Reactor NOISE Common Message Exchange

THE NEUTRON NOISE WEB was a bit slow on posting information on this Common Message Exchange or automated "News letter site", but now it has been up for several years and I find it a very useful way to submit information.

If you want to skip all this stuff because you are already a member and user and instead want to JUMP to where you can make an EASY SUBMISSION, CLICK here.

A reason for the slowness was because I have really never participated in a news group even though I had spent extensive time on BBS's sending and receiving mail. It seems hard to imagine that we used to have online conversations at only about 160 baud. Lots of time was available to read what was being said while it came in.

Well, I now know there is at least one "newsgroup" in our field and thus a must for joining and I have learned how to dp so and have done it. Now THE NEUTRON NOISE WEB can tell you how to join.

I have a nice instruction sheet that was routed by our associate Mr. Pedro Perez, but it had been Xeroxed and FAXed so many times that my scanner and OCR fails to do it. Thus for now, I will just post the note I got when I signed up. It is below, but first:.

If you want to sign up, initiate the mail below and send a one line message saying

SUBSCRIBE MARNOS-L "your personal name"

mailto:listserv@nic.surfnet.nl

By so doing, you have joined. Shortly you will get a mail message, mine was in less than 5 minutes which will tell you how to do things. The one I got appears below.

mailto:MARNOS-L@nic.surfnet.nl

Below is What is sent back to you

(At least in earily 1996) and
I have added a few comments to it.

Please save this message for future reference,
(Or be sure your BOOKMARK to THE NEUTRON NOISE WEB is handy.)
especially if you are not familiar with LISTSERV. This might look like a waste of disk space now, but in 6 months you will be glad you saved this information when you realize that you cannot remember what are the lists you are subscribed to, or what is the command to leave the list to avoid filling up your mailbox while you are on vacations. In fact, you should create a new mail folder for subscription confirmation messages like this one, and for the "welcome messages" from the list owners that you will occasionally receive after subscribing to a new list.

To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, just send mail to MARNOS-L@NIC.SURFNET.NL. This is called "sending mail to the list", because you send mail to a single address and LISTSERV makes copies for all the people who have subscribed. This address (MARNOS-L@NIC.SURFNET.NL) is also called the "list address". You must never try to send any command to that address, as it would be distributed to all the people who have subscribed. All commands must be sent to the "LISTSERV address", LISTSERV@NIC.SURFNET.NL (or LISTSERV@HEARN.BITNET). It is very important to understand the difference between the two, but fortunately it is not complicated. The LISTSERV address is like a FAX number, and the list address is like a normal phone line. If you make your FAX call someone's regular phone number by mistake, it will be an unpleasant experience for him but you will probably be excused the first time. If you do it regularly, however, he will probably get upset and send you a nasty complaint. It is the same with mailing lists, with the difference that you are calling hundreds or thousands of people at the same time, so a lot more people get annoyed if you use the wrong number.

You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF MARNOS-L" command to LISTSERV@NIC.SURFNET.NL (or LISTSERV@HEARN.BITNET). You can also tell LISTSERV how you want it to confirm the receipt of messages you send to the list. If you do not trust the system, send a "SET MARNOS-L REPRO" command and LISTSERV will send you a copy of your own messages, so that you can see that the message was distributed and did not get damaged on the way. After a while you may find that this is getting annoying, especially if your mail program does not tell you that the message is from you when it informs you that new mail has arrived from MARNOS-L. If you send a "SET MARNOS-L ACK NOREPRO" command, LISTSERV will mail you a short acknowledgement instead, which will look different in your mailbox directory. With most mail programs you will know immediately that this is an acknowledgement you can read later. Finally, you can turn off acknowledgements completely with "SET MARNOS-L NOACK NOREPRO".

Contributions sent to this list are automatically archived. You can get a list of the available archive files by sending an "INDEX MARNOS-L" command to LISTSERV@NIC.SURFNET.NL (or LISTSERV@HEARN.BITNET). You can then order these files with a "GET MARNOS-L LOGxxxx" command, or using LISTSERV's database search facilities. Send an "INFO DATABASE" command for more information on the latter.

Please note that it is presently possible for anybody to determine that you are signed up to the list through the use of the "REVIEW" command, which returns the e-mail address and name of all the subscribers. If you do not want your name to be visible, just issue a "SET MARNOS-L CONCEAL" command.

More information on LISTSERV commands can be found in the LISTSERV reference card, which you can retrieve by sending an "INFO REFCARD" command to LISTSERV@NIC.SURFNET.NL (or LISTSERV@HEARN.BITNET).

Ing. Hans Verhoef

Founder of MARNOS_L and your HOST

Go back to The Menu Selection

email:james_sheff@uml.edu
© 1995-2008, Prof. James R. Sheff, Nuclear and Chemical Engineering Dept. , UMass Lowell