There has been a problem at the TAMVM1 site at Texas A & M University
for the past couple of days, which is the reason you have not received
any articles on this list recently. I am pleased to report that I have
just received word that the problem has been resolved, which will be
confirmed by your receiving this message.
Since there is now something of a backlog of articles, I would like to
ask that you hold any new articles until I give an "all clear signal,"
which I expect to be able to do within a few days - unless the subject
matter of the article makes it urgent. The best address for posting is:
(Note that there's a letter "l" in "native-l," not the numeral "1.")
While I have your attention, I'd like to bring up a few matters which
I hope will be of interest to new list members and old hands alike.
PERSONNEL
First, just a brief word about the personnel behind the operation.
I am the founder and system operator of the NATIVE-L list and the
other "NativeNet" mailing lists. NATIVE-L has operated since April,
1991, and was preceded by a similar mailing list using manual methods
which was initiated in the fall of 1989, meaning that, as of the date
of writing, we're entering our fifth year of operation. Though the
mailing lists are made possible by the courtesy of the Texas A & M
University, I am based in the Boston, Massachusetts region. My co-
moderators for this list and for the NATCHAT list, which carries
discussion, rather than news and information, are Mary Kuhner and
her husband, Jon Yamato, who live in the Seattle, Washington region
and work at the University of Washington. I am also assisted by
Patrick Crowe, who is affiliated with the State University of New
York at Buffalo. Pat takes care of mail which cannot be delivered
to its sender - an invaluable service. I am extremely grateful to
Mary, Jon, and Pat for their help! We have also gotten able
assistance from various list members over the years who have given
tirelessly of themselves, whether in researching some question, or
providing lists of new books, or just in typing in the text of
bulletins and newsletters - or in writing interesting articles.
Many hands (and fingers :-) make light work!
LINKAGE WITH USENET / APC
The NATIVE-L and NATCHAT lists are linked with the Usenet newsgroup
"soc.culture.native," which was created in no small measure through
the assistance of members of the NATIVE-L mailing list itself in
March of the current year. Any articles sent to either NATIVE-L
(native-l@gnosys.svle.ma.us / native-l@tamvm1.tamu.edu [/tamvm1.bitnet])
or NATCHAT (natchat@gnosys.svle.ma.us, etc.) will be passed to the
moderators for approval. Articles which are posted are sent either
to NATIVE-L or NATCHAT (depending on the address to which they're
sent) as well as to soc.culture.native. Articles posted to s.c.n are
sent to the moderators, who will, if they deem it appropriate, relay
them both to one of the two mailing lists. The NATIVE-L list is also
linked with several electronic conferences (like Usenet newsgroups)
based on the worldwide network of the Association for Progressive
Communications, whose member systems include the Institute for Global
Communications (which operates PeaceNet and Econet) in the U.S., the
Web in Canada, GreenNet in the U.K., Pegasus/Earthnet in Australia,
Nordnet in Sweden, and in many other countries. Many organizational
subscribers take part in NativeNet conferences via the APC network.
POSTING ARTICLES TO NATIVE-L / NATCHAT
Please note that the preferred posting address for the NATIVE-L list
is "native-l@gnosys.svle.ma.us," though you will sometimes see other
addresses in the "Reply-To:" line of message headers from the LISTSERV,
and the address "native-l@tamvm1.tamu.edu" or "native-l@tamvm1.bitnet"
with also work. (The same is true for NATCHAT: it's best if you use
the address "natchat@gnosys.svle.ma.us") We generally try to relay
articles soon after they are received, but there may be times when an
article may not appear for a couple of days after it has been received.
Please do try to be patient, but let me know if an article which you
have sent has not been posted after a couple of days. Please also
send me a note if you find yourself receiving duplicate articles (I
have been getting reports of such things happening lately, but I as
yet have no solid evidence - please send the headers of both messages
when reporting such a problem), or if you experience any other problems.
NOMAIL MODE / SIGNOFF
The NativeNet lists include NAT-LANG, NAT-1492, and NAT-EDU [NAT-EDU
is based at indycms.iupui.edu], as well as NATIVE-L and NATCHAT - and
a new Native health list is soon to be announced). If you need to
temporarily suspend your subscription to NATIVE-L or another of the
NativeNet lists, just send a message containing:
set <listname> nomail
where "<listname>" is the name of the list you want to "turn off"
for a while. For example:
set native-l nomail
Use the "set <listname> mail" message to turn mail back on. To un-
subscribe, use:
signoff <listname>
ARCHIVES
Each article transmitted to any of the NativeNet lists, except for
NATCHAT, is simultaneously archived in a form which makes it available
for retrieval via commands which permit you to specify the selection
of articles according to words in the text they contain. To get
instructions on retrieving articles from the NATIVE-L archives (which
is really not at all difficult to do, once you get the hang of it),
just send a message containing *only* the text:
get nn-intro archives native-l
to the address:
(that's the letter "l" in "native-l" and the numeral "1" in "tamvm1").
For more complete instructions on how the database facility works,
send a message containing:
info database
(You can send both requests in a single message, if you like.)
You can use the same instructions to search the NAT-LANG and NAT-1492
archives at TAMVM1, as well as the NAT-EDU archives at INDYCMS (use
the address "listserv@indycms.iupui.edu" to search this "filelist"
archive, as well as for the "set mail/nomail" and "signoff" messages
described earlier).
Just to get the hang of things, you might want to request a list of
recently-posted articles. You can do so by sending the text:
// job echo=no
database search dd=rules
//rules dd *
select * in native-l since 1 september
index
/*
to the TAMVM1 LISTSERV address given above ("listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu"
or "listserv@tamvm1.bitnet" - or just "listserv@tamvm1" for BITNET
users). Articles can be selected from an index list like the one
you'll get back in response to the job shown above, or you can specify
criteria based on the text of articles; it's all explained in the two
database articles mentioned above.
SECURITY
Despite what it says in the note you receive when you first sign up
for one of the NativeNet lists, the names and addresses of members
of the lists is *not* available, either to subscribers or non-sub-
scribers. My feeling is that just as a magazine should keep its
list of subscribers private, a mailing list should do the same.
Of course, by posting an article to a list, you are announcing your
membership in the list - or at least your interest in the subject -
at least to fellow subscribers. As a result, you will not be able
to use the "review" command to find out who is on the list. I
welcome any comments you might have on this policy. (We have talked
about creating a database to which subscribers could voluntarily
contribute information about themselves, which would be accessible
to anyone who is interested - but that project, like a number of
others we've talked about, has not yet been initiated, even though
it would not be at all difficult to do; please let me know if you
would be interested in working on such a thing in any capacity, or
if you might be interested in helping on some other project. If
we do undertake a subscriber database, or a bibliographic database,
which we've talked about for a long time, the database part would
not be at all difficult, since I already have a database package
online, which can be accessed via electronic mail.)
FINAL COMMENTS
That's all for now. I'd like to extend a special welcome to our new
subscribers, and to hope that this and the other NativeNet lists
meets your expectations. Please feel free to contact me at any time
if you have comments or questions.
Best regards,
Gary
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst