X-Message-Number: 382
From: Kevin Q. Brown
Subject: mailing list on automatic 
Date: 18 Jul 1991

From hos1cad!kqb Thu Jul 18 17:38 EDT 1991 remote from whscad1
To: whscad1!kqb
Subject: CRYONICS mailing list on automatic

I will be off-line approximately July 22 - Aug. 3 for a much-needed (and
well-deserved) vacation.  During this time the cryonics mailing list will
be run entirely in automatic mode.  When run in this mode, my software will
examine all incoming mail messages and only those messages with a "Subject"
line with the word CRYONICS (in CAPITAL letters) will be queued automatically
for a mailblast to the mailing list.  For example, if the latest cryonics
message sent was number 390 and a message with the line:
    Subject: CRYONICS reanimation achieved!
arrives, then my mail-handling software will generate a mailblast to the
mailing list with the line:
    Subject: cryonics #391 - reanimation achieved!
Note that since the cryonics mailing list mailblasts use the word "cryonics"
in lower case in the subject lines, a simple "reply" command to me will not
result in a message that gets distributed to the mailing list.  This will
help ensure that submissions to the mailing list have to be deliberate
rather than accidental.

This is great when it works, but, considering that email is certainly less
than 100% reliable, what can you do when it does not work?  A new capability
of the mailing list software may help.  If you send a "neuro message"
(header only, no body) to me with the "Subject" line "CRYOMSG" (in CAPITAL
letters), the software will (attempt to) send back to you a list of the
latest email messages mailblasted to the mailing list.  (The software will
use the "From" field in the header of your "CRYOMSG" message as the email
address for the reply.  This usually, but not always, is a working email
address.)  Thus, if you submit a "CRYONICS" message and do not get it
mailblasted back to you within a few days, send a "CRYOMSG" message and see
if your message was indeed received and mailblasted or if it never was
received at all.  (Of course, if your "CRYOMSG" query is not answered you
still have no idea what is happening with the mailing list.)  If the list of
recent messages includes one that you did not receive, then send to me email
with a "Subject" line of the form "CRYOMSG xxx", where "xxx" is the number
of the message you want.  The software then will (attempt to) send to you
that message (rather than a list of the last few messages sent to the mailing
list).  Oh yes, if you want two or messages, use a subject line of the form
"CRYOMSG xxx yyy ... zzz" with message numbers separated by spaces.
Enjoy the increasingly automated cryonics mailing list!
				       - Kevin Q. Brown
                                       ...att!whscad1!kqb
                                       
FYI: If you send to me a message with a "Subject" line that specifies a
     non-numeric message name such as "CRYOMSG ../secret/paper", the software
     will just ignore that non-numeric message name rather than sending to you
     the "secret/paper" that you hoped to receive. ;-)

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