BillW@SU-SCORE.ARPA (William Chops Westfield) (08/22/85)
From: "David C. Whitney" <GZT.DW%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA>
To: info-apple@BRL.ARPA
I am quite new at this and I have no idea as how to use the
system. Can someone explain to me how the mailing system works? (does
this message go to everyone on a mailing list or onto a bbs to be
looked at?) Also, must I include my mailing address for replies to
questions? (if it's required) send any info to DCW%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA
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I will take a stab at answering this question, and I think I'll CC
INFO-MICRO, since this is the sort of thing that should probably be
explained every once in a while, to catch new readers of the list.
On the ARPANet side of INFO-APPLE, INFO-MICRO, INFO-CPM, and so on,
mail is sent by a contributor to a central site, and from there is is
automatically sent to everyone on the "distribution list" at that
site. I say "everyone" with a certain reluctance, since many of the
addresses will not be actual people at all. Instead, they may be
BBOARD like addresses, or redistribution lists to a bunch of other
people, or mail munging gateways to other types of networks.
BBOARDs vs. Electronic mail
Whether or not a given mailing list is read as a users individual
mail, or via a bboard program is usually a matter of personal
preference and/or site policy. Some system administrators prefer
not to have their disks clogged by many copies of identical messages,
and many people prefer not to have the mailboxes clogged with "junk
mail" not directly associated with their jobs or whatever. It is
also unfortunately common to come back from a short vacation and
discover that your mail file has become to big for popular mail
reading programs to be able to read!
At SU-Score, we get INFO-MICRO, INFO-CPM, INFO-MAC, and miscellaneous
other lists as bboards. I personally receive INFO-MICRO, INFO-APPLE,
and others as mail, but only read INFO-CPM and INFO-MAC occasionally
using the bboard program. Score also takes it upon itself to deliver
some of these bboards to other local machines. Since most computers
at Stanford are connected by ethernet, it is faster and less expensive
(resource wise) for Score to resend mail to the other local systems
than to have some poor unix system on the other side of the country
send the same mail to both systems. (parallel processing!) This
also makes it possible for the local people to add and subtract
machines from mailing lists without having to both list-REQUEST.
(Remember, all requests for additions or deletions from the list,
requests for access to list archives, and so on, should be sent
to LIST-REQUEST rather than to just LIST - otherwise you will annoy
many people who probably can't help you anyway!)
Local Redistribution and Sublists.
Which brings us to the next issue. Some mailing-list maintainers
insist on sending mail to only ONE address at each site. That
address is then split up by the local mail software and sent to everyone
at that site who wishes to receive the list. As mentioned above,
this sort of procedure has advantages even when it isn't required.
One that wasn't mentioned is that it gives you the ability to have
subgroups - for example SU-INFO-MAC, which gets INFO-MAC, plus any
announcement having to do ONLY with the stanford community.
Mail Munging Gateways.
The most extreme example of "local redistribution" is probably UseNet.
UseNet is a loosely defined network of unix systems mostly talking
to each other via dialup telephone lines and the UUCP communications
protocols. Since this net uses different technology, different
algorithms, and different administrative procedures, some host
must magically manipulate mail to get it to go from UseNet type
nets to Internet type nets. I don't know exactly who is doing this
now, but it seems to be working well. There are times when a UseNet
"newsgroup" does not correspond directly to an ARPANet mailing list
that thing go awry. For example, INFO-APPLE and net.micro.apple
forward all their mail back and forth to each other, but there is
no ARPANet equivalent for net.micro.ti, so it (I think) gets lumped
into INFO-MICRO, and replies from ARPANet people get sent to net.micro,
which isn't quite the right place for them to be... Oh well.
Other Types of Lists: Digests and Moderated Lists.
INFO-MAC@SUMEX and INFO-IBMPC@ISIB are both "digested" mailing lists.
The volume of mail is so large on these lists that instead of sending
each message out to everyone, all the messages for a day or more are
collected together into one large digest that is sent out approximately
once a day. This also gives the moderator a chance to filter out
inappropriate message, group together messages on a single topic, and
add relevant comments (eg: [This was discussed in detail several months
ago. I have collected the responses and put them in MC:HUMOR; APPLE WARS])
How much of this editing is done is dependent on the moderator and
how much time they have. It has been demonstrated that maintaining an
active mailing list is a good way to delay anything else you might be
supposed to be doing.
INFO-SECURITY@Rutgers is a third type of list, where messages are
scanned by a moderator for appropriateness, but resent to the entire
list one at a time. This is usually done for lists where the volume
is low, but the subject matter is sensitive.
Addresses.
If you are from an ARPANet site, it is usually not necessary to include
your address, since it will be in the message headers. Sometimes
however, a host will be on a local net and not in the standard host
tables, in which case, the headers are likely to say something like
"FROM: billw@playfair", which is fine except that no one has ever
heard of playfair. MIT-OZ is a similar example, although it looks
like the MIT mail software is smart enough to modify the header
so as to provide a legal address. If you happen to know a UseNet
path to your site, that may be useful to people on UseNet who want
to reply to you directly. One of the reasons you see people listing
several address is so that an answer can be directed along the best
path. ARPANet is almost always the best way to reply to messages,
UseNet the worst, with CSNet and BitNet as intermediate alternatives.
It's only really relevant if your host happens to be on several nets.
Files Available for FTPing.
A number of mailing lists have associated directories of files that
are available for public access, such as archives of old messages
and public domain programs. In general, these are available for
FTPing, which means that they are only accessible from Internet
hosts. Some files may be short enough to send by mail, and can
thus be obtained by requesting them from LIST-REQUEST. A lot of
software gets sent via UseNet's net.sources, but this disappears
quickly if you don't copy it, and it really is not practical to
send SIMTEL20's entire disk pack worth of programs over the phone
lines either. DEC has provided a free-access account on one of
their mainframe machines (in MA) that has duplicates of a lot of
this software which can be downloaded over phone lines using MODEM
or KERMIT. (The phone number is 617-467-7437, username LCG.KERMIT,
password KERMIT).
Enjoy
BillW