This is meant as an observation, and not fuel to start a flame war. My access to the use of smartlist is through the company hosting one of my domains. They have a version of smartlist available for use by the domains they host, however don't allow telnet access, and rely on other (usually outdated or extinct) site's FAQs for information and support. My domain file access is through ftp, and to my knowledge, there is no way to access "." files through it. If you can't access .etc there is no way to read the manual, therefore, people may need to rely on reading one of the web accessible manuals on the server of someone else. One of the most frustrating things I have noticed in this, is the fact that these manuals are geared for the version their server carries, and could very well be the earliest versions released, if it suits their purpose. Maybe it is just my system configuration, but every time I attempt to download the manual from the address: ftp://ftp.pure.ch/pub/smartlist/SmartList-Manual, as noted in the FAQ, I get a "File Not Found" error. I have all the different FAQs noted, however, haven't been able to find a manual for SmartList dated later than 1993. Was that when development stopped? Is there a URL where the manual noted above can be read online or possibly downloaded as webpages for those who are unable to ftp download it? I started on the 'net when it was strictly for scientific or research purposes, and only available to major universities, governmental entities, or worldwide scientific organizations, years before Kermit was developed as a "cutting-edge" technological breakthrough. Times have changed, and I would hazard a guess that there are some on this list who have never heard of Kermit, let alone used it. There is a whole new generation of SmartList users out there who don't own the server they are using, or have full access to all the files ProcMail/SmartList uses. It is these users that will make or break whether SmartList is used by providers who could offer feedback, or if the maintenance and development of it becomes a part-time hobby for a few select individuals. Maybe what's needed is a "GUI" so to speak for new users, that would allow those with limited access/knowledge to learn, and go deeper as things make more sense. Anybody still using CPM as an operating system? Anybody considered a "Newbie" list where the same topics could be discussed ad-nauseam without disturbing the "Pros"? Just a thought. Roy
At 5:52 PM -0400 8/29/00, roy@service4you.net is rumored to have typed:
My access to the use of smartlist is through the company hosting one of my domains. They have a version of smartlist available for use by the domains they host, however don't allow telnet access, and rely on other (usually outdated or extinct) site's FAQs for information and support. My domain file access is through ftp, and to my knowledge, there is no way to access "." files through it.
(*sigh*) Then I strongly urge you to change providers. Look, if you can't telnet into a unix account, there isn't much point in having one. (I have no problem reaching dot-files on my server through FTP, but then I'm not blocking them through the ftpd on my server, either. If your provider is, it's another reason to find another provider. If they aren't, reconfigure your client software.)
If you can't access .etc there is no way to read the manual, therefore, people may need to rely on reading one of the web accessible manuals on the server of someone else.
Or one is industrious enough to go out on the Net, find the tarball of the same version you are using, and untar it yourself. Yep, we kinda expect people to do _some_ of the work, anyway. (Assuming one knows how to use a web-based search engine, and an FTP application, I would argue that person has the ability to find, unGzip, and untar a copy of the SmartList distribution package. If one knows how, and simply doesn't want to do so, perfering instead that someone else post the file via the Web to save them the time, well, that's just plain laziness.)
Times have changed, and I would hazard a guess that there are some on this list who have never heard of Kermit, let alone used it.
Of course some of us have, although I was perfectly satisfied with the ZModem transfer protocol, and never bothered with Kermit much. (ZModem was a more logical extention of the Christiansen protocol than Kermit, IMHO; I actually have a ZModem package for the Sinclair ZX-81 I built from a kit and that still functions. Have I managed to validate my bona fides as having been on the Net longer than your average bear enough for you now that we can all stop showing off how we were on the Net when there were still BITNET gateways, Internet Talk Radio was sending 8kHz Sun .au files of the Washington Press Club lunches and "Geek of the Week," and USENET was travelling through 300-baud modems at night?)
There is a whole new generation of SmartList users out there who don't own the server they are using, or have full access to all the files ProcMail/SmartList uses.
They should _not_ have partial access; if they do, they are paying the wrong providers. Look, for years before I had a dedicated machine, I used a $19.95/month unix-based virtual account, and easily installed my OWN copy of procmail/SmartList into my personal directory. It functioned just fine, up to and including leasing mailing lists to other people. Yep, I had telnet access - I wouldn't pay anyone for a unix virutal domain who _didn't_ provide it. If you choose to pay someone knowing you can't use telnet, you can't much gripe that you can't use the software. Heck, you can't use vi or pico without telnet access, either. QED.
It is these users that will make or break whether SmartList is used by providers who could offer feedback, or if the maintenance and development of it becomes a part-time hobby for a few select individuals.
"Make-or-break?" SmartList works quite well, and so is already made, and is not broken. As to whether or not we really _need_ people who have never run any type of server before to "make" the software...
Maybe what's needed is a "GUI" so to speak for new users, that would allow those with limited access/knowledge to learn, and go deeper as things make more sense.
My personal opinion is, if you (not you personally, Mr. Loveland, but the emperical "you") want a GUI, there are some excellent ones available; see Topica, eGroups, and the other free list-hosting services. If you are going to run a mailing list server (ANY mailing list server), you should spend the time to buy yourself a clue. Unless of course you license listproc for $2,000/year for a commercial license - for that money, it _should_ run itself. ;) Unfortunately, some hosting services seem to have decided to install SmartList as a replacement for mReply...something that allows them to say they provide mailing list services, without them having to license any commercial software, or actually expend any energy to support it. And SmartList is not _designed_ to be operated by someone who doesn't have telnet access, doesn't know how to at least function in unix, and (*sigh*) doesn't even know how to send/receive text files to a unix box without adding <CR><LF> pairs to the things. I'm sorry...SmartList simply isn't for newbies who have never used anything other than Windows, and don't want to learn anything. The companies that are installing SmartList and turning it loose on "webmasters" who haven't been closer to a web server than the FrontPage client are doing a disservice to their customers, and frankly are wasting _our_ time, since they are pushing the support onto us, people they don't have to pay. Good deal from them...lousy one for us. And making it simple by adding a GUI ain't gonna change that, since the only difference between a clueless newbie with a shell account and a clueless newbie with a GUI is that the newbie with a GUI can screw things up faster with a mouse than with a keyboard. Basically, I'm suggesting that SmartList isn't _designed_ for newbies who don't want to learn how it operates...and shouldn't be, IMHO. There are the free list-hosting services for those people. If you want to _learn_ how SmartList works, and the cool things you can do with it, this is the group to teach you...but you have to be motivated to learn for us to exert the energy. If you want to run a mailing list and DON'T want to understand the server software, use eGroups. A lot of the newbies want to get it running NOW, and don't care about the internals. They aren't programmers, and don't want to bother reading things as Manual files or .example/ files. That's fine, really - they can get a free list at one of the hosting companies, and have the thing running within a few minutes. But they should _not_ think SmartList is for them, because it isn't. It's a great piece of software, but one that demands an expense of time in understanding and learning. A GUI would _hide_ the internals, which would destroy the very power of the software. That said, the source to SmartList is open, so if you'd like to design and write a GUI interface to it, knock yourself out. But don't ask _us_ to do it for you. We're really happy with it the way it is. Charlie
At 5:52 PM -0400 8/29/00, roy@service4you.net is rumored to have typed:
My access to the use of smartlist is through the company hosting one of my domains. They have a version of smartlist available for use by the domains they host, however don't allow telnet access, and rely on other (usually outdated or extinct) site's FAQs for information and support. My domain file access is through ftp, and to my knowledge, there is no way to access "." files through it.
(*sigh*) Then I strongly urge you to change providers. Look, if you can't telnet into a unix account, there isn't much point in having one. (I have no problem reaching dot-files on my server through FTP, but then I'm not blocking them through the ftpd on my server, either. If your provider is, it's another reason to find another provider. If they aren't, reconfigure your client software.)
If you can't access .etc there is no way to read the manual, therefore, people may need to rely on reading one of the web accessible manuals on the server of someone else.
Or one is industrious enough to go out on the Net, find the tarball of
same version you are using, and untar it yourself.
Yep, we kinda expect people to do _some_ of the work, anyway. (Assuming one knows how to use a web-based search engine, and an FTP application, I would argue that person has the ability to find, unGzip, and untar a copy of the SmartList distribution package. If one knows how, and simply doesn't want to do so, perfering instead that someone else post the file via the Web to save them the time, well, that's just plain laziness.)
Times have changed, and I would hazard a guess that there are some on this list who have never heard of Kermit, let alone used it.
Of course some of us have, although I was perfectly satisfied with the ZModem transfer protocol, and never bothered with Kermit much. (ZModem was a more logical extention of the Christiansen protocol than Kermit, IMHO; I actually have a ZModem package for the Sinclair ZX-81 I built from a kit and that still functions. Have I managed to validate my bona fides as having been on the Net longer than your average bear enough for you now that we can all stop showing off how we were on the Net when there were still BITNET gateways, Internet Talk Radio was sending 8kHz Sun .au files of the Washington Press Club lunches and "Geek of the Week," and USENET was travelling through 300-baud modems at night?)
There is a whole new generation of SmartList users out there who don't own the server they are using, or have full access to all the files ProcMail/SmartList uses.
They should _not_ have partial access; if they do, they are paying the wrong providers.
Look, for years before I had a dedicated machine, I used a $19.95/month unix-based virtual account, and easily installed my OWN copy of procmail/SmartList into my personal directory. It functioned just fine, up to and including leasing mailing lists to other people. Yep, I had telnet access - I wouldn't pay anyone for a unix virutal domain who _didn't_ provide it. If you choose to pay someone knowing you can't use telnet, you can't much gripe that you can't use the software. Heck, you can't use vi or pico without telnet access, either. QED.
It is these users that will make or break whether SmartList is used by providers who could offer feedback, or if the maintenance and development of it becomes a
hobby for a few select individuals.
"Make-or-break?" SmartList works quite well, and so is already made, and is not broken. As to whether or not we really _need_ people who have never run any type of server before to "make" the software...
Maybe what's needed is a "GUI" so to speak for new users, that would allow those with limited access/knowledge to learn, and go deeper as things make more sense.
My personal opinion is, if you (not you personally, Mr. Loveland, but
emperical "you") want a GUI, there are some excellent ones available; see Topica, eGroups, and the other free list-hosting services. If you are going to run a mailing list server (ANY mailing list server), you should spend
time to buy yourself a clue. Unless of course you license listproc for $2,000/year for a commercial license - for that money, it _should_ run itself. ;)
Unfortunately, some hosting services seem to have decided to install SmartList as a replacement for mReply...something that allows them to say they provide mailing list services, without them having to license any commercial software, or actually expend any energy to support it. And SmartList is not _designed_ to be operated by someone who doesn't have telnet access, doesn't know how to at least function in unix, and (*sigh*) doesn't even know how to send/receive text files to a unix box without adding <CR><LF> pairs to the things. I'm sorry...SmartList simply isn't for newbies who have never used anything other than Windows, and don't want to learn anything. The companies that are installing SmartList and turning it loose on "webmasters" who haven't been closer to a web server than the FrontPage client are doing a disservice to their customers, and frankly are wasting _our_ time, since they are pushing the support onto us, people they don't have to pay. Good deal from them...lousy one for us.
And making it simple by adding a GUI ain't gonna change that, since the only difference between a clueless newbie with a shell account and a clueless newbie with a GUI is that the newbie with a GUI can screw things up faster with a mouse than with a keyboard.
Basically, I'm suggesting that SmartList isn't _designed_ for newbies who don't want to learn how it operates...and shouldn't be, IMHO. There are
free list-hosting services for those people.
If you want to _learn_ how SmartList works, and the cool things you can do with it, this is the group to teach you...but you have to be motivated to learn for us to exert the energy. If you want to run a mailing list and DON'T want to understand the server software, use eGroups. A lot of the newbies want to get it running NOW, and don't care about the internals. They aren't programmers, and don't want to bother reading things as Manual files or .example/ files. That's fine, really - they can get a free list at one of
hosting companies, and have the thing running within a few minutes. But
I'm not sure who started the mailing and don't care to scroll through to find out but I think I can supply you with a simple answer. Using FTP you need to put -al in the file mask text box in order to see hidden files. You should then be able to see the .ect directory to get the manual. If you are not sure what the file mask is please refer to the help manual supplied with your ftp software and if you still have trouble let me know and I will try to help you. And don't let everyone get to you too much, I just figured it out for myself not too long ago after asking the same question for another reason and getting no help either. We don't all have the superior knowledge some seem to. They seem to forget they had to learn somehow as well and asking a question is not necessarily being lazy some are just trying to learn. Always, Ron Miller millerinc.com lolgreetings.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charlie Summers" <charlie@lofcom.com> To: <roy@service4you.net>; <smartlist@Lists.RWTH-Aachen.DE> Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2000 6:48 PM Subject: Re: smartlist questions (long, opinionated) the part-time the the the the they
should _not_ think SmartList is for them, because it isn't. It's a great piece of software, but one that demands an expense of time in understanding and learning. A GUI would _hide_ the internals, which would destroy the very power of the software.
That said, the source to SmartList is open, so if you'd like to design and write a GUI interface to it, knock yourself out. But don't ask _us_ to do it for you. We're really happy with it the way it is.
Charlie
_______________________________________________ Smartlist mailing list Smartlist@lists.RWTH-Aachen.DE http://MailMan.RWTH-Aachen.DE/mailman/listinfo/smartlist
On Tue, Aug 29, 2000 at 05:52:42PM -0400, roy@service4you.net wrote:
Maybe it is just my system configuration, but every time I attempt to download the manual from the address: ftp://ftp.pure.ch/pub/smartlist/SmartList-Manual, as noted in the FAQ, I get a "File Not Found" error. I have all the different FAQs noted, however,
The URL has changed to ftp://ftp.pure.ch/smartlist/SmartList-Manual Anyway it shouldn't be necessary to get the manual from there. There is a manual in each Smartlist package. I only put it there because there are obviously SL users they even don't know how to unpack a tar package. Maybe we need to write a manual for the people who don't have a clue about unix, administrating "their" list over ftp from a Windows/DOS environment? Werner
participants (4)
-
Charlie Summers -
roy＠service4you.net -
webmaster -
Werner Reisberger