Advance notice of changes to list administration and management.
At present this list is provided, as part of the JISC support for
communications within UK higher education, by 'mailbase' based at the
University of Newcastle. Last year the provision of e-mail discussion list
facilities was put out to tender. As a consequence, from 1 November 2000,
the Council for the Central Laboratories of the Research Councils (CLRC)
will be providing the National Mailing List Service for the UK academic sector.
There will be changes in the name of the service and the way that lists are
managed. The quality of the service should not be affected.
Name change - transfer of the 'mailbase' name to the new service is
problematic. As a trade name 'mailbase' is owned by the Post Office and
used by Newcastle with their consent. List owners, like myself, have been
canvassing for the transfer of the name but a desire on the part of JISC to
own the name used by the new service does mean a probable change of name to
'JISCmail'. Retention of the 'mailbase' name would have meant a virtually
seamless change to the new service. Using a new name will mean changing all
hypertext links and documentary references: the latter being virtually
impossible. Hopefully a compromise will be reached whereby Newcastle will
maintain 'mailbase' to redirect hypertext and other links to the new
service. However list members should bear the pending change of name in mind
when creating links to the mining-history list, and be prepared to change
them at a later date.
Software changes - when CLRC take over the lists will be operated using
'listserv' software. The change to a listserv-based system had been planned
by 'mailbase' but was delayed until the CLRC takeover. This will mean
changes in the commands used to leave or join the list, and to retrieve files.
The changes will not happen until November and I will keep you full informed
nearer the date.
For those interested the JISC decision on changing the provider is available
at the following URL - http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/news/1999-12-13.html
If you require more information please contact me off list at
<[log in to unmask]>
Peter
______________________________________________
Peter Claughton, Blaenpant Morfil, Rosebush, Clynderwen,
Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE.
Tel. 01437 532578; Fax. 01437 532921; Mobile 07831 427599
University of Exeter - Department of History
School of Historical, Political and Sociological Studies
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list.
See http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/mining-history/ for details.
Mining History Pages - http://www.exeter.ac.uk/~pfclaugh/mhinf/
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