Dear all,
As the list has migrated from MAILBASE to JISCmail, some technical things
have changed, and we need a new intro message that every new member will
receive automatically after subscribing. I have now adjusted the old intro
message that we used for MAILBASE, trying also to make it a bit shorter but
ending up with a version that is probably even longer...
I have now posted it to the list homepage (which has some nice features
that you should check out, if you have not already done so:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html), and I also append
a copy to this present message so that you are all up to date.
You are welcome to suggest corrections and changes (in this case, please
send them off the list to [log in to unmask])
Yours,
Otfried
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WELCOME to the medieval-religion discussion list!
PLEASE SAVE THIS INTRODUCTORY MESSAGE, AS WELL AS THE OTHER MESSAGES YOU WILL
RECEIVE FROM JISCMAIL UPON SUBSCRIBING TO THIS LIST. The information contained
in these messages will be of use to you in the future, even if they may appear
to be complicated or irrelevant at this time.
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CONTENTS of this message:
1 What is medieval-religion?
2 Important addresses
a) the list address
b) the listowner address
c) the JISCmail address
d) the list homepage
2 How to post a message to the list
a) address
b) subject line
c) text of message
d) file attachments
3 How to send commands to JISCmail
a) address
b) form of your message
c) joining the list
d) leaving the list
e) suspending and resuming mail
f) digests
4 How to consult the list archives
a) by e-mail
b) on the World Wide Web
5 IMPORTANT! Your first message to medieval-religion
6 How to get more information about JISCmail
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1 WHAT IS medieval-religion?
Medieval-religion is an on-line list that provides a forum for scholarly
discussions related to religious life and thought in Europe from late
antiquity to the early modern period. Our aim is to encourage interdisciplinary
links between related fields and areas of research including (for example) art
history, codicology, hagiography, history, literature (sacred and profane,
Latin
and vernacular), liturgy, philosophy, sermon studies, and theology.
When a subscriber sends a message to the list, it is automatically sent out
to all the other subscribers. Typically, a contributor will raise a question
arising from his or her research, to which several other subscribers will
reply. Often, these replies can differ, laying the groundwork for instructive
debate and stimulating further participation from other subscribers.
In addition to such discussions, information about bibliographical matters and
new publications will be posted.
English is the primary working language of the list, but postings may be in any
language.
This list is unmoderated, meaning that members can post directly to the list
without having first to get permission or approval from the list owners. It
is therefore important that members be considerate and courteous in their
postings, that they restrain from turning the list into a chatroom or
preacher's pulpit, and that they respect that on this list religion is an
object not of profession or derision, but of scholarly and historical study.
Medieval-religion is sponsored by the School of Modern Languages of the
University of Leicester, and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies
of the University of Bristol.
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2 IMPORTANT ADDRESSES
a) the list address:
[log in to unmask]
A message sent by a member to this 'list address' will be distributed
automatically to every member of the list and will also be published in the
list archives on the World Wide Web. The 'list address' is where you send your
questions regarding medieval matters, or your replies to questions posted by
other members to the list.
b) the listowner address:
[log in to unmask]
A message sent to the 'listowner address' will reach only the listowners who
manage the list. Use this address when you need help with your subscription or
with technical issues regarding the list. You may also use this address if
you have complaints about mail sent by others to the list, or if you want to
distribute a message that regards a commercial undertaking and therefore needs
special approval before being sent to the list.
c) the JISCmail address:
[log in to unmask]
A message sent to the JISCmail address will not be delivered to a human being,
but will be processed by the JISCmail listserv software. This is where you
send purely technical commands for joining or leaving the list, for changing
the settings of your subscription or for requesting files from the list
archives. When sending commands to the JISCmail address, make sure that you
follow the instructions given below in section 3 ('How to send commands to
JISCmail')
d) the list homepage:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
To reach the list homepage on the World Wide Web, point your browser to the
above URL. There you can browse and search the list archives, read info files
related to the list or use a Web based interface for changing your membership
settings or for sending mail to the list. Please note that you can do all
these things also by e-mail, but for some features like browsing the archives
you may find it more comfortable to use the list homepage on the World Wibe
Web.
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2 HOW TO POST A MESSAGE TO THE LIST
a) address
If you wish to post a message to the list to have it distributed automatically
to every member, the correct address is the list address:
[log in to unmask]
b) subject line
The subject line should be succinct and descriptive. If you have a query
regarding, for example, the sermons of Francis of Assisi, your subject line
should read 'Sermons of Francis of Assisi'; it should not read Sermon,
'Francis', or 'Help'.
If over the course of a discussion the main subject in question should evolve
significantly, please alter the subject line accordingly.
c) text of message
The text or body of message is where you submit your query, response, opinion
or other information to the list.
It is recommended to send the text of your message as plain text without
special formatting and without special characters, to make sure that it can be
decoded correctly by the many different e-mail systems used by the several
hundred members of this list.
If your message refers to a previous message, make clear in succinct form to
which message you refer; indeed, it would be helpful if you could specify
which part of the message to which you refer. PLEASE DO NOT CITE THE FULL
TEXT OF A PREVIOUS MESSAGE, but cite only the relevant portions upon which
you comment.
Restrain from sending messages which do not contribute to the actual discussion
but only serve to exhibit your personal consent (e.g., 'I agree!' or 'Right
on!').
We hope many experts in different areas of medieval studies will be among us,
and that simple questions posted to the list will be answered with generosity.
However, it is recommended to consult other available resources first before
sending a query to the whole list.
Please sign your message with your name and with an e-mail address where you
can be reached off the list.
If you wish to post a message which may relate to a commercial undertaking,
please contact first the list owners at
[log in to unmask]
and seek their approval.
d) file attachments
For practical computing reasons and security reasons it is not allowed, NOT
UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, to send attached files to the list.
If you want to share with other members a file (e.g., a picture file, an
executable program file or a formatted or zipped document) that you think is
of interest to the list, please DO NOT SEND THE FILE ITSELF TO THE LIST, but
send an ordinary message instead, informing the members about the contents of
your file and how it can be obtained from you off the list.
Some e-mail programs are configured to attach a separate electronic 'calling
card' (vcf-card) to every outgoing mail. If this is the case with your e-mail
program, please disable this feature before sending mail to the list.
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3 HOW TO SEND COMMANDS TO JISCmail
a) address
The correct address for sending commands to JISCmail is:
[log in to unmask]
You send commands to this address if you want to leave or join the list,
change the settings of your subscription, or request files from the list
archives.
b) form of your message
If sending a command to JISCmail, please leave the subject line empty, put the
command in correct form on the first line of the message, and make sure that
your message does not contain any additional comments or personal signature.
If your e-mail software by default adds a personal signature to your e-mail,
either disable this feature before sending mail to the JISCmail address, or,
on the line directly following your command, type two minus signs (i.e. "--"
without the quotation marks) to indicate to the processing software that
everything following after these two minus signs is to be ignored.
c) joining the list
To join the list, send the command (replacing 'firstname' and 'lastname' with
your real name):
join medieval-religion firstname lastname
to: [log in to unmask]
Please note the hyphen in 'medieval-religion'. Please do not use special
characters (e.g., umlaut or accented letters) in the spelling of your name.
The e-mail account from which you send this command is the one where you
will receive all the mail distributed by the list. It is also the account
which you will have to use for sending contributions to the list or for
changing the settings of your subscription or leaving the list. If you want
to use more than one accounts for the list, you have to subscribe from each
account separately.
d) leaving the list
To leave the list, send the command:
leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
e) suspending and resuming mail
If you wish to stop receiving mail from the list for a certain period while
still maintaining your membership (including your right to post to the list),
send the command:
set medieval-religion nomail
to: [log in to unmask]
Once you wish to receive the list's messages again, send the command:
set medieval-religion mail
to: [log in to unmask]
f) digests
Normally you will receive messages from the list one at a time, as and when
they are posted to the list. You can change this by switching to digest mode,
which means that you will receive only one single (and possibly large) mail
each day, containing all the messages posted on that day.
To change your settings to digest mode, send:
set medieval-religion digest
to: [log in to unmask]
To stop receiving digests and change back to default mode, send:
set medieval-religion nodigest
to: [log in to unmask]
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4 HOW TO CONSULT THE LIST ARCHIVES
One may consult previous messages either by e-mail or using the World Wide Web.
a) e-mail
Messages sent to the list are collected together in monthly archive files,
which you can retrieve or search using e-mail.
The name of the archive file depends on the on the year and month, for example
MEDIEVAL-RELIGION.LOG0011 contains all the messages sent to the list in
november
2000. The archive files will include message header information, and if a list
is busy they can be large.
To retrieve a monthly archive file by e-mail, fill in the year (yy) and month
(mm) and send
get MEDIEVAL-RELIGION.LOGyymm
to: [log in to unmask]
To find out what files are available, send
index medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
You can also search the archive files for keywords or strings, sending
standard LISTSERV search commands to [log in to unmask] For example, if
you want to retrieve all messages containing the word "baptism", send:
search baptism in medieval-religion
This will get you a file listing any message that contains the word "baptism",
including also instances like "Baptism","baptismal", that is, your search will
be case insensitive and will include cases where your search term forms only
an initial substring. The same file will also contain short quotations of the
relevant passages and will instruct you how to use the GETPOST command to
retrieve those messages that you want to study in their complete text.
To search for an exact sequence of terms or strings while keeping, at the same
time, your search case insensitive, you use single quotation marks:
search 'de anima' in medieval-religion
This will include cases like "De Anima" or "De anima", and also
cases like "De animae resurrectione". To make your search case sensitive,
use double instead of single quotes:
search "de profundis" in medieval-religion
This will include "de profundissimis", but not "De Profundis". If you use
single or double quotes to enclose your search string but also need the same
quote as an element within your search string, you double the internal quote:
search 'dante''s prayer' in medieval-religion
search "qui ""in corpore"" vivunt" in medieval-religion
But you do not have to double the internal quote if it is not the same as the
external delimiting quote:
search "Dante's prayer" in medieval-religion
search 'qui "in corpore" vivunt' in medieval-religion
To search for words occuring in proximity, but not necessarily in the
same order or in direct contact, just list them one after the other or
use the operator NEAR:
search chastity virginity in medieval-religion
search chastity NEAR virginity in medieval-religion
Both commands are equivalent and will give the same results. Alternatively, or
to build more complex searches, you can use the operators AND (search terms may
occur anywhere in a message, regardless of proximity and order), OR, AND NOT,
refining your search also with brackets:
search (chastity OR virginity) AND sainthood
To learn more about these and other search options, please request the help
manual by sending the following command to [log in to unmask]:
info database
b) World Wide Web
If you have access to the WWW, point your browser to the medieval-religion
homepage at:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
There, you can choose a month of messages you wish to examine, and then browse
the relevant messages. The order in which the messages of a given month are
listed (by date, by author, by subject) can be changed by selecting one of the
options or icons displayed in the menu bar at the head of the Web page.
You can also search the Web archive for messages containing certain keywords
or posted by certain senders. To use this Web-based search form, point your
browser to:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?S1=medieval-religion
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5 IMPORTANT! Your first message to medieval-religion
It will be of great interest for your colleagues to know that you have joined
the list. We would therefore ask you to post a brief message to the list,
introducing yourself and specifying your academic interests in the area of
medieval studies. Please send this message to:
[log in to unmask]
and, in the subject line, type the words (replacing 'firstname' and
'lastname' with your real name):
NEW MEMBER firstname lastname
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6 HOW TO GET MORE INFORMATION ABOUT JISCmail
For more complete information on how to use JISCmail, check out the JISCmail
documentation and user guides on the World Wide Web by directing your browser
to:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/docs/
To request personal help with the JISCmail system, please send your request to:
[log in to unmask]
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From time to time, this introductory file will be amended and reposted to the
list. At that time, please reread (and print) the message, save it, and
delete/discard the previous version of it.
We hope that you will find this list of interest and benefit to you. Please
tell your colleagues about the list, and encourage them to join.
Also, please do not hesitate to tell your listowners of any problems or
comments you may have. You may contact them by e-mail at:
[log in to unmask]
or by using the following postal address:
George Ferzoco E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Director, Italian Studies Tel.: ++ 44 (0)116 252 2654
University of Leicester ++ 44 (0)116 252 2680
School of Modern Languages Fax: ++ 44 (0)116 252 2657
University Road ++ 44 (0)116 252 3633
LEICESTER LE1 7RH
UNITED Kingdom
Homepage: http://www.le.ac.uk/ml/gpf2/gpf2.html
With best wishes, George Ferzoco, Carolyn Muessig, Otfried Lieberknecht
Version 1.0, 19950602
Version 2.0, 20000517
Version 2.1, 20000615
Version 3.0, 20001217
