9.371 editorial matters for Humanist

Humanist (mccarty@phoenix.Princeton.EDU)
Sun, 10 Dec 1995 09:48:13 -0500 (EST)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 9, No. 371.
Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (Princeton/Rutgers)
Information at http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/

[1] From: Willard McCarty <mccarty@phoenix.princeton.edu> (30)
Subject: replies to editorial matters

[2] From: "Leon E. Zimlich" <6500lzim@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> (11)
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters

[3] From: Gerard Gautier <gauier@mail.nsysu.edu.tw> (37)
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters

[4] From: Dana Paramskas <danap@uoguelph.ca> (23)
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters

[5] From: Andrew Burday <andy@dep.philo.mcgill.ca> (17)
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters

[6 ] From: "Richard L. Goerwitz III" <richard@mithra- (10 )
orinst.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters

[7 ] From: Avril Henry <A.K.Henry@exeter.ac.uk> (9 )
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters: (A REQUEST)

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 1995 08:53:22 -0500
From: Willard McCarty <mccarty@phoenix.princeton.edu>
Subject: replies to editorial matters

Thank you who replied or who have thought of replying. A few more comments
from me.

Apparently something in Jean Veronis' message causes trouble to some of the
systems used by Humanists in N. America and Europe. I can see places where
an e-acute has been rendered by a graphic, non-alphabetic symbol, which I
guess is substituted by pine (the e-mail software I use on the Princeton
system) for whatever Jean sent out. I don't recall this ever happening
before. I think it would help me if someone were to explain why this happens
and what might be done to prevent such things in the future -- apart from
asking e.g. all Humanists in France to alter how they write or send e-mail.
I want at least not to stifle progress elsewhere, even if the software I use
cannot reflect it. (To answer one question posed below, the software is
ListProc, not ListServ.)

Shortly I will be sending out by regular means the page of instructions
normally (i.e. for some of us ideally but not actually) accessible via the
Web. I would appreciate any suggestions concerning how the information might
be made available in a way that would not involve mailing it out
periodically. In the beginning we assumed that everyone could get to the
Web, at minimum through lynx, or that those who could not would be in a tiny
minority and could be served on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps the solution
is to mail out the instructions only to those who write in with a request
for us to do something that they can do themselves. Comments on this?

One of the messages below indicates that I have wrongly assumed the
location of the help page would be obvious. Any suggestions on what I
might do about this? Would the change that I have just made provisionally
to the masthead improve matters?

Please note that the suggestions some have made about the Web pages have not
been ignored but just put aside until we have time to consider them. Ideas
about how Humanist might be improved are always welcome and will not be
forgotten.

WM
Editor

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 23:16:50 -0800 (PST)
From: "Leon E. Zimlich" <6500lzim@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu>
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters

With regard to message 9.358, it also arrived in my mailbox in corrupted
form. Whenever I tried to read the message it turned the screen to
gibberish, requiring me to logoff and then back on. Tiring of this I
simply deleted it without ever having read it.

I'm still a little curious about what I missed.

Leon E. Zimlich
6500lzim@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu

University of California, Santa Barbara | Home Address and Phone:
Department of the History of Art | 453 Linfield Pl. Apt. C
and Architecture | Goleta, CA 93117
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-7080 | (805) 685-1720
(805) 893-2454 |

--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 15:35:58 +0800 (CST)
From: Gerard Gautier <gauier@mail.nsysu.edu.tw>
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters

Hello,

Concerning your comments about the ' backroom" job, I understand very
well how it can quickly make editors be submerged with it.. Sometimes,
we have no other choice than to ask for help. Here is my exemple : my
"gurus" in the university I use to connect (I am in a school off campus,
on the other side of the city) suddenly decided last week to CHANGE THE
INTERNET ADDRESS of our host !

They did it WITHOUT WARNING anyone, and, one morning, I was surprised
to discover that I had to log on a different host name ! (I logged on the
old machine, just to be rejected with a two-lines message (in chinese !)
telling : Please now use " mail.nsysu.edu.tw" instead of
"cc.nsysu.edu.tw"!!!

They thought being clever enough, because they initiated a forward from
the old name to the new. So I still receive all the mail from the
various llists I am subscribed to. But it is obviously not enough : now,
no LISTSERV knows me anymore. I discovered that, each time I want to
write to a list, LISTSERV tells me that I am not subscribed. I often try
to tell LISTSERV to change my subscription address, but as it does not
know me, it requests me to logon from the old account (which does not
exist anymore).

So I am in the situation to annoy every list-owner I know, asking him
to do the change of address by hand !! This situation is on since ten
days, but I still had no courage to write to each and every list,
first trying to do it myself (because it seems there are indeed
listservs who accept orders from "foreigners"...) When I will have this
courage, I will have to spend several hours to figure out what to do case
by case....

.... So sometimes, the lack of competence of the technicians puts us in very
bad situations...
Are there other people on HUMANIST who have had this type of problems ?

Gerard Gautier
Teacher of French in Taiwan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WEN-TZAO School | \| // Gerard Gautier
of Foreign Languages | /\ \| .. \| \
| | __> | _/\_> o___>
KAOHSIUNG - TAIWAN _/ _/.. _/ (_S .. _/ gauier@cc.nsysu.edu.tw
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 03:22:02 -0500 (EST)
From: Dana Paramskas <danap@uoguelph.ca>
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters

On Sat, 9 Dec 1995, Humanist wrote:

> GARBLED MESSAGES?
> -----------------
>
> In a note to me, Harry Gaylord noted that "message 9.358 arrived totally
> corrupted. The 8th bit is turned on so that it is jibberish. Did that happen
> to others?" I'm very interested in hearing from anyone who has experienced
> the same or similar problems with messages from Humanist. I have checked the
> copies of 9.358 available to me and found the odd strangeness where one
> would expect accented characters, but otherwise the message was
> intelligible. If anyone understands what is or might be happening, I'd
> welcome an explanation.

I have no explanation, but on my system, that message produced total
chaos. Opening it resulted not only in garbling and gaggling the message
itself, but my whole PINE screen twisted itself into surrealistic forms.
I exported the message to the UNIX general file storage, where I read it
quite easily. The trigger which set off the chaos seems to have been
Jean Veronis' name in the index, which off-line turned up as Va"ronis,
with a true trema over the 'a'.

Logging off and logging back on restored order to my e-environment.

Dana Paramskas
French Studies
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, Canada

--[5]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 10:53:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Andrew Burday <andy@dep.philo.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters

This is a response to your question and needn't be reposted to the list.

On Sat, 9 Dec 1995, Humanist wrote:

> However, I think it is true that not everyone has access to the Web, even
> via lynx. Would it help if the help page were mailed out? placed on an
> anonymous-ftp server? Suggestions, please.

Here's a vote for mailing the help page. In fact, if it isn't too huge,
it would be appropriate to remail it periodically. Many list managers do
that.

Incidentally, I have had no garbled messages. (At least, not
syntactically garbled... I won't comment on the semantics. ;*)

Best,

Andrew Burday
********************************************************************
andy@philo.mcgill.ca http://www.philo.mcgill.ca/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The trouble with him was that he was without imagination.
Jack London, "To Build A Fire" (1908 version)
********************************************************************

--[6]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 11:28:35 -0600 (CST)
From: "Richard L. Goerwitz III" <richard@mithra-orinst.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters

> Thus my request: PLEASE! ALWAYS SEND MESSAGES TO HUMANIST FROM THE
> ACCOUNT YOU USED WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBED. If you cannot remember which
> account this was, see the next item.

Just offhand, my reaction to this is that it indicates a serious
shortcoming in the software. I don't mean this question as an ac-
cusation, but are you still using Listserv?

Richard
r-goerwitz@uchicago.edu

--[7]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 17:04:09 GMT
From: Avril Henry <A.K.Henry@exeter.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 9.370 three editorial matters: (A REQUEST)

> Thus my request: PLEASE! ALWAYS SEND MESSAGES TO HUMANIST FROM THE
> ACCOUNT YOU USED WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBED. If you cannot remember which
> account this was, see the next item.

> NEW HELP PAGE

Alas, the address of the new Help Page did not arrive...should it have done?
Avril Henry
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
e-mail: A.K.Henry@exeter.ac.uk