DAVID@DARTCMS1.BITNET (05/21/91)
Archive-name: mail/guides/dartmouth-list-of-lists/1991-05-19
Archive: dartcms1.dartmouth.edu:siglists:listserv.lists [129.170.16.19]
Original-posting-by: DAVID@DARTCMS1.BITNET
Original-subject: New List-of-lists Available from Dartmouth College
Reposted-by: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti, MSEN)
Dartmouth maintains a merged list of the LISTSERV lists on Bitnet and the
Interest Group lists on the Internet. It is a single file with one line for
each mailing list. The list has been updated monthly for the last year and
has a stable format. Each line consists of seven fields, delimited by tabs.
This month's list contains information about 1,770 lists. The fields are:
Category (Computing, Science, Humanities, etc)
List name
"Mail to" address for submitting to the list for distribution
"Command to" address for subscribing, unsubing and other administratrivia
One line description of the list subject
Email address for the owner of the list
Long description of the list, up to 450 characters.
This list-of-lists differs from some similiar lists in that:
Duplicate entries are deleted
Lists obviously intended only for local use are omitted
Information about the lists is field delimited, allowing simple parsing
Both Internet and Bitnet lists are included
We provide a Macintosh Hypercard application that presents the list in a nice
format. Other applications could easily be developed to provide a user
interface to these data that is appropriate for a site's local situation.
The files can be obtained by anonymous FTP from DARTCMS1.DARTMOUTH.EDU
<129.170.16.19> in directory SIGLISTS. They can also be obtained (except the
large data stack) via Bitnet from LISTSERV@DARTCMS1 using the command
SEND fn ft. The LISTSERV FUI command is useful for obtaining notification
of the update of the list-of-lists. The SIGLISTS directory contains five
files:
LISTLIST HQX The complete List-of-Lists stack (about 7m bytes)
LISTSERV LISTS Tab delimited text file from which the above
stack was built
LISTSTUB HQX One card of the LISTLIST stack
LISTTUTR HQX Tutorial stack on mailing lists
READ ME This file
The *.HQX files were saved using Binhex 4.0 and are stacks created
under Hypercard 2.0. The LISTLIST HQX and LISTSERV LISTS files are
quite large, about 7m and .5m respectively. You should only fetch
them if you have adequate storage to save these files locally. You may
want to fetch the short LISTSTUB HQX file to see what the list-of-list
stack will look like, before getting the full file.
Actually, you can reduce the file transfer load and still get the
full list-of-lists stack by doing the following:
1) Obtain the LISTSTUB HQX and LISTTUTR HQX files and "un"Binhex them.
2) Obtain the LISTSERV LISTS text file.
3) Rename the LISTSERV LISTS file to LISTSERV on your Mac.
4) Rename the stack obtained from LISTSTUB HQX to Email_Discussion_Lists_Data.
5) Launch Email_Discussion_Lists_Data and open the dialog box (fan "M").
5) Type GETFILE in the dialog box. Hypercard will access the text file
LISTSERV and build a new Hypercard copy of the list-of-lists. In some
cases you might have to look in the Stack Script and modify the file pointer
in the GETFILE procedure to allow it to find the text file on your system.
The LISTSERV LISTS file is updated monthly. Questions about the files
in this directory should be directed to me.
* * * * * * * * * * * * David Avery
* BITNET: DAVID@DARTCMS1 * System Manager for VM/CMS
* INTERNET: David.Avery@DARTMOUTH.EDU * Dartmouth College
* SMAIL: Kiewit Computation Center * vox clamantis in deserto
* Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 *
* * * * * * * * * * * *