Here are more answers to listserv questions. (I get copies of all the error messages that the list generates). 1. Request words such as help are sent to listserv, not pianotech. Pianotech is just a mailing list, nothing more-you write a letter and send it to pianotech instead of sending it individually to the 77 people on the mailing list. Listserv is the computer brain behind the mailing list, so questions about the list (the request words), are sent to the brain, not to the mailing list. Think of listserv as being the name of the department secretary. Listserv reads every message that comes through and if you have filled the form out right, will send the message out to everyone on the pianotech mailing list. 2. If you send a "help" request to listserv, you receive a list of the requests that listserv will respond to, such as help, get, put, index, subscribe, unsubscribe, etc. (about 20 of them). You cannot start a pianotech message with any of those words, or listserv will interpret it as a request. One recent message began "get the blue felt from...." That generated an error message because it started with "get" which is a listserv recognized request. "Get" could be anywhere else in the message except the first word, and it would be OK. One easy solution is to have a standard greeting that you start every message with such as Aloha or Hi Yall, etc. Another easy solution is to learn the request words and then not use one of them as the first word in your message. 3. Archives--All of the messages that have been sent out on this mailing list with the exception of the first week or two have been saved by listserv (the computer brain or the department secretary) and orderly filed by week, as PIANOTECH digest 1, PIANOTECH digest 2, etc. A list of the archives is obtained by asking listserv to send it to you. The command is just two words, index pianotech. Each digest has a name, which is the number of the day and the year it was created. For example, PIANOTECH digest 22 has the name pianotech.344.94. That means it was created on the 344th day of 1994 and contains all of the messages since PIANOTECH digest 21 was created. You can retrieve a digest by telling listserv to send it to you. The command to retrieve PIANOTECH digest 22 is get pianotech pianotech.344.94 Notice the three elements (1) the get request, (2) the name of the list, and (3)the name of the digest. You must type the name of the digest correctly including the period between pianotech and the day number, and the period between the day number and the year. As was mentioned by Ron Torella, the archives are also easily available via Gopher, Mosaic, Netscape, etc. Have a good week, Jack Reeves, BYU jack_reeves@byu.edu
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