In a recent speech in San Francisco, Bill Clinton gave a clear directive
from his developing information and technology plan; all USA K-12 schools will
be connected to the Net by the year 2000. Now what are our children going to
find when they type in an Internet search for "dreams?" ASD is
addressing this and other Net presence issue at several levels. The first is
online access. See for example the ASD homepage project on the Web article in
this issue by Jayne Gackenbach. We are also offering ongoing education to ASD
members through this newsletter and direct, hands-on learning at our next
convention in Berkeley.
However, I feel we can't be content with just putting information online.
Bill Gates, in The Road Ahead, tells the story of trying to lure his
friend Warren Buffett online by telling him about all the information he could
access. But it wasn't until Buffett found out he could play bridge with his
friends all over the globe that he became involved. The Internet is not going
to be used like we used to use encyclopedias. When a child if offered the
choice of looking up information or interacting with a group that shares his
or her interests, what do you think is going be the child's choice? The
Internet is more like an open street market or a collection of symposiums than
a repository of data. To educate people online about dreams and dreaming an
interactive community is needed.
There are several ways to create and sustain this community. The ASD
homepage, for example, now has a bulletin
board where discussions can take place between all segments of the online
global community. The interface between the ASD newsletter and your personal
areas of dream concern will become more interactive. Topics discussed and
brought up during the conferences will be continued, deepened and expand with
continual dialogue during the year.
Another way to foster online community is through Mail List discussion
groups that focus on a particular subject. Some Mail List are for making group
decisions and implementing plans, such as the asd-dream96 discussion group
which focuses on the use of Internet at the 1996 convention. Some Mail Lists
are short lived, like dream sharing groups that join or form a list for the
length of a week or two to discuss a few dreams and then disband. Other Mail
Lists are more like distribution lists that put out periodicals and take in
articles. But the vast amount of Mail Lists on Internet are for discussing
topics of special interest.
Unlike postal mail lists, these Net Mail Lists are both useful and
available only if you subscribe by sending in an e-mail request. Net Mail
Lists are a simple way to communicate with a group of people with a common
interest through e-mail. On Net Mail Lists, one subscribes and unsubscribes at
will. A special common e-mail address is used by the subscriber and all mail
sent to that address will end up in everyones' e-mail box that is subscribed
to the group.
What?
An image. Normal E-mail is like a circle of individuals. With e-mail, the
message is like a ball that someone makes and tosses to someone else in the
circle. Each person in the circle is an Internet e-mail address. Now imagine
we add a Magician to the group who duplicates the message balls s/he receives.
The Magician is the Mail List address. In this instance, let's say this person
is the list name address for the Mail List discussion group called
"Dreaming in Later Life." Every time you throw this Mail List
Magician a ball, s/he will duplicate the ball and throw it to everyone that is
signed up on the "Dreaming in Later Life" discussion list. The
overall effect is that a group discussion over days, weeks or months can take
place between individuals located all over the globe.
Discussion Lists are really easy to join. But first...
One can join an discussion list by simple sending in a request to the
automated List Server address that is associated with the Mail List. Do NOT
send the request to the Mail List address. What would happen if you sent a
request to the List Magician in the imaginary circle? That's right, everyone
on the list would get a copy of your message that you wanted to subscribe, and
you are more than likely to get more than one reply back from other
subscribers about how happy they are that you are filling up their mail boxes
with your request.
So how to subscribe? Well, as mentioned, there is another address. In our
imaginary Net-Circle there is a Robot Server standing next to our List
Magician. If you send a note to the Robot Server, it will do as you say and
send messages back only to you that it is doing what you asked. You can join
the list, get off the mail list, find out who is on the list and accomplish
lots of other tasks depending on the Mail List Robot begin used. Note that one
Mail List Robot may be helping several lists. So the Internet contains many
Mail List Robots (Mail list Administrative addresses) and each one may have
dozens or hundreds of Mail Lists that it serves.
There are several kinds of Robot Mail List Servers and each one wants you
to sign up a little differently. The major Robot is called a LISTSERV. Let's
go right to an example of how to subscribe to a mail list controlled by this
Robot server.
In this example I'm going to join the Phil-Lit Mail List, an active and
usually intelligent symposium on Philosophy and Literature. Feel free to try
this out yourself . In the e-mail [To:] I'm putting the name of the robot
listserv. In the [Subject:] I'm putting "sub to phil-lit" though it
really doesn't matter what goes there as the listserv only reads what is in
the body of the e-mail. I like to put in the [Subject:] what action I'm doing
anyway so if I send it to the wrong address and it comes back I have a quick
idea of what I was doing (in this case trying to subscribe to phil-lit). In
the [Body] of the e-mail, I put one line that tells the automated listserv
what to do and who is doing it. (They are not case sensitive, so I can use
capitals or lower case)
To: LISTSERV@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU
Subject: SUB TO PHIL-LIT
Body of e-mail:
SUBSCRIBE PHIL-LIT RICHARD WILKERSON
Within a few minutes I will get a couple of e-mail notes back telling me
that my subscription has been accepted (or is being reviewed if the list is
moderated) and another note that tells how much time and what resources were
used in processing the request. I delete the resource note but I always,
always, save the subscription acceptance note (The "Welcome" letter)
as it usually contains all the important information about how to get on and
off the list as well as other important information.
As members of the group send in notes, they will now be automatically sent to
your e-mail box.
Now, how to send a message to this intelligent group? I simply send the
message to the List Address PHIL-LIT@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU. Notice that the
@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU is the same address as the listserv, but that the LISTSERV@
has now been replaced with the name of the specific list PHIL-LIT@
In my example I'm going to pretend I got a message sent to me (and the
whole phil-lit group) from Bob Jordon that said he was wondering if there had
been any recent reviews of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams.
In my e-mail [To:] I put the List Address, PHIL-LIT@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU and in the
[Subject:] I might say "Regarding updated reviews on Freud and
dreams" and in the [Body] of the e-mail I might say, " Hi, Bob
Jordan - I wanted to mention some recent updates on Freud's _The
Interpretation of Dreams_ that can be found in the March 1994 v4n1 issue of
the ASD _Dreaming_ Journal...."
Now I could have sent this message directly to Bob Jordon if he had
included his e-mail address (which is usually automatically sent with the
message) but in this case I felt the information was useful beyond his
personal needs and sent it to the whole mail list. Note also that all e-mail
is written in ASCII, which means you can use the letters and numbers on your
keyboard, but no bold, italics , underlining nor font scaling. Thus you can
make underlines look like _this_ and italics look like *this* and bold looks
like THIS. Netiquette dictates that you only use capitals on the net for
shouting, embolding or commands to robots whose feelings won't be hurt.
"Don't waste Bandwidth." This often quoted phrase simple means to
respect the Internet as a limited resource and avoid sending messages that are
unnecessary for everyone to see like , "Yes, I agree with you
completely!''
After a few days on the Phil-lit mail list I notice a lot of e-mail that I
have to open, read and decide to keep, delete or reply to. Multiply this task
times the number of mail lists I'm subscribed to and you will see how very
quickly the mail list chores can easily get out of hand. One solution with
Listserv is the digest option that puts all messages for the day into one
e-mail package. To set my option to digest I send an e-mail to the robot
listsev address and say in the body of the e- mail to "set phil-lit
digest"
To: LISTSERV@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU
Subject: set to digest format
Body of e-mail:
SET PHIL-LIT DIGEST
Not all mail lists have this option. Listserv usually does. To find out if
your mail list does have this and other options, you can send for an
information and reference file. Usually the address is given in the
"Welcome" file. The phil-lit reference file is available by sending
an e-mail again to the listserv and saying in the body of the e-mail
"info refcard".
To: LISTSERV@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU
Subject: Get reference file
Body of e-mail:
INFO REFCARD
The reference list will contain all the commands I can use with the
Listserv, including how to retrieve old messages and have sent to my e-mail
address, how to keep my e-mail address off the public list, who is on the list
and other useful tasks.
After a couple of weeks I find that I am way to busy to read even the
digest form of Phil-lit and I want to leave the mail list. Since I saved my
"Welcome" letter this is no problem. All I have to do is send the
following message to the Listserv:
To: LISTSERV@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU
Subject: UNSUB TO PHIL-LIT
Body of e-mail:
SIGNOFF PHIL-LIT RICHARD WILKERSON
In a few minutes you will get a reply that indicates you have been
un-subscribed.
Each of the Mail List programs have slightly different keyword commands and
options. Besides the LISTSERV we discussed, there are also listproc, mailbase,
mailserv, and majordomo.
For a complete list of basic commands for each of these you can send an e-mail
to:
To: LISTSERV@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
Subject: Get mail list info
In body put:
GET MAILSER CMD NETTRAIN F=MAIL
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know
where we can find information upon it." Samuel Johnson
But how did I find the phil-lit list in the first place? I haven't seen
anyone with a complete list of Mail Lists, but there are several places that
do claim to have them. Here are some ways to find them.
1. Word of mouth and announcements on other lists you are already
subscribed to.
2. Internet Yellow Pages -- there are some great books you can buy in most
bookstores that tell you where all of the neat stuff is on the Internet.
3. The LIST GLOBAL or LIST GLOBAL / STRING command. Once I know the address
of one Listserver - like our phil-lit server - I can send a command that tells
the server to e-mail me all its lists or just the lists I'm looking for by
doing an alphabetic search.
To: LISTSERV@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU
Subject : Get all lists
Body:
LIST GLOBAL
4. The new- list mail list - Really more like a daily newsletter that give
announcements of new lists that get registered with the service. To:
LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU
Subject: Sub to New Lists
subscribe new-list YOUR NAME
5. Big List of Mail Lists on all Servers - or so they say. It *is* a large
list! To: listserv@vm1.nodak.edu
Subject : Get Mail List Lists
Body: LIST GLOBAL
6. If you have Web access, I suggest you begin you search at the list of
lists center on Yahoo
Mail List Directory
7. Or another Web approach is a
Search machine for Mail Lists
Most Online services such as AOL and Compuserve have ways to make signing
on and off mail list easier. (Though its hard to imagine something easier than
sending an e-mail). There are also commercial products available that perform
mail list tasks such as the windows based infoMagnet, an interesting shareware
program (free to try out - pay if you like) that will organize the mail list
tasks for you and perform searches through many newsgroups. Windows based. Download
via web or ask for free disk:
Finally, there is one outstanding collection of mail lists by the Spoon
Collective that involve philosophy I highly recommend for thinking and
idea people.
BIBLIOGRAPHY & STOOPID NET TRIX
Clinton, Bill (1995) October Speech at Fairmont: San Francisco, CA.
[Actually, its not just Internet that this administrations plans to connect
schools too, but an even faster network now in development]
-------- (1993). A
New Direction to Build Economic Strength
Cochran Interactive (1995).
Exploring the Internet: E-mail
Crispen, Patrick (1995). ROADMAP. (Guide to Internet). send e-mail To:
LISTSERV@UA1VM.UA.EDU Body: GET MAP PACKAGE F=MAIL
Enzer, Matisse (1995). Glossary
of Internet Terms. Matisse Enzer & Internet Literacy Consultants(tm):
Gaffin, Adam (Oct, 1995). EFF's
Guide to the Internet. Electronic Frontier Foundation
Gates, Bill (1995). The Road Ahead. With Nathan Myhrvold and Perter
Rinearson. New York, NY: Viking Penguin.
Glossary
of Net Terms
Kabacoff, Rob (1995). Internet Users' Guide to Subscription Mailing Lists.
Nova Southeastern University: Inter-Links(tm) (No Longer An Active Link)
Kehoe, Brendan P. (1995). Zen
and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide. Second Ed. New Jersey:
Prentice Hall.
Krol, Ed (1987). The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet. krol@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
List of Net Guides:
Guides and Tutorials
Levy, Steven (1995). Bill's new vision. (Bill Gates) Newsweek, Nov.
27. pp 54-57.
Milles, James (1995). Discussion
lists: mail server commands. Mills Mail List Information File. Saint Louis
University Law Library. Version 1.26.
millesjg@sluvca.slu.edu
Thomas, Eric (1995). LISTSERV
Guide for General Users. EARN Association.
This includes thorough instructions for subscribing to, participating in, and
unsubscribing from mailing lists. Email by sending
To: LISTSERV@EARNCC.EARN.NET (or LISTSERV@EARNCC.BITNET) Subject : Get file
guide
In Body : GET LSVGUIDE MEMO (plain text).
Next Month :Using Web Sites for DreamSharing.
Please feel free to contibute to this theme with your own articles,notes or
comments,
