[10249] in Athena Bugs
Re: No subject found in mail header
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (yandros@Athena.MIT.EDU)
Wed Feb 3 20:06:58 1993
From: yandros@Athena.MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 93 20:06:51 -0500
To: eavgoust@Athena.MIT.EDU
Cc: bugs@Athena.MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: [10246]
Reply-To: yandros@Athena.MIT.EDU
Hello there.
I'm afraid that someone has misled you about what `hidden' means with
respect to mailing lists. If you had checked in the OLC Answers to
Common Questions, you would have found this at the top of the answer
titled `How to create and edit mailing LISTS':
> If you need to have a mailing list or group created, you need to send mail to
> "accounts@athena". In the mail, please give details about:
>
> - what you would like the list to be called
> - the username(s) of the administrator(s)
> [people who can change the list]
> - whether you would like the list to be public or private
> [anyone can add themselves to public lists]
> - whether you would like the list to be not hidden or hidden
> [people can find out about the existence of "not hidden" lists]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> - whether the list should be a group, a mailing list, or both
Note carefully what it says about the meaning of `hidden'. It is
possible to find generate a complete list of `visible' mailing lists
(although this is an extremely expensive thing to do,
computation-wise). Later in that stock answer, you will find:
> Any changes that you make will take about 24 hours to take effect. To check on
> the status of your changes (for MAILING LISTS only), you can do:
>
> add consult
> expn listname
> ^
> use the actual name of the list
>
> That will check with the central mail machine, and give you the membership
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> list that is currently in effect.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Now, while I can certainly understand that someone who hadn't seen
this might be confused about the meaning of `hidden', as someone who
used to work for Athena User Accounts, I can say that it was normal
practice to include something containing this information (often this
literal text) in response to list requests, unless the person
explictitly mentions the desired parameters in the request, in which
case it is often assumed that the user understands what it is they are
asking for.
Also, as someone who works for OLC, I can tell you that if you had
ever asked about this topic we would have tried to help you understand
the distinction between what it means and what you (and I imagine
others) assume it to mean. Unfortunately, changing the name `hidden'
to something else would be very difficult at this point.
It's likely that someone will respond to you in an `offical capacity',
which I am not, but I hope this helps clear things up somewhat in any
case.
Chad Brown
