MARK TWAIN FORUM: Survival Guide
Last updated: 28 August 1998
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Suggestions for students and Mark Twain researchers
3. Subscribing
4. Posting messages to the Forum
a. Appropriate postings
b. Where and how to send your message
c. Rejected postings
5. Decreasing your mail: digests
6. Getting a list of subscribers
7. Concealing your name on the subscriber list
8. Stopping mail from the Forum
a. Permanently
b. Temporarily
9. Browsing previous messages of the Forum
a. TwainWeb search engine
b. Monthly notebook files
c. LISTSERV database function
d. Ordering the log files by snail-mail
10. TwainWeb: The Forum's web page
11. Book notices on the Forum
12. How to find out about other LISTSERV lists
13. For more information about LISTSERV commands
14. Questions about the Forum?
1. Introduction
The Mark Twain Forum is for persons having a scholarly interest in the
life and writings of Mark Twain (1835-1910). Postings may include
queries, informal discussion, conference announcements, calls for
papers, information on new publications, or anything else that is
related to Mark Twain studies. The Forum has over 450 worldwide
subscribers.
Commercial postings are generally not welcome; for details, please read
the policy in Section 11. Moreover, students should not post requests
for help with research until they have investigated several basic
reference sources; Section 2 ("Suggestions for Mark Twain researchers")
contains a useful bibliography.
The Forum was founded in March 1992 by Taylor Roberts. It is one of
thousands of e-mail discussion groups that are operated on LISTSERV
software. While some of the commands below might not seem intuitive, they
conform to the well-known LISTSERV standard of operation, and so any time
spent learning them will allow you to apply them to other LISTSERV lists to
which you may be subscribed. Another (and perhaps more user-friendly)
way to access the Forum is via the LISTSERV/World Wide Web Gateway (see
Section 10).
Fortunately, learning all the LISTSERV commands described here is not a
prerequisite for using the Mark Twain Forum. All you really need to do
to get started is to send a SUBSCRIBE command (see Section 3). You
might have already subscribed to the Forum and are receiving this
document as a new subscriber. In this case, there is no need for you to
send another SUBSCRIBE command; you are already subscribed.
Instructions on how to post messages to the Forum are in Section 4. The
other sections of this document describe some commands that will let you
extend the usefulness of the Forum, and are good to have handy for
reference. You are therefore encouraged to print this document or save
it to disk, then, in order that you will have it available when necessary.
If you are not sure how to print/save messages on your system, and you
must delete these detailed instructions, you are strongly urged to at
least make a note of the command for signing off the list (see Section
8a), so that if you ever want to end your subscription you will be able to
do so.
The LISTSERV on which the Mark Twain Forum operates is available at any
time of the day or night, simply by sending various commands to the
following e-mail address:
LISTSERV@YORKU.CA
This address is hereafter abbreviated as "LISTSERV". Some of the
commands in this document are cited within quotation marks. Send only
the text inside the quotes to LISTSERV; do not include the quotes
themselves in any commands you send. Also, the symbols "<" and ">" are
often used to enclose e-mail addresses in this document, but they should
not be included when you address messages.
A command takes the form of an e-mail message to LISTSERV containing a
single line, and a blank subject in the header. The command that you
want to execute should appear as the single line in the body of your
message to LISTSERV. LISTSERV is a computer, not a human, so you
should not sign your messages to LISTSERV with your name, or questions,
etc., as the computer will not understand your message. However, you do not
have to worry about making a mistake. If you make an error while
sending a command to LISTSERV, the computer will simply let you know
that it does not understand your command. Nothing worse than that will
happen, so do not be afraid to send commands to LISTSERV.
It is important to bear in mind the different uses for the LISTSERV
address cited above vs. the TWAIN-L address at the same node (discussed
in Section 4). All messages sent to TWAIN-L are redistributed to the
subscribers, so please be careful not to send a command like "INDEX
TWAIN-L" to the address TWAIN-L, since you will not achieve what you want.
If you have technical/computer problems and need help, send a private
message to the list administrator at <KEVB@PRODIGY.NET>, who will be
pleased to help as best he can, or else direct you to someone who can
help you.
The correct e-mail addresses for different functions are summarized
below, and are elaborated more fully throughout this document:
Commands: LISTSERV@YORKU.CA
Postings: TWAIN-L@YORKU.CA
Problems: KEVB@PRODIGY.NET
2. Suggestions for students and Mark Twain researchers
The following books represent a solid starting point for researching the
life and writings of Mark Twain. A familiarity with some of these books
will prevent you from posting a question to the Forum whose answer can
be found easily at the library; such questions _should_ be pursued at
your library before you post a query to the Forum, since the Forum is
not intended to be a reference service.
Before posting a query to the Forum, you should especially consult both
LeMaster and Wilson's _Mark Twain Encyclopedia_ and Rasmussen's _Mark
Twain A to Z_, since together these books comprise a recent and thorough
overview of Mark Twain studies.
When you post a research query, please indicate what sources you have
already investigated, as this will demonstrate that you have already
done the primary research, and will save respondents from suggesting
resources that you have already investigated.
Some good sources of articles on the life and writings of Mark Twain are
the bibliographies of the Modern Language Association (MLA) and
_America: History and Life_, which most libraries have, either in
printed or electronic format. Please consult your librarian. Thomas A.
Tenney's _Mark Twain: A Reference Guide_ is an excellent bibliography.
If you are trying to identify the source of a quote attributed to Mark
Twain, you should first check published collections of aphorisms. A
recent book that will be of help is _The Quotable Mark Twain_, edited
by R. Kent Rasmussen. An excellent source of quotes on the web is
Barbara Schmidt's collection, which may be found via Jim Zwick's
collection of web links; see Section 10.
If you are trying to determine whether Mark Twain met a certain person,
or where and when he was at a certain locale, you should check the
catalogs of his correspondence, edited by Paul Machlis.
To find out if Mark Twain read a particular book, you should check the
catalog of his reading compiled by Alan Gribben.
The most authoritative editions of Twain's writings are in two series
edited by the Mark Twain Project and published by the University of
California Press: _The Mark Twain Papers_ and _The Works of Mark Twain_.
In 1996, Oxford University Press issues the 29-volume set _The Oxford Mark Twain_ which includes all of Mark Twain's major works with original illustrations. Each volume also contains a Foreword by a prominent contemporary author, an Afterword by a noted Mark Twain scholar, an essay about the illustrations, and bibliographic notes by Robert H. Hirst, General Editor of the Mark Twain Project.
Finally, if your library does not have a book that you need, you
should be able to get it via interlibrary loan; please ask your
librarian.
a. General reference
Ayres, Alex (ed.). _The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain_. New York:
Harper and Row, 1987. [Quotations.]
Gribben, Alan. _MT's Library: A Reconstruction_. 2 vols. Boston:
G. K. Hall & Co., 1980. [MT's reading.]
LeMaster, J.R., and James D. Wilson (eds.). _The MT Encyclopedia_.
New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1993.
Rasmussen, R. Kent. _Mark Twain A to Z: The Essential Reference to
His Life and Writings_. New York: Facts On File, 1995. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Rasmussen, R. Kent (ed.). _The Quotable Mark Twain: His Essential
Aphorisms, Witticisms and Concise Opinions_. Chicago: Contemporary
Books, 1998.
Wilson, James D. _A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of MT_.
Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987.
b. Biography
Kaplan, Justin. _Mr. Clemens and MT_. 1966.
_MT's Autobiography_. Ed. Albert Bigelow Paine. New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1924.
Paine, Albert Bigelow. _MT: A Biography_. Issued in 2-, 3-, and
4-volume sets. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1912.
c. Writings
_MT's Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays_. Ed. Louis J.
Budd. 2 vols. New York: Library of America, 1992.
_MT's Notebooks & Journals_. 1855-1891. 3 vols. Ed. Frederick
Anderson et al. Berkeley: University of California Press:
1975-1979.
_MT Speaking_. Ed. Paul Fatout. Iowa City: University of Iowa
Press, 1976. [Speeches.]
d. Correspondence
Machlis, Paul. _Union Catalog of Clemens Letters_. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1986. Catalog of letters
written by Samuel Clemens.
Machlis, Paul. _Union Catalog of Letters to Clemens_. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1992. Catalog of letters
written to Samuel Clemens.
_MT's Letters_. 2 vols. Ed. Albert Bigelow Paine. New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1917.
_MT's Letters_. Vol. 1, 1853-1866; vol. 2, 1867-1868; vol. 3,
1869; vol. 4, 1870-1871; vol. 5, 1872-73; more volumes
forthcoming. Eds. Edgar Marquess Branch et al. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987- .
e. Bibliography
Blanck, Jacob. _Bibliography of American Literature_. Vol. 2.
1957.
Johnson, Merle. _A Bibliography of the Works of MT_. Rev. ed.
1935.
Tenney, Thomas A. _MT: A Reference Guide_. Boston: G. K. Hall &
Co., 1977. Annual supplements appeared in _American Literary
Realism_ through 1983; subsequent supplements have appeared in
the _MT Circular_. An index to these supplements appears in
the _MT Circular_ starting with the March-June 1990 issue.
3. Subscribing
Send the command "SUBSCRIBE TWAIN-L your-full-name" to LISTSERV.
Upper/lower-case distinctions are relevant only for your name, which
will appear in the subscriber list in whatever combination of
upper/lower-case characters you type. An example SUBSCRIBE command is:
SUBSCRIBE TWAIN-L Mulberry Sellers
LISTSERV will send you a message asking you to confirm your
subscription; simply reply to the message, inserting "OK" as the first
line (as will be explained in the message that LISTSERV sends to you).
Thereafter, you will begin receiving postings immediately, i.e., whenever
another subscriber posts a message to the Forum. If you find that the
Forum is too busy for you, you can subscribe instead to the weekly
digest; see Section 5.
When you subscribe to the Mark Twain Forum, your name and e-mail address
become available to anyone who reviews the subscriber list (Section 6,
"Getting a list of subscribers"). If you inadvertently typed your name
in all capitals or lower-case (or if you made a typo) in your SUBSCRIBE
command, you can change your name in the subscriber list simply by
sending a new SUBSCRIBE command with your new name; there is no need to
sign off first.
The availability of the subscriber list is a service intended to help
you locate your colleagues' e-mail addresses (the purpose of the Forum,
after all, is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information among
Twain scholars and enthusiasts), but if you are concerned about your
privacy, see Section 7, "Concealing your name on the subscriber list."
4. Posting messages to the Forum
a. Appropriate postings
All messages--short or long--that concern Mark Twain are welcome on
the Forum. Messages that do not directly concern this author are
more appropriately posted to a general literature mailing list.
Moreover, although many Forum subscribers are teachers, postings
about education, budget cuts, etc., should not be sent to the Forum
if they do not also explicitly concern Mark Twain studies.
Before posting a query about Mark Twain, please read Section 2
("Suggestions for Mark Twain researchers") and pursue some of the
titles listed there before posting your query; a question that can
be answered at the library should _not_ be posted to the Forum.
Commercial messages should not be posted to the Forum, unless they
concern a product that will interest Twain enthusiasts. In that
case, please send your commercial message to the list administrator in
order that it may be approved for posting. See Section 11 for
details.
If you seem to have stopped receiving mail from the Forum and are
concerned about whether you are subscribed, do not post a message
asking, in effect, "Is anyone out there?" There are often several
consecutive days in which nobody posts any messages. To satisfy
yourself that you are still subscribed, you should retrieve the
current month's notebook file (see Section 9a) to tally the
official log of messages with the messages that you have lately
received. You can also retrieve the list of subscribers (Section
6) to see if your name is still there. If you are still in doubt
about whether you are subscribed to the Forum and are receiving all
postings, send mail to the list administrator. Mail delivery problems
should not become the topic of the Forum.
The Forum has a policy of semi-moderation. All new subscribers
will have their postings sent to the list administrator for approval
before they appear. This policy is mainly intended to block spams
(massive cross-postings and commercial messages), but also to
ensure that postings respect some of the netiquette described in
this guide. When it is clear that you have a genuine interest in
Mark Twain (which is usually determined after your first posting),
the list administrator will set your subscription to NOREVIEW mode. You
will not receive notification of this change, but thereafter your
messages will be posted directly to the Forum without anyone's
intervention. To find out if your messages are being reviewed,
send the command "QUERY TWAIN-L" to LISTSERV.
It is important that everyone use the Forum as it is intended to be
used, and not clutter it with messages that may be frustrating to
many of the members. When you are in doubt about whether your
message is appropriate, please send it to the list administrator for
approval before posting it to the Forum.
b. Where and how to send your message
To post a message to be redistributed to the other subscribers,
send your message to the following address:
TWAIN-L@YORKU.CA
This address is abbreviated in this document as "TWAIN-L". (The
suffix "-L" stands for "list", and is quite commonly used for
mailing lists like the Forum.)
Your message is likely to be read seriously by subscribers if it is
neatly formatted. Specifically, each line of text should begin at
column 0, and the right margin of your message should not go much
farther beyond column 75, otherwise the text will straddle line
breaks and become difficult to read. Avoid typing your message in
all capitals (which, in e-mail discourse, is the equivalent of
SHOUTING) or in all lower-case letters.
Please sign the bottom of your message with your full name and e-
mail address, since other subscribers' e-mail systems may not show
this information otherwise.
When replying to a message, do not quote the full original message
in your reply. Similarly, do not include a long signature file
that contains telephone numbers, quotations, and so on. Long sigs
make the Forum logs unnecessarily large, making them require more
time and resources to search, print, and download. An adequate
signature contains only your name, e-mail address, and (if desired)
your affiliation.
You will receive a copy of your own posting as confirmation that it
was successfully distributed (as well as a short, technical note
from LISTSERV indicating that "your mail file has been
distributed"). Please be patient while waiting for your message to
arrive, since mail can sometimes move slowly if nodes are down
between TWAIN-L and your site.
Be careful not to send a private message to TWAIN-L, since everyone
else will see it; private messages should be sent directly to the
intended recipient (including short notes that say only "Thanks,"
or "Well said!"). Public exchange of Twainian messages between
individuals is encouraged, however, as this is the purpose of the
Forum. Note, in particular, that the default "reply-to" address is
TWAIN-L, not the message author's address.
The answers to many Twainian questions can be found in the TWAIN-L
database. Knowing what has already been discussed can prevent you
from asking an old question and being frustrated at the lack of
response. Before posting a question to TWAIN-L, you are therefore
encouraged to use the database to investigate this possibility--not
because discussion on the Forum is discouraged, but merely because
searching the archives is often the fastest way to find the
information you want. For details on how to search the archives,
see Section 9, "Browsing previous messages of the Forum."
c. Rejected postings
Occasionally, a posting to the Forum is rejected by LISTSERV; this
could happen for one of three reasons. First, if you are replying
to another subscriber's posting to the Forum and are quoting the
original writer's message in your reply, you must edit out the
original message's header (if your system indeed includes it with
the rest of the quoted message--not all systems do so). Messages
sent to TWAIN-L that contain header information create an error (by
some quirk of the LISTSERV software) and are rejected.
Second, please note that you must have sent a SUBSCRIBE command
(see Section 3, "Subscribing") before you are allowed to post a
message to TWAIN-L. This subscribers-only posting policy is
intended to block the get-rich-quick letters that are massively
cross-posted (with increasing frequency) to LISTSERV lists by non-
subscribers.
Your posting will be rejected is if your node name has changed
since you subscribed. Although your old node name can be used to
receive messages from elsewhere on the Internet (since messages
sent to the old address may be forwarded to you by your system long
after your current node name has changed), your outgoing messages
will invariably bear your new node name. This results in the odd
situation that you will appear to be a subscriber of the MT Forum--
since postings continue to arrive safely in your account--but you
will not be recognized as a subscriber for the purposes of sending
your own messages to the list, since your current node name will
not appear in the subscriber list; only your old node name will
appear there. In such a case, the list administrator must sign off
your old address manually, and you will need to send a new SUBSCRIBE
command to LISTSERV in order that your new address can be
registered in the subscriber list. Should you need assistance,
contact the list administrator at <KEVB@PRODIGY.NET>, who will
attempt to fix the problem.
5. Decreasing your mail: digests
When you initially subscribe to the Forum, the default setting for your
subscription is that you will receive messages as soon as they are
posted. While the Forum averages one posting per day, some days are
busier than others. If you prefer not to receive individual list
messages as they are posted, you can set your account to "digest" mode.
Rather than receiving individual messages as they are posted, you will
receive a weekly compilation of postings, sent to you in a single
message with a summary of subjects at the top. You will receive the
same number of postings as you normally would, except that they will be
consolidated into a single message each week, and sent to you on Monday
morning.
To receive weekly digests, send the command "SET TWAIN-L DIGEST" to
LISTSERV. Should you wish to resume receiving messages as they appear,
send the command "SET TWAIN-L NODIGEST".
6. Getting a list of subscribers
Send the command "REVIEW TWAIN-L". This will return a list of
subscribers, sorted alphabetically by e-mail node. To get a list of
subscribers sorted (roughly) by last name, send instead the command
"REVIEW TWAIN-L BY NAME". Alternatively, you may send the slightly
longer command "REVIEW TWAIN-L BY COUNTRY". This returns the same list
of subscribers, but it will be primarily sorted by subscribers'
countries, and secondarily sorted by e-mail node.
7. Concealing your name on the subscriber list
If you do not want to have your name and e-mail address shown to people
who issue the REVIEW command described in the previous section, you can
customize your subscription to do this. Just send the command "SET
TWAIN-L CONCEAL". To have your name reappear on the subscriber list,
send the command "SET TWAIN-L NOCONCEAL".
8. Stopping mail from the Forum
a. Permanently
Send the command "SIGNOFF TWAIN-L". This should stop your
subscription immediately, but do not be alarmed if you receive a
couple of Forum messages a day or so later, since some messages may
have been held up at other nodes on their way to you, before you
sent the SIGNOFF command. If you find that you still seem to be
subscribed several days later, resend the SIGNOFF command.
If your system's node name has changed since you subscribed to the
Forum, LISTSERV might not be able to locate your subscription
address. For example, if you originally subscribed from an address
like <SALLY@NODENAME.BITNET>, and your system was subsequently
reconfigured so that your node name had taken a different form
(e.g., <SALLY@NODENAME.NODE.EDU>), your later attempts to signoff
from the Mark Twain Forum will not be successful, since your
current address will not appear in the subscriber list. In this
case, just send a message to the list administrator at
<KEVB@PRODIGY.NET>, who can sign you off manually. Before
doing so, though, you should determine in advance the address under
which you originally subscribed to the Forum by issuing a REVIEW
command (as described in Section 6); please find your name and
subscription address in the list of subscribers that will be
returned by the REVIEW command, and then ask the list administrator at
<KEVB@PRODIGY.NET> to delete that address.
Always contact the list administrator directly if you are having problems
signing off; please do not post a public request to TWAIN-L.
b. Temporarily
Suppose you are only going away for the summer, and you do not want
your unattended e-mail account to fill up with messages--but you
still want your name to appear in the list of subscribers. The
best command in this case is "SET TWAIN-L NOMAIL". This will tell
TWAIN-L to stop sending you Forum postings, but your name will
still appear as a subscriber when someone issues the "REVIEW
TWAIN-L" command (discussed above).
This alternative has the advantage that your Twainian colleagues
will still be able to locate your e-mail address if they want to
write to you, and--if you are a member of the Mark Twain Circle of
America--your listing on TWAIN-L will ensure that your e-mail
address also appears in the periodic directory of members that
James Leonard publishes in the _Mark Twain Circular_.
To resume receiving mail from the Forum, send the command "SET
TWAIN-L MAIL".
9. Browsing previous messages of the Forum
a. TwainWeb search engine
There are several methods of browsing the archives for previously
posted messages, but the best and fastest method is to use the
search engine on the Mark Twain Forum's website, the TwainWeb at:
http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/forum/twainweb.html
The search engine is located in the "Archives" section. Searches can
be conducted by subject, date range or name of sender. An on-line
help file contains search tips for beginners and advanced users.
For more details about the TwainWeb, see Section 10.
b. Monthly notebook files
Every message posted to TWAIN-L is automatically stored in a log
file on LISTSERV. A new file begins every month. To get an index
of the files available, send the command "INDEX TWAIN-L". LISTSERV
will send you an index of the filenames and their start dates. The
filenames take the form "TWAIN-L LOG9207", where "92" represents
the year, and "07" represents the month, i.e., July. To retrieve
this file, you would issue the command "GET TWAIN-L LOG9207". The
file that is sent contains all the messages that were posted to the
Forum in July 1992.
c. LISTSERV database function
If you only want to pinpoint messages that contain a specific
keyword, and you do not need to do this very often, you can have
LISTSERV do the work without your having to retrieve entire monthly
notebooks and search them yourself. If you want to find out if
_Huckleberry Finn_ and issues of race have already been discussed,
for example, just send the following command to LISTSERV:
search huck race in twain-l
LISTSERV will return an index of all of messages, sorted
chronologically, and the contexts of your keyword(s) in the
messages will also be shown. To retrieve the full text of the
messages, just send a GETPOST command, as per the explanation in
the message that LISTSERV sends you.
You can use logical operators, date boundaries, and other fancy
things to define your search more narrowly. For more information
on LISTSERV's database functions, please read the documentation
that is available on the web; see Section 13.
d. Ordering the log files by snail-mail
If you find that you often need to search through previous messages, it
might be a good idea to request all of the log files individually,
then download them to your personal computer. This has two
advantages. First, it allows you to search TWAIN-L postings much
faster than if you had to connect to a remote computer and send
interactive messages via e-mail. Second, you can use a search
program that you might be more accustomed to, e.g., the search
command in your word processor.
The entire list archive has grown to nearly five megabytes--making
it unwieldy to download all of the files--and so the Forum list
administrator will be pleased to send the files to you on IBM 3-1/2"
floppy disks via snail-mail. If you would like to receive the
entire list archives, five disks are required. Send the disks to
the list administrator with a self-addressed, stamped disk mailer and
three formatted (but blank) disks. Please weigh your disks and
mailer at the post office before sending them, in order to ensure
that you have included adequate return postage.
For subscribers outside of the United States only--who will have
problems getting U.S. postage stamps--please send the self-
addressed mailer and disks, and a money order (drawn on a U.S.
bank) in the amount of $15.00 U.S., as this should be adequate to
cover the postage to most destinations. Any unused portion of your
money order will be returned to you in the form of a U.S. personal
check.
Please test your disks before sending them. If your formatted
disks are unreadable to the list administrator's computer, he will try to
reformat them, but there is no guarantee that they will then be
readable by your computer.
10. TwainWeb: The Forum's web page
TwainWeb, the web service of the Forum, may be found at the following
URL:
http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/forum/twainweb.html
This site has a searchable database of all previous Forum postings, Forum
books reviews, articles contributed by Forum members, a vendor page
offering discounts to Forum members, a photo gallery of members and Twain
sites, and links to the Web sites mentioned in this guide. There is also
a link to a LISTSERV gateway, from which you can easily execute many of the
commands described in this guide.
TwainWeb does not strive to link to every Twain resource or electronic
text of his writing. However, there is a link to Jim Zwick's excellent
"Mark Twain Resources on the World Wide Web"; this site is comprehensive,
and continuously updated, and so surfing will best begin there.
11. Book notices on the Forum
Commercial messages should not be posted to the Forum without first
having been sent to the list administrator for approval. This policy applies
equally to book sellers and vendors of other products or services.
Publishers are allowed to post to the Forum one advertisement per book,
provided that:
a. the book (or other product) is likely to interest subscribers
b. the usual trade discount is offered to subscribers (as a courtesy
in exchange for the free advertising)
Book reviews are also regularly arranged; publishers appreciate reviews
on the Forum, since they generally appear faster than reviews in print
media, and they also reach a specialized audience that wants to be
informed of the latest Twain publications. Books to be considered for
review may be sent to the review editor, Taylor Roberts
<troberts@mit.edu>, at the following address:
Taylor Roberts
Review editor, Mark Twain Forum
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Room E39-245
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139
12. How to find out about other LISTSERV lists
To find other lists of interest, try a keyword search in the LISTSERV
database, which may be found at the following URL:
http://www.lsoft.com/lists/LIST_Q.html
For yet another avenue for discussion of virtually any topic--literary
or otherwise--you should ask your system administrators if your site
carries Usenet newsgroups. There are thousands of newsgroups, many of
which are likely to interest you.
13. For more information about LISTSERV commands
If you are intrigued by the above commands and want to learn others,
there is documentation in a number of formats is available at the
following URL:
http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/index.html
The features outlined above should suggest that if you are only reading
the daily messages from the Mark Twain Forum, you are not taking full
advantage of the resources that are available. For many people, the
ability to locate colleagues' e-mail addresses and to search previous
postings for topics of interest is at least as valuable as the Forum's
day-to-day mail.
14. Questions about the Forum?
If you have questions about the Forum, or if any of the above is
cryptic, just send me a message and I will be happy to help as best I can.
Please send technical questions to my personal e-mail address (given
below)--not to the list (TWAIN-L)--so that we can keep traffic on
TWAIN-L restricted to the discussion of Mark Twain.
Kevin J. Bochynski
<KEVB@PRODIGY.NET>
List Administrator,
Mark Twain Forum
[Thanks to York University for providing the services necessary to run
the Forum, and to Rick Broadhead, co-author of the _Canadian Internet
Handbook_ and the _Canadian Internet Directory_ (Scarborough: Prentice
Hall)--among other Internet guides--for serving as its technical
advisor.]