Subject: Propose: A Hypermail conversion of the CCL

From: [email-masked] (Rzepa,Henry)
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 09:05:00 +0000

Dear all,

I would like to propose that  items sent to the CCL list be made available
via WWW pages using Hypermail. For an example, see
http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/hypermail/mac-supporters/archive.html

This has several advantages

a) It is far easier to retrieve an old message.
b) Threads are maintained according to subject header, and hence
easier to follow (provided we all use informative subject headers)
c) The entire archive could be indexed, and hence easily searched using a
keyword.
d) Dare I say it, but those who find the sheer bulk of messages too much could
unsubscribe, but still gain the advantage of browsing through what they
have missed,
perhaps picking up the one or two items of genuine interest to them
e) Any URL submitted within the body of a text is instantly activatable
f) It would increase "hypertext" awareness amongst users, and hence prepare
the ground for further conference such as the ECCC last year.

There are also interesting alternatives to the use of Hypermail. For example
http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/mhonarc.doc.html
is MIME RFC 1521 compliant (unlike Hypermail).

I will announce to this list shortly a proposed mechanism
for enclosing "chemical" message bodies in e-mail. This  would
automatically make available any molecule or other chemical type sent with
a message as a hyperlink. Have a look at the discussion in
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemime/
as an example of what we might achieve.

Dr Henry Rzepa, Department of Chemistry, Imperial College, LONDON SW7 2AY;
[email-masked] via Eudora 2.1.1, Tel  (44) 171 594 5774 or 594 5809.
Fax: (44) 171 594 5804. World-Wide-Web URL:
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa.html