell just wasting entries in the alias tables, but cleaning up is a real chore. Many of the lists were created without a -request address and had group write to a large number of people on the :include: files. Some of these lists get mail once a quarter or less, but they ae important...probably out of date, but important. Another thing that I would add to my list is that the person maintaining the list shows a reasonable understanding of the system. What format the "include" file needs to be in, etc. Ever have someone create a forward file with a RTF editor? Looks good on his screen.. ;-( Also some basic on what to do about bounces, etc. This may just be sitting down with the user for a few minutes and making sure they understand, but there may also be some history you have of the user that comes to play for reason to say no. Demonstrated lack of comprehension or effort to learn on their own. (Why doesn't "function" work instead of reading the man pages) --Gene From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jul 29 19:57:59 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA06605; Thu, 29 Jul 93 19:57:59 GMT Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA06598; Thu, 29 Jul 93 12:57:52 PDT Received: from spool.uu.net (via LOCALHOST) by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA02632; Thu, 29 Jul 93 15:59:06 -0400 Received: from telesoft.UUCP by uucp6.uu.net with UUCP/RMAIL (queueing-rmail) id 155752.23668; Thu, 29 Jul 1993 15:57:52 EDT Received: from lone.alsys.com by flash.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2b) id AA17253; Thu, 29 Jul 93 12:34:24 PDT Message-Id: <9307291934.AA17253@flash.alsys.com> Received: by lone.alsys.com (4.1/TS-1.2) id AA03957; Thu, 29 Jul 93 12:34:23 PDT From: mnejat@lone.alsys.com Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1993 12:34:23 PDT In-Reply-To: Scott J Ellentuch "Re: Listserver 6.0 tasos question" (Jul 24, 14:13) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.2 4/12/91) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Listserver 6.0 tasos question Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Recently I sent a mail to this mailing list asking a question specific to Tasos Listserver which I got flamed for ( but that's O.K. I had no idea I was doing something wrong. I should have read the information better ). Scott J Ellentuch gave me teh following info: (Thanks Scott)! > Mehregan, join the UNIX-LISTSERV list... > > LISTSERVER@STORMKING.COM > > SUBSCRIBE UNIX-LISTSERV Mehregan Nejat So I followed Scott's instruction but nothing has happend yet (i.e. No subscription acknowledment). So I checked the lists served by this listserver, and there is no UNIX-LISTSERV list at this site. Can anyone point me to a mailing list that I can join which is specific to Tasos listserver or one that I can ask questions and hopefully be able to answer other people's questions. Sorry if this mailing list is not designed for this type of discussions, but I don't know of any other resource at this point. --Mehregan Nejat From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 30 03:28:55 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA07781; Fri, 30 Jul 93 03:28:55 GMT Received: from lokkur.dexter.mi.us (dexter-gw.dexter.msen.com) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA07774; Thu, 29 Jul 93 20:28:41 PDT Received: by lokkur.dexter.mi.us (5.65c/IDA-1.2.8) id AA21727; Thu, 29 Jul 1993 23:28:04 -0400 From: Steve Simmons Message-Id: <199307300328.AA21727@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Subject: Re: The Beginner gets a glimmer... To: tfore@st6000.sct.edu (Tied Up In Yello) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1993 23:28:04 -0400 (EDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <9307290236.AA34703@st6000.sct.edu> from "Tied Up In Yello" at Jul 28, 93 10:36:38 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL11] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1765 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Not to put too fine a point on it, but the idea of letting the non-technical staff at ITI run their own mailing lists gave me hives. But a couple of years ago, we developed a utility to let users define mail aliases whenever they wanted to. After being asked enough times, I let a couple of fairly responsible folks set up mailing lists using the :include: feature talked about earlier on this list. It's actually worked out pretty well. However, in some sense I pre-selected for success -- o One user wanted to take over an existing list that had lost its home. As such, he had a great deal of help from the old list manager and the advantage of a list which consisted of email-savvy people. o Another user has a very small list, but $$$ to spend hiring professional help to run the list (me). It turns out he doesn't need much help, but it was a deciding factor in permitting the list. In a few other cases, I've said yes but sternly told them that (a) they get no help from me, and (b) if the list causes trouble I'll pull it. So far this has kept the non-savvy folks away from lists. One tactic I've thought of but not tried -- whenever someone asks if they can set up a mailing list, for one week they get copied on all MAILER-DAEMON mail. If they can tell me what's wrong with the messages, they get a list. One critical difference between "Tied Up In Yello" and ITI: ITI does not have everyone leave in June. If I were "Yello"s admin I'd say absolutely no, because come June all those mailing lists are going to blow higher than up, and the admin will be left holding the bag. Yes, setting up the :include: takes only a few minutes (zero time at ITI). Cleaning up for the next year is quite another story. From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jul 30 15:05:18 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09359; Fri, 30 Jul 93 15:05:18 GMT Received: from ub-gate.UB.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09352; Fri, 30 Jul 93 08:05:10 PDT Received: from bolis.UUCP by ub-gate.UB.com (4.1/SMI-4.1[UB-1.8]) id AA28024; Fri, 30 Jul 93 08:06:27 PDT Received: by hock.bolis.sf-bay.org (Smail3.1.28.1 #6) id m0oLvrq-0002waC; Fri, 30 Jul 93 07:55 PDT Message-Id: From: Alan Millar Subject: Re: The Beginner gets a glimmer... To: tfore@st6000.sct.edu (Tied Up In Yello) Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1993 07:55:32 -0800 (PDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <9307290236.AA34703@st6000.sct.edu> from "Tied Up In Yello" at Jul 28, 93 10:36:38 pm Reply-To: Alan Millar X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1975 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Verily didst Tied Up In Yello rise up and spake thus: > > Most of you HAVE lists. > How did YOU get over these obsticles? Well, I set up a uucp connection and started running my own mail system. That's the ultimate in control and responsibility you're looking for :-) It doesn't take much, other than effort. I used an IBM XT with a 20mb drive and 2400bps modem running Waffle for two years. It's cheap and it works. I finally scraped together a pretty pathetic 386 system, and now I'm running Linux and the whole works. So when they asked at work "has anyone done this before" I was set. If you're looking for experience, there's no substitute for running your own system. > I know, I know, starting a little mailing list is a petty ambition, but > hey, it's an ambition. :) You gotta start somewhere! :-) > Last, and least, this has to do with mailing lists if you really stretch > the term... It was suggested to me to simply set up personal mail aliases > to sent my mail to the "list" of people I want in the list. > Well, I'm trying that. I'm using Elm, and I set up the alias: > > Key-West = Fellow Key West Fans = :include:/u/b/tfore/Mail/Key-West/members > What am I doing wrong? You need to explicitly list the addresses separated by commas. Key-West = Fellow Key West Fans = fan1@somewhere, fan2@somwhere.else In elm 2.4 at least (I don't know about earlier versions) there is an option on the alias screen to edit the file, so you can use your favorite editor. Once you manage *this*, then you have a much better chance of getting another alias. Do your own elm-based list for a few months, and then you can *prove* that you can deal with bounces, etc. - Alan ---- ,,,, Alan Millar amillar@bolis.SF-Bay.org __oo \ System Administrator =___/ Reason notwithstanding, the universe continues on unabated.