From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jun 1 17:37:03 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23178; Tue, 1 Jun 93 17:37:03 GMT Received: from proteus.arc.nasa.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23170; Tue, 1 Jun 93 10:36:47 PDT Received: Tue, 1 Jun 93 10:38:10 PDT from localhost.arc.nasa.gov by proteus.arc.nasa.gov (4.1/1.2) Message-Id: <9306011738.AA01170@proteus.arc.nasa.gov> To: mlist-rfc@proteus.arc.nasa.gov Cc: rsmith@proteus.arc.nasa.gov Subject: Mailing List Manager RFC In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 27 May 93 11:39:58 +0200." <9305270945.AA20365@hathi> Date: Tue, 01 Jun 93 10:38:10 PDT From: rsmith@proteus.arc.nasa.gov Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I received the following reply from berg@pool.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (Stephen R. van den Berg) >>Is anybody else out there concerned about the possibility of somebody who >>doesn't read mailing lists and newsgroups devoted to mailing lists writing >>RFCs about mailing lists? >Well, somebody who doesn't read mailing lists and newsgroups devoted >to mailing lists writing RFCs about mailing lists (oof! take a deep >breath..) might check the file "rfc.index" once in a while, or >people writing such RFCs might post to lists/groups that are devoted >to mailing lists (LSTSRV-L, CRENLIST, LISTCREN, LISTEARN, ListNix, >List-Managers, etc.), or set up a list or group devoted to mailing >lists writing RFCs about mailing lists (and advertise it on for >example MAIL-L. (grin) --------- I received only two flames regarding my proposal to initiate an RFC governing Mailing List Managers, after my admission that I do not subscribe to certain newsgroups. It would seem to me that with such a total lack of convention over Mailing List Managers, for someone to step forward and volunteer their time and effort is a big step in the right direction, and those few small minded people who feel that monitoring a certain newsgroup for several years is a prerequisite are more than welcome to continue plodding along without a standard or convention. As for myself, I have been busily adding my address to any and all newsgroups and mailing lists that seem to deal with this subject, so that I can come up to speed and follow the threads. My group, here as NASA-Ames, is chartered to promote improved computer communications (among other things), and therefore, I could justify the time and effort required by such a project to our management. This effort was conceived after we attempted to take all of our current mailing lists, which were managed by a variety of methods, and standardize on one mailing list manager and one central machine. After looking over the field of available mailing list managers we found that there was no established convention governing the basic command set or the protocol. One manager responds to a "list" command by returning a list of subscribers, another returns a list of lists managed by the manager, and yet another returns a list of the postings in the archive. To communicate administratively with one manager you send mail to listName-request with a command in the subject line, another manager wants the command(s) in the body, and a third manager doesn't even acknowledge the *-request format. We therefore felt that this area could benefit enormously from establishing some ordinary conventions and that we would make a meaningful contribution. If another such effort is underway, we will be more than happy to lend our support in whatever way needed. If not, our approach is to initially query all of the newsgroups that seemed to be related (done!). I will next re-post the query to other newsgroups that were mentioned in responses I received. Then, if the project seems viable, I will post my proposal to initiate an RFC to both the newsgroups and those persons who responded to my initial posts. In that way I hope to get a concensus concerning the desirability of creating an RFC governing Mailing List Managers. BTW: That concensus has already come through loud and clear... The vast majority of responses I have received so far have been in enthusiastic support of such a project. To date I have received 27 replies, mostly of the following flavor: --------- Writes: [...] >Well, I am in the process of writing such a package (mailing list >management with digest management and archive management) as an >extension to a generic mail server (mailagent 3.0) written in perl. >Only mailagent 2.9 was released at this date, and it did not have >those extensions. > >I'm considering making the extension majordomo-like, but since there are >some parts from majordomo which I do not like, I might change things a >little bit. Having an RFC on that topic would be great (since then I would >not have to ask myself any questions -- I'd just follow the recipe ;-) --------- Next, I would propose to convene a core committee consisting largly of the authors of the currently popular major packages, with Associate Voting Members made up of any other interested persons (somewhat following the structure of the MIT X Consortium). I will offer to author the initial draft, based on feedback obtained from the Core Committee. This draft would then be submitted to the entire group for comment. I would expect there to be several drafts before a good concensus is obtained and am prepared to committ to the time and effort required. This post is being sent to all those persons that have so far indicated an interest is such a project. Your feedback will largely determine what my next step will be. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Any opinion presented here is my own, and does not reflect the policy of my employer, NASA, or the Ames Research Center. Roger Smith Sterling Software at NASA-Ames Research Center rsmith@proteus.arc.nasa.gov - If change is -- inevitable -- predictable -- beneficial -- doesn't logic demand that you be a part of it? One man cannot summon the future. But one man can change the present! -- Kirk and the Alternate Spock, "Mirror, Mirror," stardate unknown + From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jun 1 18:12:30 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23400; Tue, 1 Jun 93 18:12:30 GMT Received: from proteus.arc.nasa.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23383; Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:12:10 PDT Received: Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:13:11 PDT from cs.bu.edu (CS-MAIL.BU.EDU) by proteus.arc.nasa.gov (4.1/1.2) Received: from CSD.BU.EDU by cs.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA06135; Tue, 1 Jun 93 14:13:07 -0400 From: tasos@cs.bu.edu (Anastasios Kotsikonas) Received: from CS.BU.EDU by csd.bu.edu (5.61+++/Spike-2.1) id AA01348; Tue, 1 Jun 93 14:13:06 -0400 Received: by cs (4.1/Spike-2.1) id AA09416; Tue, 1 Jun 93 14:13:05 EDT Message-Id: <9306011813.AA09416@cs> Subject: Re: Mailing List Manager RFC To: rsmith@proteus.arc.nasa.gov Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 14:13:03 -0400 (EDT) Cc: mlist-rfc@proteus.arc.nasa.gov In-Reply-To: <9306011738.AA01170@proteus.arc.nasa.gov> from "rsmith@proteus.arc.nasa.gov" at Jun 1, 93 10:38:10 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 910 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Next, I would propose to convene a core committee consisting largly > of the authors of the currently popular major packages, with Associate > Voting Members made up of any other interested persons (somewhat > following the structure of the MIT X Consortium). I will offer to > author the initial draft, based on feedback obtained from the Core > Committee. This draft would then be submitted to the entire group for > comment. I would expect there to be several drafts before a good > concensus is obtained and am prepared to committ to the time and > effort required. > > This post is being sent to all those persons that have so far > indicated an interest is such a project. Your feedback will largely > determine what my next step will be. I would be glad to participate in it although my time is very limited. However, I do believe such an RFC is long overdue. Eagerly awaiting your replies, Tasos From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jun 1 18:26:05 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23532; Tue, 1 Jun 93 18:26:05 GMT Received: from netcom3.netcom.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23524; Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:25:54 PDT Received: by netcom3.netcom.com (5.65/SMI-4.1/Netcom) id AA03218; Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:28:01 -0700 From: phoffman@netcom.com (Paul E. Hoffman) Message-Id: <9306011828.AA03218@netcom3.netcom.com> Subject: News group reflectors? To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List Maintainers list) Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:28:01 PDT X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Where do I find out about "reflector" programs that read (and hopefully digestify) news groups and send the articles out to a mailing list? >>Paul Hoffman From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jun 1 19:23:12 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23785; Tue, 1 Jun 93 19:23:12 GMT Received: from master.deshaw.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23778; Tue, 1 Jun 93 12:22:57 PDT Received: from ur.deshaw.com by master.deshaw.com with SMTP id AA13829 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 1 Jun 1993 15:04:06 -0400 Received: by ur.deshaw.com (5.65c/DESHAWCLIENT-1.0) id AA19530 for kos; Tue, 1 Jun 1993 15:03:54 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 15:03:54 -0400 Message-Id: <199306011903.AA19530@ur.deshaw.com> From: Kimmo Suominen To: phoffman@netcom.com (Paul E. Hoffman) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List Maintainers list) Subject: News group reflectors? In-Reply-To: <9306011828.AA03218@netcom3.netcom.com>; from Paul E. Hoffman on 1 June 93 11:28:01 PDT References: <9306011828.AA03218@netcom3.netcom.com> X-Attribution: Kim Mailer: VM 5.32 (beta) / GNU Emacs 18.58.34 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>>>> "Paul" == Paul E Hoffman writes: Paul> Where do I find out about "reflector" programs that read (and hopefully Paul> digestify) news groups and send the articles out to a mailing list? I use newsdigest. It digestifies the artivles, and uses awk (or what ever you like) to filter interesting articles. It's somewhere on nic.funet.fi below /pub/unix, at least. Probably somewhere in the States as well... Cheers Kim ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ( Kimmo Suominen ! Internet: Kimmo.Suominen@lut.fi ) ( "That's what ! Bitnet: KIM@FINFILES // Funet: LUOTI::KIM ) ( I think" ! Lappeenranta University of Technology ** Finland ) ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' From List-Managers-Owner Tue Jun 1 19:28:39 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23808; Tue, 1 Jun 93 19:28:39 GMT Received: from proteus.arc.nasa.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23801; Tue, 1 Jun 93 12:28:27 PDT Received: Tue, 1 Jun 93 12:29:50 PDT from relay2.UU.NET by proteus.arc.nasa.gov (4.1/1.2) Received: from mycroft.GreatCircle.COM by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA01244; Tue, 1 Jun 93 14:27:20 -0400 Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA23520; Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:25:23 PDT Message-Id: <9306011825.AA23520@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: rsmith@proteus.arc.nasa.gov Cc: mlist-rfc@proteus.arc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: Mailing List Manager RFC In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 01 Jun 93 10:38:10 PDT Date: Tue, 01 Jun 93 11:25:21 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Subscribing one mailing list to another, without at least notifying (if not asking) the manager of the first list, as you appear to have done with the List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM and mlist-rfc@proteus.arc.nasa.gov mailing lists, is rude at best and downright anti-social at worst. Please remove "List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM" from the "mlist-rfc" mailing list. I encourage you to post an announcement List-Managers of the creation of the "mlist-rfc" list; tell us what its charter is, and how we can subscribe. I encourage you to forward occasional progress reports and items of interest to List-Managers. I do NOT, however, think it's appropriate for ALL the traffic of "mlist-rfc" (whatever that traffic might eventually be) to be cross-posted to List-Managers. -Brent (List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM) -- 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 Jun 2 15:27:37 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26565; Wed, 2 Jun 93 15:27:37 GMT Received: from proteus.arc.nasa.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA26558; Wed, 2 Jun 93 08:27:29 PDT Received: Wed, 2 Jun 93 08:28:42 PDT from localhost.arc.nasa.gov by proteus.arc.nasa.gov (4.1/1.2) Message-Id: <9306021528.AA11230@proteus.arc.nasa.gov> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Mailing List Manager RFC In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 01 Jun 93 11:25:21 PDT." <9306011825.AA23520@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> Date: Wed, 02 Jun 93 08:28:42 PDT From: rsmith@proteus.arc.nasa.gov Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 01 Jun 93, Brent Chapman Wrote: > Subscribing one mailing list to another, without at least notifying > (if not asking) the manager of the first list, as you appear to have > done with the List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM and > mlist-rfc@proteus.arc.nasa.gov mailing lists, is rude at best and > downright anti-social at worst. I'm afraid that there has been a major misconception here. mlist-rfc is NOT a mailing list at this time. It was simply a mail alias that I created to allow me to efficiently reply to all of the responses that I had received. My apologies for the confusion, which was probably caused by my choice of names for the mail alias. > I encourage you to post an announcement List-Managers of the creation > of the "mlist-rfc" list; tell us what its charter is, and how we can > subscribe. I encourage you to forward occasional progress reports and > items of interest to List-Managers. If my proposed Mailing List Manager RFC project ever gets off the ground I WILL create a mailing list for information and discussion, and I will notify all of those persons who have responded to this subject so far. I would also post to the mailing lists, that I am aware of at that time, that are related to the subject. Subscribing to the new list is, and always will be, up to the individual. > I do NOT, however, think it's appropriate for ALL the traffic of > "mlist-rfc" (whatever that traffic might eventually be) to be > cross-posted to List-Managers. I never intended to cross-post to any list and don't feel that cross posting is ever appropriate except under very unusual circumstances. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Any opinion presented here is my own, and does not reflect the policy of my employer, NASA, or the Ames Research Center. Roger Smith Sterling Software at NASA-Ames Research Center rsmith@proteus.arc.nasa.gov - If change is -- inevitable -- predictable -- beneficial -- doesn't logic demand that you be a part of it? One man cannot summon the future. But one man can change the present! -- Kirk and the Alternate Spock, "Mirror, Mirror," stardate unknown + From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jun 2 17:15:38 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27157; Wed, 2 Jun 93 17:15:38 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27143; Wed, 2 Jun 93 10:14:53 PDT Message-Id: <9306021714.AA27143@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: rsmith@proteus.arc.nasa.gov Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Mailing List Manager RFC In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 02 Jun 93 08:28:42 PDT Date: Wed, 02 Jun 93 10:14:52 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk # On Tue, 01 Jun 93, Brent Chapman Wrote: # # > Subscribing one mailing list to another, without at least notifying # > (if not asking) the manager of the first list, as you appear to have # > done with the List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM and # > mlist-rfc@proteus.arc.nasa.gov mailing lists, is rude at best and # > downright anti-social at worst. # # I'm afraid that there has been a major misconception here. mlist-rfc # is NOT a mailing list at this time. It was simply a mail alias that # I created to allow me to efficiently reply to all of the responses # that I had received. My apologies for the confusion, which was # probably caused by my choice of names for the mail alias. You may not have intended it as such, but mlist-rfc@proteus.arc.nasa.gov IS a mailing list (or was, yesterday; I haven't tried it today) that anybody (not just you) could send mail to. Several people (including myself) DID reply to your message, and our replies DID get forwarded from mlist-rfc to List-Managers (plus who knows what else). So, while your intentions may have been to create a private alias for your own use, your actions were to create a public mailing list that included at least one other mailing list, without consulting the membership or the management of that list. -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 Jun 2 18:24:53 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27772; Wed, 2 Jun 93 18:24:53 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27764; Wed, 2 Jun 93 11:24:37 PDT Message-Id: <9306021824.AA27764@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: phoffman@netcom.com (Paul E. Hoffman) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List Maintainers list) Subject: Re: News group reflectors? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 1 Jun 93 11:28:01 PDT Date: Wed, 02 Jun 93 11:24:36 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk # Where do I find out about "reflector" programs that read (and hopefully # digestify) news groups and send the articles out to a mailing list? # # >>Paul Hoffman You could probably use the "digest" program to do that. The trick would be deciding which articles to feed it. Feeding it everything from a certain newsgroup would probably be easy; you'd just need to add it to your system's news "sys" file. Selectivly feeding it articles would be trickier. It's available for anonymous FTP from FTP.GreatCircle.COM, file "pub/list-managers/tools/digest.shar". -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 Jun 2 19:45:53 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28309; Wed, 2 Jun 93 19:45:53 GMT Received: from master.deshaw.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA28302; Wed, 2 Jun 93 12:45:44 PDT Received: from ur.deshaw.com by master.deshaw.com with SMTP id AA23392 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Wed, 2 Jun 1993 15:47:15 -0400 Received: by ur.deshaw.com (5.65c/DESHAWCLIENT-1.0) id AA21100 for kos; Wed, 2 Jun 1993 15:47:07 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 15:47:07 -0400 Message-Id: <199306021947.AA21100@ur.deshaw.com> To: phoffman@netcom.com (Paul E. Hoffman) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List Maintainers list) Subject: Re: News group reflectors? In-Reply-To: <9306021824.AA27764@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>; from Brent Chapman on 2 June 93 11:24:36 -0700 References: <9306021824.AA27764@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> From: Kimmo Suominen X-Attribution: Kim Mailer: VM 5.32 (beta) / GNU Emacs 18.58.34 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk # Where do I find out about "reflector" programs that read (and hopefully # digestify) news groups and send the articles out to a mailing list? Hmm... I could not find newsdigest on nic.funet.fi anywhere (at least in 10 minutes), so I put it available on lut.fi:/kim/newsdigest-2.1.tar.Z I fixed some logic error in there (about $LOGNAME or some such), and the configurable options are as changed by me for lut.fi setup... Check it out! - Kim From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jun 3 19:02:54 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03663; Thu, 3 Jun 93 19:02:54 GMT Received: from eagle.birds.wm.edu (birds.wm.edu) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03655; Thu, 3 Jun 93 12:02:28 PDT Received: from greyhawk.birds.wm.edu by eagle.birds.wm.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA15697; Thu, 3 Jun 1993 14:42:23 -0400 Received: by greyhawk.birds.wm.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA12589; Thu, 3 Jun 1993 14:42:20 -0400 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 14:42:20 -0400 From: jshaye@birds.wm.edu Message-Id: <9306031842.AA12589@greyhawk.birds.wm.edu> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Listserv Policies Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Do any of you have set policies for your listservs. I'm interested in: Do you allow students to have non-academic lists? Archives, how long do you keep them? Scott Hayes jshaye@birds.wm.edu Technology Support & Computer Center The College of William and Mary in Virginia From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jun 4 14:55:54 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA07056; Fri, 4 Jun 93 14:55:54 GMT Received: from livbird.liv.ac.uk by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA07045; Fri, 4 Jun 93 07:55:24 PDT Received: from localhost.liv.ac.uk by liverbird.liverpool.ac.uk with Local-SMTP (PP) id <00718-0@liverbird.liverpool.ac.uk>; Fri, 4 Jun 1993 15:45:28 +0100 To: jshaye@birds.wm.edu Cc: List Managers List Subject: Re: Listserv Policies In-Reply-To: The Message of "Thu, 03 Jun 93 14:42:20 EDT." Date: Fri, 04 Jun 93 15:45:26 +0100 Message-Id: <716.739205126@livbird.liv.ac.uk> From: Alan Thew Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 3 Jun 1993 14:42:20 -0400 jshaye@birds.wm.edu wrote: > >Do any of you have set policies for your listservs. I'm interested in: > Do you allow students to have non-academic lists? > Archives, how long do you keep them? > We don't allow students to run lists at all at present. We will take on outside lists if they are managable and we have the resources. We keep archives for as long as resources permit. -- Alan Thew alan.thew@livbird.liv.ac.uk ...!uknet!livbird!alan.thew +44 51 794 3735 From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jun 4 17:28:54 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA07386; Fri, 4 Jun 93 17:28:54 GMT Received: from Athena.MIT.EDU (ATHENA-AS-WELL.MIT.EDU) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA07379; Fri, 4 Jun 93 10:28:42 PDT Received: from NINJA.MIT.EDU by Athena.MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA03891; Fri, 4 Jun 93 13:30:20 EDT From: pshuang@Athena.MIT.EDU Received: by ninja.MIT.EDU (5.57/4.7) id AA00654; Fri, 4 Jun 93 13:30:17 -0400 Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 13:30:17 -0400 Message-Id: <9306041730.AA00654@ninja.MIT.EDU> To: jshaye@birds.wm.edu Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Listserv Policies Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 3 Jun 1993 14:42:20 -0400 jshaye@birds.wm.edu wrote: >Do any of you have set policies for your listservs. I'm interested in: > Do you allow students to have non-academic lists? > Archives, how long do you keep them? MIT's Project Athena system makes it fairly easy for students to set up mailing lists, and there are no policies about "academic-only". A number of students who are relatively non-computer-literate have mailing lists to stay in touch with high school friends, acquaintances at other colleges, and many on-campus student activities heavily use mailing lists to keep everyone up to date on what's going on. Archives can be created for mailing lists at some small effort. The easiest way to set up an archive is to archive to a discuss meeting, access software for which is local to Project Athena. From List-Managers-Owner Fri Jun 11 16:45:01 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05148; Fri, 11 Jun 93 16:45:01 GMT Received: from posse.mit.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA05141; Fri, 11 Jun 93 09:44:52 PDT Received: by posse.mit.edu (5.57/Ultrix4.2-A) id AA09952; Fri, 11 Jun 93 12:46:45 -0400 Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 12:46:45 -0400 From: mlbarrow@posse.mit.edu (Michael L Barrow) Message-Id: <9306111646.AA09952@posse.mit.edu> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: digest 1.8 problems... Reply-To: mlbarrow@mit.edu X-Full-Name: Michael L Barrow X-Address: 77 Massachusetts Ave, 11-221 X-Address: Cambridge, MA 02139 X-Phone: 617-253-7664 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I have 2 problems with digest v1.8: 1) The undigestify-rmail-message command in Emacs says that the digest produced is not a valid digest. A quick visual inspection reveals that it looks like other digests (like the Telecom Digest which works with the undigestify command). 2) I have the DIGEST_SIZE set to 28000, but a digest came out to about 19K. In addition, there are message subjects in the table of contents, but no corresponding messages in the digest. And, the messages are not in the incoming directory! What gives? -- mlb From List-Managers-Owner Sat Jun 12 01:53:13 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA06348; Sat, 12 Jun 93 01:53:13 GMT Received: from localhost by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA06336; Fri, 11 Jun 93 18:52:35 PDT Message-Id: <9306120152.AA06336@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> To: mlbarrow@mit.edu Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: digest 1.8 problems... In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 11 Jun 93 12:46:45 -0400 Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 18:52:34 -0700 From: Brent Chapman Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk # # I have 2 problems with digest v1.8: # # 1) The undigestify-rmail-message command in Emacs says that the digest # produced is not a valid digest. A quick visual inspection reveals that # it looks like other digests (like the Telecom Digest which works with # the undigestify command). Emacs has a limit on how far back from the end of the message it will look for the "end" of the last digest in the message. Either fix the Emacs code or use an empty TRAILER file. # 2) I have the DIGEST_SIZE set to 28000, but a digest came out to about # 19K. In addition, there are message subjects in the table of contents, # but no corresponding messages in the digest. And, the messages are not # in the incoming directory! What gives? The DIGEST_SIZE trigger is calculated on the full size of the pending messages, including all the headers that are stripped out when the digest is actually assembled. Thus, a digest is going to be somewhat smaller than the sum of the messages going into it. I don't know about the second problem. The table of contents is constructed when the digest is constructed, not progressively as articles come in. Without some sample messages and a copy of your cf file for that digest, I can't guess what might be happening. -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 Jun 23 17:40:31 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA00961; Wed, 23 Jun 93 17:40:31 GMT Received: from yonge.csri.toronto.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA00572; Wed, 23 Jun 93 08:33:03 PDT Received: from alias by yonge.csri.toronto.edu with UUCP id <14446>; Wed, 23 Jun 1993 11:35:11 -0400 Received: from dino.alias.com by barney.alias.com with SMTP id AA08358 (5.65a/IDA-1.4.2 for list-managers@greatcircle.com); Wed, 23 Jun 93 11:22:25 -0400 Received: by dino.alias.com id AA23021 (5.65a/IDA-1.4.2 for list-managers@greatcircle.com); Wed, 23 Jun 93 11:22:22 -0400 From: chk@alias.com (C. Harald Koch) Message-Id: <9306231522.AA23021@dino.alias.com> Subject: Just saw a fun message pair To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 12:22:20 -0400 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL8] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 847 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On QM-L, run by BITNET LISTSERV at Yale: First message contains the text subscribe qm-l This message should, of course, have been sent to "listserv". The second message says: Your mail in reference to "subscribe qm-l" has been received. I will read your mail when I return. This is the only notice you will receive. I will be away from Sunday 6/20 through Tuesday evening, 6/22. I thought this was exceedingly humourous; a piece of automated junk mail created by a message that should never have been set to the list. -- C. Harald Koch, Network Manager | "Monogamy is an acquired taste ... like Alias Research Inc. Toronto, ON | sushi!" "I thought you liked sushi for the chk@alias.com | variety?" "Therin lies the mysterious Zen chk@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca | paradox of men, women, and fish!" -NEXP From List-Managers-Owner Wed Jun 23 23:53:22 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA01687; Wed, 23 Jun 93 23:53:22 GMT Received: from ncar.UCAR.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA01680; Wed, 23 Jun 93 16:53:15 PDT From: woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) Message-Id: <9306232355.AA28879@ncar.ucar.EDU> Received: by ncar.ucar.EDU (5.65/ NCAR Central Post Office 03/11/93) id AA28879; Wed, 23 Jun 93 17:55:32 MDT Subject: Re: Just saw a fun message pair To: chk@alias.com (C. Harald Koch) Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 17:55:31 MDT Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <9306231522.AA23021@dino.alias.com>; from "C. Harald Koch" at Jun 23, 93 12:22 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The UNIX "vacation" program, which sends those automated "I'm on vacation" messages, will normally check the To: header of messages before sending the automated reply, to make sure that this is personal mail and not mailing list mail. Unfortunately, BITNET mailing lists do not adhere to the Internet convention of putting the mailing list address in the To: header, and instead use your destination address. Thus there is no way for the vacation program to know that this is mail from a list instead of a person, and it replies to the whole list. I've gotten into some pretty heated flame wars over this, but I have no intention of disabling a very useful facility just because BITNET lists don't do the headers reasonably. --Greg From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jun 24 00:17:45 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA01749; Thu, 24 Jun 93 00:17:45 GMT Received: from netcomsv.netcom.com (uucp5.netcom.com) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA01742; Wed, 23 Jun 93 17:17:38 PDT Received: from antigone.com by netcomsv.netcom.com with UUCP (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA19076; Wed, 23 Jun 93 17:20:29 PDT Received: by antigone.com (NX5.67c/NX3.0M/Antigone1.0b9) id AA04654; Wed, 23 Jun 93 17:17:53 -0700 Date: Wed, 23 Jun 93 17:17:53 -0700 From: Michael Ross Message-Id: <9306240017.AA04654@antigone.com> Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.87.1) Received: by NeXT Mailer (1.87.1) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Just saw a fun message pair Reply-To: mross@antigone.com Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > The UNIX "vacation" program, which sends those automated "I'm > on vacation" messages, will normally check the To: header of > messages before sending the automated reply, to make sure that > this is personal mail and not mailing list mail. > Unfortunately, BITNET mailing lists do not adhere to the > Internet convention of putting the mailing list address in the > To: header, and instead use your destination address. Thus > there is no way for the vacation program to know that this is mail > from a list instead of a person, and it replies to the whole list. > I've gotten into some pretty heated flame wars over this, but I > have no intention of disabling a very useful facility just > because BITNET lists don't do the headers reasonably. > > --Greg > >From the vacation man pages: No message is sent if the initial ``From'' line includes the string ``-REQUEST@'' or if a ``Precedence: bulk'' or ``Pre- cedence: junk'' line is included in the header. I thought all mailing lists used the "Precedence: bulk" line... The man entry says nothing about checking the To: line... Cheers, Michael --- Michael Ross Antigone Press, San Francisco, California e-mail: mross@antigone.com FAX: +1 415 431 3650 --- From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jun 24 16:04:22 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03650; Thu, 24 Jun 93 16:04:22 GMT Received: from ncar.UCAR.EDU by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03643; Thu, 24 Jun 93 09:04:14 PDT From: woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) Message-Id: <9306241606.AA12446@ncar.ucar.EDU> Received: by ncar.ucar.EDU (5.65/ NCAR Central Post Office 03/11/93) id AA12446; Thu, 24 Jun 93 10:06:33 MDT Subject: Re: Just saw a fun message pair To: mross@antigone.com Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 10:06:32 MDT Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <9306240017.AA04654@antigone.com>; from "Michael Ross" at Jun 23, 93 5:17 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > From the vacation man pages: > No message is sent if the initial ``From'' line includes the > string ``-REQUEST@'' or if a ``Precedence: bulk'' or ``Pre- > cedence: junk'' line is included in the header. > > I thought all mailing lists used the "Precedence: bulk" line... BITNET lists do not as a rule include Precedence: headers. > The man entry says nothing about checking the To: line... This may depend on which version of UNIX you have, but the full paragraph from the SunOS 4.1.2 man page says No message is sent if the `To:' or the `Cc:' line does not list the user to whom the original message was sent or one of a number of aliases for them, if the initial From line includes the string -REQUEST@, or if a `Precedence: bulk' or `Precedence: junk' line is included in the header. --Greg From List-Managers-Owner Thu Jun 24 16:23:44 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03711; Thu, 24 Jun 93 16:23:44 GMT Received: from grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA03704; Thu, 24 Jun 93 09:23:22 PDT Received: from localhost (wolf@localhost) by grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (8.1B/8.1) id SAA19170; Thu, 24 Jun 1993 18:25:34 +0200 From: Christophe Wolfhugel Message-Id: <199306241625.SAA19170@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr> Subject: Re: Just saw a fun message pair To: woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 18:25:33 +0100 (MEST) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <9306241606.AA12446@ncar.ucar.EDU> from "Greg Woods" at Jun 24, 93 10:06:32 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 421 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The latest sendmail supports a Precedence: list (-30, but which will generate bounces on errors). It should also be ignored by vacation. Most if not all implementations do not filter "owner-". This is bad. There should also be an heuristic like "if there are more than X % or ! characters in the SMTP sender, then don't bother replying". -- Christophe Wolfhugel | Email: Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr