---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 12:24:38 -0800 (PST)
From: karen(a)rootsweb.com
Reply-To: listowners(a)rootsweb.com
To: listowners-announce(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: ADMIN: Information for RootsWeb Listowners
Resent-Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 12:15:30 -0800 (PST)
Resent-From: listowners-announce(a)rootsweb.com
Various bits and pieces of news...
Contents:
1. Status of the searchable archives on
searches.rootsweb.com
2. Status of the threaded archives on
lists.rootsweb.com
3. Archives for private lists
4. Archive searches via e-mail
5. New feature: customizing your list settings
6. New feature: customizing your digest "administrivia"
7. Credit cards are out of beta
8. My parents are coming soon
1. We are temporarily out of disk space on
searches.rootsweb.com,
which means there will be a delay before new messages posted to
your lists become searchable. Brian has new hard drives on order
that should be here soon, but of course getting anything delivered
in the days before Christmas is a bit of a gamble. At this point,
the searchable archives are complete for most of the lists on
lists.rootsweb.com (that's most of the lists hosted here) through the
middle of December, and through the end of November for the
other mailing lists (the gatewayed lists, the Norwegian lists, the
lists on the old server, etc.) Due to the constraints on space,
many of the non-genealogical lists are not, at this time, included.
The URL for searching most lists is
http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl
A few lists (ROOTS-L and some of the gatewayed lists) are accessed instead
through
http://searches.rootsweb.com
And yes, getting that split tidied up is on the to do list.
2. What about the threaded archives, accessible through
http://lists.rootsweb.com/~archiver
I hope Marc will stop by and comment, but here's my current understanding.
Disk space is also very tight there. As I said above, Brian has new
drives on order, but it's impossible to promise when they'll arrive
and be installed. (Er, my parents arrive this afternoon.) Due to
concerns about spam-bots sniffing addresses, we have =not= been
automatically including mailing lists in this program. If you want your list
to be included now, visit
http://lists.rootsweb.com/~archiver and
follow the instructions Marc has posted there. If you want your list
to be included never, add "archiver(a)lists.rootsweb.com" to the
reject list for your mailing list (use the "edit selected files" button
at the bottom of your utility page.) If you want your list to be
included, but only after some spam-bot protection has been added,
just sit tight. Brian is hoping to get to that next month, after
the new hard drives are in, etc.
3. If your list is private and you do not want your archives to
be publicly accessible, then be sure to add "archiver(a)lists.rootsweb.com"
to the reject list for your mailing list. We are not able at this
time to provide special features for private lists, such as password
protecting the archives, etc.
4. Awhile back, I said we'd be turning off the e-mail search of the
archives. We probably won't do that, but once the new system is fully
in place, the amount of material available for searching will be
limited to the most recent two to four weeks. This will allow people
who have been on vacation to retrieve digests they missed, etc.
I will not provide any support for the e-mail search. If you can't
get it to work or don't understand it, etc., please use the web
alternatives (see the URLs above) instead. Thank you.
5. There's a new feature for those of you with utility pages on
lists.rootsweb.com and
biglists.rootsweb.com -- near the bottom,
after the link to the taglines editor, you'll find the option to
customize the settings of your list. These include whether replies
are directed to the list, the maximum acceptable message size, how
often the digest is created, etc.
6. I've had complaints about taglines in digests -- digest readers
are apparently getting confused by the blizzard of directions about
how to unsub from mail mode, etc. I rewired the lists on
lists.rootsweb.com
yesterday so that the taglines don't go into the digests (it would
be nice to do some magic on the subject lines, too, but I haven't figured
out how yet). Instead, a single "administrivia" message appears between
the table of contents and the first message. Those of you who didn't
have administrivia messages do now, just a simple one with the "how to
unsub from the digest" directions. You can edit this message by clicking
on the "edit selected files" button at the bottom of your utility page.
The feature isn't currently available on
biglists.rootsweb.com but
will be soon. (I hope. Did I say my parents were coming this afternoon?)
7. Brian comments that our certificate (?) has been renewed and that
the credit card page is now full up. Look for a link near the bottom
of
http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html
8. My parents are arriving this afternoon. So Brian and I, while
around, are probably going to be a bit on the scarce side. Have a
happy holiday!
Karen