Reducing the cost of using mailing lists ———————————————————— The problem of subscribing to mailing lists is that all discussion items come to you in individual messages. Each message comes with its own mailer header, and this information is generally completely useless. (Read "Returned mail" in Chapter 7 for details.) Newer versions of the BITNET LISTSERV software provide commands that solve this problem:
SET <list name> DIGEST ——————————— This command is sent to a LISTSERV to make all daily messages come to you in one, single message. Example: Say you've joined KIDCAFE@vm1.nodak.edu, which usually has a large number of messages each day. Send the following command to the LISTSERV:
SET KIDCAFE DIGEST
It will typically reduce the number of lines received from this mailing list by around 50 percent.
SET <list name> INDEX ——————————- This command is sent to a LISTSERV to get a daily list of messages, like in this example from KIDCAFE:
Index Date Size Poster and subject
——- —— —— —————————
22839 06/22 26 From: David Chalmers
<David.Chalmers@p3.f155.n633.z3.fidonet.org>
Subject: Conor Dublin Ireland
Based on this list, you can use the LISTSERV's search commands
to retrieve individual messages of interest. These commands are
similar to those used for searching in chapter 7.
For more about searching mailing lists' message bases, send a message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu with the following command in the text of your mail:
GET KIDLINK TIPS
Some LISTSERVs offers simplified search commands and macros
to make retrieval of individual messages simpler.