Surviving Thanksgiving Break

[jmd9@cornell.edu (Jamey Dumas)]

Hi,

Lisa Heller raised a question which many of you might want to know the
answer to.  She pointed out that over Thanksgiving break she runs the risk
of CEDA-L "squashing" her mail box with messages (we could call this the
"sorcerer's apprentice problem").  Well, there are a three solutions to
this problem depending upon your individual setups.

First, do nothing.  If your email account (and you) can handle a hundred or
more messages (I guess this depends on how many people will have access to
email over the break and have nothing else to tide their time) then don't
do anything.  When you get back you will have enough messages to make sure
that you don't need to find things to procrastinate on...

Second, set your mail option to digest.  If your problem is that you don't
want a hundred different messages, but you don't have to worry about the
total size of the messages coming in, then you can change your mail option
(at least for the break) so that the listserv sends you one message per day
with all of that day's messages grouped together.  To do this send the
following message to listserv@cornell.edu:

        set CEDA-L mail digest

Third, stop receiving mail for the break.  If you are worried about
overwhelming the capacity of your mail boxes over the break you can
temporarily "unsubscribe" from the list.  To do this send the following
message to listserv@cornell.edu:

        set CEDA-L mail postpone

Then, when you return from break you simply need to change your mail
setting to one of the other three options by sending the following message
to listserv@cornell.edu:

        set CEDA-L mail value

Where "value" is:

        ACK             Acknowledge my postings by sending me a copy.
        NOACK           Don't send me a copy of my own postings.  This is 
                        the default for all lists.
        DIGEST          Don't send me any individual postings, but rather
                        send me a periodic digest of postings. The
                        default period is 1000 lines or 24 hours.

Two quick notes:  First, your default setting (if you haven't changed it)
was NOACK (I personally prefer ACK so that I get a copy of my postings when
everyone else does).  Second, make sure that you send the message to
listserv@cornell.edu and NOT to CEDA-L@cornell.edu (unless of course, you
don't want anything to get changed AND you want to be rediculed by the
community...)

I hope that this message gets out to people in time to help -- if not,
please do not pick on me for slacking in my "owner" duties.  I simply had
not thought of this problem since I have been relegated to staying at
school and working during the break...  (sympathy cards welcomed.)

One quick addendum (before the Rochester Bozos pick on the length of this
message):  my request that long messages not be sent to the list was NOT
intended to apply to messages which are part of on-going discussions.  This
message simply applies to "extra" stuff which people would like to make
available or think might be of interest (such as lists of electronic
resources, or introductions to new technologies) which are considerably
longer than the average message.

I hope that everyone has a good break.

Chat,

--Jamey Dumas
  The List "Owner"
  jmd9@cornell.edu

---

• Prev by Date: Re: That oldtime Speed
• Next by Date: Re: That oldtime Speed
• Prev by thread: Re: Multiple Topics Discussion
• Next by thread: Binghampton
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread
  • Author

---

Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page