Please read: Administrivia Message

[Ann Okerson <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Dear liblicense subscribers:  Here are two administrative items FYI.  To
the extent that you can help us, by formatting your postings, or setting
your vacation messages, it would be much appreciated -- though we realize
this may not always be possible.  More detail:

1.  E-mail format.  You may have noticed that some liblicense-l messages
lately have arrived in your in boxes with peculiar additional headers
inside the top of the message.  One of our goals is to keep the
liblicense-l messages as simple, consistent, and clean in their format as
possible.

Where your messages are posted to liblicense-l in plain text, the listproc
software (and the moderators) are happy and life is sweet.  But, this is
not always the case, as many email users are using a diverse array of
mailers and systems.  Or they might use one system at work and another at
home or on the road, or may not have much control over how messages go out
to the list.

About 20% or more of incoming messages now require a certain level of
cleaning and re-formatting.  Most often (though there are other
circumstances) this happens when list members send list messages, perhaps
unknowingly, in two formats:  plain text and encoded.  When such a message
arrives in the moderator's mailbox, the plain text often has odd
characters in it that have to be taken out, and the encoded version is
pretty difficult to read (since listproc interprets these messages very
literally).  In such cases, the odd characters have to be removed one at a
time and the line widths re-set;  and then the encoded version is deleted
line by line.  Also, the headers within listproc have to be adjusted to
enable the revised message to be sent through properly.  There are other 
kinds of snafus, but the double-format one is the most common.

REQUEST: for those of you who can set your mailers to send your messages
to the list in plain text only (and not in dual formats) it would be much
appreciated.  Some list owners will not accept messages that are thus
submitted, but this seems draconian and counterproductive. The goal is to
send your messages through!  So keep those messages coming, but whatever
you can do to help us by sending plain text only (or to understand if you
get the occasional weird-looking headers) would be much appreciated.

2.  Vacation or away messages.  Most subscribers' mailer systems manage
these well, i.e., the system issues one "away" message, or one "away"
message per week or some acceptable variant.  But some mailers (such as
IEEE, AMA, Wiley, and another dozen or so, sorry to pick on you) are set
so that the "away" message is sent to liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu, each
and every time the subscriber receives a liblicense-l message.  There is
no way for a moderator to know, without opening each message and scrolling
down past all the listproc headers, that it is not real but rather is a
cheery "Hi! I'm on vacation for two weeks and will answer when I get back
from the cool climes of Iceland!" Now, again, these messages don't take
huge amount of time, but on a summer's day there are easily several dozen
daily in the moderator's incoming mailbox. The temptation to delete those
subscribers does occur, but of course we won't do that!

REQUEST: if your organization can find a way to rationalize or limit the
number of "away" messages it sends in response to correspondents, it would
be much appreciated.  Could you ask them about it?

FINALLY:  If you've forgotten how to change your address or postpone mail
or digest it, we have a little set of macros that will help.  If you have
a question or problem, just send me a note to the address below.  The
listproc software is command driven (and you got your welcome message that
supposedly tells all, but it doesn't and you've lost it anyway, right?).  
But is very persnicketty about the form in which it receives commands and
the addresses it recognizes.  It is also far too stupid to send you a
truly useful reply when you haven't perfectly satisfied its protocols.  
If that happens, do ask and we'll help you ASAP.

Thank you for making this list so useful and successful.  It's your level
of activity and interest that makes liblicense-l useful to all 2700
current subscribers.

Sincerely, Ann Okerson/Moderator
Yale University Library
ann.okerson@yale.edu