WHEW!! John C., my virtual hat's off to YOU for taking the time and making the effort to so thoroughly explain not only everything needed to get the most out of a Listserv group, but also for sharing the warm, personal information, as well. Both are appreciated. Since I logon via Microsoft's Exchange, as soon as I'm done writing this message, I'll change my settings to hopefully eliminate any "embedded garbage" that might have been included in any of my past messages. I had nooooo idea there was anything other than plain text in anything I posted on the list. Thanks again, John... Barb Mallut, [log in to unmask] ---------- From: PARKINSN: Parkinson's Disease - Information Exchange Network on behalf of John Cottingham Sent: Friday, June 21, 1996 4:55 PM To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN Subject: Getting the Most Out of the Parkinsn List Lists in general are not ran in a democratic way. Lists are owned and with that ownership come supervisory tools which can modify membership status. Onerous e-mail addresses can and are deleted with the automatic and discretionary tools. Don't confuse the parkinsn list with others ran by companies who have a paid employees that handle the administration. Barbara, like you and I are unpaid VOLUNTEERS. Barbara, our list-owner, handles the administration affairs of parkinsn list. Barb, as we lovingly call her, describes herself as; "Rather than saying that I am a home-maker, perhaps we could change that to wife, mother, grandmother (I PROMISE I won't brag about my grandsons), and, for that matter, I'm a daughter, too...my mother is 91." Some days she gets hundreds of error messages from the listserv on who has bounced mail. When you get sloppy in reading and downloading your mail from your internet provider, she knows about it. When you pickup a newspaper or magazine, do you read every story? Most people pick and choose their favorite topics. If you're reading a magazine while waiting to be called in the doctors waiting room, a 15 page article on Fava Bean futures in Egypt might take more time than you have, so you skip it. Reading your daily parkinsn list mail uses the same principle, skip and delete it if you are not interested in it. The scope of the parkinsn list is much broader than you think. Some prefer chatty anecdotal opinions, rather than the results of the latest study. Latest studies and abstracts posted to the archives allow study and research using the listserv tools. Revised instructions on searching the Parkinsn archive are posted monthly. If you are not interested in reading it, skip and delete it. What is the Scope of the Parkinsn List, Who Are We? We have been diagnosed with Parkinson's, Parkinson's Plus, parkinsonian and other movement disorder diseases that may manifest parkinsonian-like features and provide services to care-givers, friends and support groups. We are news organizations, drug companies, and equipment manufacturers that treat these diseases. We are family physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, neurosurgeons, medical and nursing students, researchers, care-givers and friends. We live, work and die in 32 countries. Who pays for this? Our host is the University of Toronto who provides the hardware and software to connect to the Internet. Individual institutions and grants pay for this connection. Your mail from the listserv is sent by common carrier which has connections to the major common carriers of the world which distribute the internet. Every connection point on the internet pays for this privilege. Your internet provider pays this fee also. If you use a "freenet" taxes or donations are used to pay this fee. If you use an Internet Service Provider (ISP) it is included in the subscription fee you pay them. If your ISP is a long distant phone call away from you, you pay long distance charges. On-going contributors to the parkinsn list pay for copying, faxing, converting written word to electronic word, out of their own pockets, regardless of their own circumstances, without remuneration. Vested interests who post here receive remuneration either directly or indirectly from their sponsors. How can I get the most out of the Parkinsn list? HARDWARE: Generally when I see comments that it takes 33 minutes to download mail, I know that someone is trying to use something other than a 14.4 or 28.8 modem to connect to the internet. If your ISP only has 2400 baud connect capability and your modem is capable of 14.4 or 28.8, run..don't walk to another ISP. If you have a 14.4 modem, a 28.8 modem will transfer a mail packet TWICE as fast. Depending on your circumstances, a slow modem can cost you more money in connect time and long distance charges. Bulletin Boards vs ISPs in the U.S. If you like the security of a bulletin board, where the management can and does read your mail, Prodigy, Compuserve and AOL are available. If you like to be limited in what internet resources are at your disposal and enjoy being over-charged for those that interest you, the top three are for you. If you don't want to pay anything but will settle for e-mail, freenets in some areas of the country are available. Unlimited local access to the internet using ISP provided software that runs on your own machine is available for as low as $15 per month in some areas. The same level of access can cost up to $50 per month in other areas. Shop for your best value. Plans that provide 40 hours, prime-time access a month for $20 or less can be the most cost effective since most have free hours after midnight to 8 AM and weekends. Since there are only 22 or 23 working days in a month, your primetime access can average as much as an 1 1/2 hours a day. Ask your ISP the hours of the day that they consider prime-time. USING THE LISTSERV SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS TO MAKE YOUR MAIL MANAGEABLE. If you are a parkinsn subscriber and have a slow modem, there is a mail subscription option that can make your life more manageable. The following is a complete discription of these options: There are currently two mail subscription options, mail and digest. WHAT IS THE MAIL OPTION? New subscriber's have their mail option set to mail automatically. Messages sent to the list are redistributed to the members shortly after they are posted. Mail arrives at your mailbox around the clock, since we are a global community and someone is always 'up', posting to the list. Each message is individual, to be downloaded and deleted or saved by your mail software. Deleting the messages in your ISPs mailbox when you download them, frees up space for the next days' messages. Enable that option in your mail software. The mail option is set by sending a message to: [log in to unmask] In the body of the message put THREE WORDS: set parkinsn mail Within a few minutes you will be notified that your subscription option has been changed to mail. WHAT IS THE DIGEST OPTION? When you have the digest option, selected, the days' mail received at the listserv is saved until about 2 a.m. Toronto, Ontario, Canada time. This mail is saved as a digest. The digest has a table of subject lines contained in the digest, followed by those messages. The digest sent by the listserv may not be the same size as the one that arrives in your mailbox. Some ISPs have size limitations on digests and truncate or cut off the part of the digest that exceeds their limitation. What is the advantage of the digest? If you subscribe to more than one list, you may want to keep the messages separated. The digest option allows this by compartmentalizing the daily messages. The digest option is set by sending a message to: [log in to unmask] In the body of the message put THREE WORDS: set parkinsn digest Within a few minutes you will be notified that your subscription option has been changed to mail. HOW DO I KNOW IF MY MESSAGE GOT TO PARKINSN? New subscribers to parkinsn have as part of their subscription settings, the following two settings: REPRO = NO and ACK = NO The repro setting determines whether you will receive a copy of your message that was posted to parkinsn as it is being distributed to the members. The Ack option allows one posting to parkinsn to receive an acknowledgement message from the listserv when the distribution occurs rather than a copy of the message. To set your subscription to receive COPIES of your messages to parkinsn, send a message to: [log in to unmask] In the body of the message put THREE WORDS: set parkinsn repro In a few minutes, you will receive an acknowledgement from the listserv. With this option set, you will receive a copy of your next message to parkinsn. To set your subscription to receive ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS when your messages to parkinsn are distributed, send a message to: [log in to unmask] In the body of the message put THREE WORDS: set parkinsn ack In a few minutes, you will redceive an acknowledgement from the listserv. HOW DO I ELIMINATE WINMAIL.DAT FROM THE MESSAGES I POST? How Do I Post From MS Exchange? When posting from MS Exchange, you need to be sure that your messages do not contain formatting information that looks like junk to most others on the list and do not contain return-receipt information. That's because MS Exchange normally sends embedded formatting information with every message. The solution is to create a special address book entry for use when posting to the list, and to_always_ use that entry whenever posting to or replying to the list. A) CREATING THE PARKINSN ADDRESS BOOK ENTRY: 1.Open your address book (Ctrl-Shift-B) 2.Create a new entry (Alt-F, Alt-E) 3.Select the entry type (Internet Mail Address) and press ENTER. 4.For the "Display name," put "PARKINSN". 5.For the E-mail address, put "[log in to unmask]" 6.Make sure that the box "Always send messages in Microsoft Rich Text Format" is NOT CHECKED. 7.Press ENTER. B) WHEN POSTING TO THE LIST: 1.NEVER simply reply to a message from the list. If you do, you will end up posting a message with embedded information junk. 2.ALWAYS erase the "To" field and enter "PARKINSN" for the "To" address. 3.Enter other "To" addresses, as desired. 4.Proceed with posting your message normally. What is the Potential for the Parkinsn List? On democracy, our founder and benefactor has these thoughts; "It is a democracy in that we have the choice to join or leave; to contribute or not; to read or not read, etc. I think of it more as a service that I give to those of us who deal with pd in one way or another. I GET far more than I GIVE. Less than a month after the list started, a dear friend of mine sent me a message saying "It sounds as though your idea of initiating a PD network was a way to meet a lot of needs that hadn't been identified until the network started. This could become a self help group with an awful lot of knowledge and power,and it may lead to some changes in research and treatment." Whenever the 'housekeeping' part becomes a lot of work, I read that." John Cottingham To search the Parkinsn archive, send search requests to [log in to unmask] with Archive Search as the subject. LibraryH Search of the Subject: line, From: line and Body are possible. Look for "Current Topics...." message for [log in to unmask] Articles and Studies available by e-mail.