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Dear Colleagues,
One of the advantages of LISTSERV/LISTEARN-based email lists like ours is
the possibility of being identifiable as a subscriber. Unless you opted
for remaining an anonymous subscriber (3 out of 285 at the present time),
your email address and personal name can be retrieved (by fellow subscri-
bers only!) via the command
review biomch-l (countries
to LISTSERV@HEARN.BITNET (if you subscribed through an EARN/BITNET mailer)
or LISTSERV@NIC.SURFNET.NL (if you subscribed through another mailer). In
reply, you will receive the lists' profile, the list of all subscribers, and
a country-wise breakdown of all subscribers. This breakdown is specific for
EARN/BITNET addresses, while adresses on other networks (Internet, UUCP/EUNET,
JANET, etc.) are lumped into one or more ?? categories: the LISTSERVER merely
handles EARN/BITNET country specifications. For EARN/BITNET subscribers, the
reply is usually received as a NETDATA file which may require other reception
activities than email (e.g., when using JNET mailer s/w on VAX/VMS-machines
like the present one, use the RECEIVE utility); for other subscribers, there
is no difference.
For EARN/BITNET addresses, it is relatively easy to obtain further details on
a subscriber's email site. Such information is available from an information
server NETSERV quite similar to the file retrieval component of LISTSERV/LIST-
EARN. This facility is available to all email users, whether or not on EARN/
BITNET.
A current list of EARN/BITNET nodes can be obtained by sending the request
GET BITNET NODELST (without an "I") to NETSERV@HEARN.BITNET or to any NET-
SERVer closer to you. If you don't know which one is closer to you (usually,
you should find one at the National Backbone for EARN/ BITNET), NETSERV@HEARN
will honour your request and inform you which NETSERVer should be used at
future occasions.
If you want to know more about a specific EARN/BITNET node, e.g., HNYKUN53,
you should send the request GET NODENTRY node_id, also to your nearby NET-
SERVer. If the node is known at the NETSERVer (brand-new or relatively
"small" nodes may not be known world-wide, so it might be useful then to
address the relevant, national/state/provincial NETSERVer), you will receive
a dataset containing postal addresses, type of machine and networking mode,
names and telephone numbers of directors, postmasters, contact persons, etc.
This is particularly helpful if some user_id at that node cannot be reached.
Often, the address POSTMAST@node_id will work (similar to the Internet's
convention postmaster@subsubdomain.subdomain.domain), but there is no
guarantee that this will always work. The approximate location of any EARN/
BITNET site can be obtained by "tracking" it to its nearby link mentioned
in the BITNET NODELST file.
In order to facilitate identifiability of subscribers w.r.t. each other,
I would suggest that you all consider changing your name on the listserver
by adding your affiliation and/or location (in my case, Eindhoven/NL). This
can be done by simply "resubscribing" using the command
subscribe biomch-l firstname lastname (affiliation/place/country)
to LISTSERV@HEARN or LISTSERV@NIC.SURFNET.NL ( n o t to Biomch-L at these
sites!): "resubscribing" from an already subscribing address is interpreted
by the LISTSERVer as a name change only. Please limit the length of the name
and claryfying entry to 40 characters or less, including spaces.
If you are on an EARN/BITNET address, try to avoid resubscribing by inter-
active messages because of address mapping and lower-case/higher-case con-
version problems, and especially so if you are on a (VAX/VMS) cluster with
different "site_id's" tied to one "node_id". The best approach is to (re-)
subscribe by sending an electronic mail request -- this is also more secure,
since interactive messages may get lost without feedback to their sender that
something has gone wrong. For "store-and-forward" email, the chances for
such problems are much smaller.
With kind regards,
Herman J. Woltring, co-moderator Biomch-L.
One of the advantages of LISTSERV/LISTEARN-based email lists like ours is
the possibility of being identifiable as a subscriber. Unless you opted
for remaining an anonymous subscriber (3 out of 285 at the present time),
your email address and personal name can be retrieved (by fellow subscri-
bers only!) via the command
review biomch-l (countries
to LISTSERV@HEARN.BITNET (if you subscribed through an EARN/BITNET mailer)
or LISTSERV@NIC.SURFNET.NL (if you subscribed through another mailer). In
reply, you will receive the lists' profile, the list of all subscribers, and
a country-wise breakdown of all subscribers. This breakdown is specific for
EARN/BITNET addresses, while adresses on other networks (Internet, UUCP/EUNET,
JANET, etc.) are lumped into one or more ?? categories: the LISTSERVER merely
handles EARN/BITNET country specifications. For EARN/BITNET subscribers, the
reply is usually received as a NETDATA file which may require other reception
activities than email (e.g., when using JNET mailer s/w on VAX/VMS-machines
like the present one, use the RECEIVE utility); for other subscribers, there
is no difference.
For EARN/BITNET addresses, it is relatively easy to obtain further details on
a subscriber's email site. Such information is available from an information
server NETSERV quite similar to the file retrieval component of LISTSERV/LIST-
EARN. This facility is available to all email users, whether or not on EARN/
BITNET.
A current list of EARN/BITNET nodes can be obtained by sending the request
GET BITNET NODELST (without an "I") to NETSERV@HEARN.BITNET or to any NET-
SERVer closer to you. If you don't know which one is closer to you (usually,
you should find one at the National Backbone for EARN/ BITNET), NETSERV@HEARN
will honour your request and inform you which NETSERVer should be used at
future occasions.
If you want to know more about a specific EARN/BITNET node, e.g., HNYKUN53,
you should send the request GET NODENTRY node_id, also to your nearby NET-
SERVer. If the node is known at the NETSERVer (brand-new or relatively
"small" nodes may not be known world-wide, so it might be useful then to
address the relevant, national/state/provincial NETSERVer), you will receive
a dataset containing postal addresses, type of machine and networking mode,
names and telephone numbers of directors, postmasters, contact persons, etc.
This is particularly helpful if some user_id at that node cannot be reached.
Often, the address POSTMAST@node_id will work (similar to the Internet's
convention postmaster@subsubdomain.subdomain.domain), but there is no
guarantee that this will always work. The approximate location of any EARN/
BITNET site can be obtained by "tracking" it to its nearby link mentioned
in the BITNET NODELST file.
In order to facilitate identifiability of subscribers w.r.t. each other,
I would suggest that you all consider changing your name on the listserver
by adding your affiliation and/or location (in my case, Eindhoven/NL). This
can be done by simply "resubscribing" using the command
subscribe biomch-l firstname lastname (affiliation/place/country)
to LISTSERV@HEARN or LISTSERV@NIC.SURFNET.NL ( n o t to Biomch-L at these
sites!): "resubscribing" from an already subscribing address is interpreted
by the LISTSERVer as a name change only. Please limit the length of the name
and claryfying entry to 40 characters or less, including spaces.
If you are on an EARN/BITNET address, try to avoid resubscribing by inter-
active messages because of address mapping and lower-case/higher-case con-
version problems, and especially so if you are on a (VAX/VMS) cluster with
different "site_id's" tied to one "node_id". The best approach is to (re-)
subscribe by sending an electronic mail request -- this is also more secure,
since interactive messages may get lost without feedback to their sender that
something has gone wrong. For "store-and-forward" email, the chances for
such problems are much smaller.
With kind regards,
Herman J. Woltring, co-moderator Biomch-L.