Subject: Two-day list shoutdown

From: Jan Labanowski <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 23:52:49 -0500

Dear CCL subscribers...
The Coordinator sings a swan song before two-day list shutdown.

I have a bad news and ... no ... good news.

The bad news first. Our server, www.ccl.net (vel infomeister.ccl.osc)
will undergo system change from SunOS to Solaris. It will be happening
over the weekend, and nothing will work during Saturday and Sunday.
Later on, there will be a long process of fixing the bugs, since
UNIX is an operating system which takes care about jobs for computer
specialists for a long time to come.

The no good news are:
1) Remember that there are CCL archives where you can find conferences,
   jobs, software, documents, standards, text utilities, and other stuff,
   and, first of all, the old messages. The archives can be SEARCHED !!!
   To get the top page of the archives use Web
         http://www.ccl.net/chemistry.html
   To browse the archives use either Gopher 
         gopher://www.ccl.net:73/
   or FTP
         ftp://www.ccl.net/pub/chemistry
   since some files/directories may not be referenced in Web pages (I wish
   I had time to cope with keeping the hypertext pages current). Please
   tell me if you see some ommisions.
   Even if you do not have interactive/direct access to Internet, you can
   still use e-mail to retrieve everything from the archives and browse
   the directories, etc. Send a message:
        select chemistry
        help chemistry
        quit
   to [email-masked] to find all about CCL. If something does not work
   of needs update, bug me, since I do not check the interface and information
   in the archives, but I would wish for it to be useful and current.

Why the reminders? Because so many times I see questions and requests on CCL
to which answers are available in the CCL archives.

2) As you know, I have some filters installed to weed CCL from unwanted
   messages. This is quite important, since ANYONE from ANYWHERE is allowed
   to post to CCL. The filters are not perfect, but they do part of the job.
   One of them rejects messages from addresses which I keep in a special file.
   I place addresses there when I see somebody breaking the rules of the list
   (to get the rules see pt. 1). Then, when this person sends a message again,
   the message waits for me to be reviewed, and only then is released.
   And I am slow and lazy, and it may sit there forever. Moreover, the
   filters sometimes stop legitimate messages without an apparent reason.
   And these messages from innocent persons have to wait too.
   Frankly, sometimes, I have a hard time to let the message go since
   it is not really useful, but if it is within the rules, I let it go,
   or otherwise, I would have to be subjective (which I am anyhow...).
   I do not inform people that I placed their names on the restricted 
   addresses list, since I really do not have time for lengthy correspondence
   and discussions about this fact -- which naturally follow (I know, and I
   would do the same -- we are all humans). So I act as the proverbial "big
   brother" and run a clandestine censorship joint here for selected
   individuals. You need to understand that what I do is not 100% waterproof:
   a) I react AFTER the fact, i.e., try to block a person after a sin to
      protect his/her against  future sins (how nice of me...),
   b) I sometimes miss things, mistype, forget. In this case, somebody which
      should not post directly to the list, may sneak in again.
Obvioulsy, the way around my old bag of tricks is to use some other e-mail
address when sending to the list. 

So sorry about the long piece above, and use archives since they have much
useful stuff contributed from good people all over the world.

Your coordinator,
Jan 
-- 

Dr. Jan K. Labanowski, Senior Research/Supercomputer Scientist/Specialist, etc.
Ohio Supercomputer Center, 1224 Kinnear Rd, Columbus, OH 43212-1163
ph:(614)-292-9279,  FAX:(614)-292-7168,  E-mail: [email-masked]  [email-masked]