At 10:32 AM 1/22/96, Eric Siegel wrote:
>
> This seems schoolmarm-ish, but if people *really* took the time to edit
> their subject lines, it could obviate the need for list-splitting. It
> works on other lists I participate in, and it would help this list.
> I'm afraid that I end up by deleting relevant information because of
> the persistence of subject lines.
>
Eric,
I have been watching this discussion from the sidelines because it seems to
come up from time to time, with some people wanting division by topics and
others wanting the list to be left just the way it is.
Your point about proper subject lines is the reason I have hesitated is
because EVERY subscriber would have to be VERY precise with their subject
lines. While people who want to get all postings could with a topics
defined list, those who want filters may get frustrated since the person
posting the message MUST use a precise format for the topics option to
work. Also, there is the question of what the topics for discussion would
be. I would be willing to listen to ideas and suggestions for possible
topics.
To quote from the Listserv Keywords memo:
List topics provide a way to run a mailing list (preferably moderated) where
several sub-topics are being discussed in parallel but some subscribers are only
interested in a subset of the topics. For instance, a working group might have
general discussions, decisions, and messages related to meetings. People who
cannot attend the meetings can then opt out of last calls for hotel reservations
and discussions about seafood restaurants, whereas people who have no time to
follow the discussions can elect to get just the decisions. At any rate, such a
compartmented list requires a certain discipline in order to be successful, as
the posters must label their messages to indicate which topic(s) they belong to.
Through the "Topics=" keyword, the list owner can define up to 11 topics for the
list. For instance, the list owner could code:
Topics= News,Benchmarks,Meetings,Beta-tests
To save disk space, LISTSERV remembers which topics users have selected through
their ordering in the "Topics=" keyword. That is, "News" is "topic number 1" for
LISTSERV, "Benchmarks" is "topic number 2", and so on. This means you can change
the name of a topic without requiring users to alter their subscriptions (for
instance, you could decide that "Tests" is a better name than "Beta-tests" and
just make the change). However, you must never change the order of the topics in
the "Topics=" keyword. If you want to remove a topic, replace it with a comma.
For instance, to remove the "Meetings" topic, you would change the keyword to:
* Topics= News,Benchmarks,,Beta-tests
This restriction might be removed in a future release.
Topic names can contain any character except space, colon and comma; the use of
double quotes or equal signs is discouraged, as they require special attention
when coding list header keywords. In addition, topic names may not start with a
plus or minus sign, and the words ALL, NONE, RE, OTHER and OTHERS are reserved.
Posters label their messages through the subject field. LISTSERV first skips any
possible sequence of 'Re:' keywords, and takes anything to the left of a colon
as a list of topics, separated by commas. The posting is considered to belong to
all the topics listed before the colon. If none of these topics is valid for the
list, it is classified in a special, 12th topic, "Other". If some of the topics
are valid but others are undefined, the invalid ones are ignored. At any rate
the subject field is left unchanged. Here is an example:
Subject: Benchmarks,News: Benchmarks for XYZ now available!
Messages which should be read by everyone can be posted to the special topic
"All". Topic names can be shortened to any unambiguous abbreviation. In our
example, "Be" is ambiguous because it could be either "Beta-tests" or
"Benchmarks", but "Bench" is acceptable.
Subscribers select the topics they wish to receive with the SET command. The
syntax is 'SET <listname> TOPICS: xxx' where 'xxx' can be:
* A list of all the topics the user wishes to receive. In that case these
topics replace any other topics the user may have subscribed to before. For
instance, after 'SET XYZ-L TOPICS: NEWS BENCH', the user will receive news
and benchmarks, and nothing else.
* Updates to the list of topics the user currently receives. A plus sign
indicates a topic that should be added, a minus sign requests the removal of
a topic. For instance, 'SET XYZ-L TOPICS: +NEWS -BENCH' adds news and removes
benchmarks. If a topic name is given without a + or - sign, + is assumed:
'SET XYZ-L TOPICS: +NEWS BENCH' adds news and benchmarks. The first topic
name must have the plus sign to show that this is an addition, and not a
replacement.
* A combination of the above, mostly useful to enable all but a few topics:
'SET XYZ-L TOPICS: ALL -MEETINGS'.
The colon after the keyword TOPICS: is optional, and TOPICS= is also accepted.
Do not forget to include the special OTHER topic if you want to receive general
discussions which were not labeled properly. On the other hand, if you only want
to receive properly labeled messages you should not include it. ALL does include
OTHER.
Finally, it is important to note that topics are active only when your
subscription is set to MAIL. Digests are indexes always contain all the postings
that were made, because the same digest is prepared and sent to all the
subscribers.
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John Chadwick, system analyst
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
1801 Mountain Road NW
Albuquerque, NM 87104
[log in to unmask], http://www.aps.edu/HTMLPages/NMMNH.html
phone: (505) 841-2843 FAX (505) 841-2866
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