Welcome to VICTORIA, the electronic conference for Victorian Studies. VICTORIA is devoted to the sharing of information and ideas about any and all aspects of 19th-century British culture and society. We hope that you'll feel free to introduce yourself to the list with a brief indication of your current research interests (simply put the word "Introduction" on the "Re:" or "Subject:" line) and to post any other message that you think might interest other members.
We've appended a handy user's guide with tips on how to post a message, set your mail options, etc.; it might be a good idea to save this for reference. A copy of this guide, along with much else, can be found on the VICTORIA RESEARCH WEB, a site on the World Wide Web aimed at providing practical resources for scholars in Victorian Studies. VRW is located at this URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~victoria
If you have any comments or questions about VICTORIA, please contact listowner Patrick Leary by e-mail at PLEARY@INDIANA.EDU. We're glad to have you join us on VICTORIA, and hope you'll find it a helpful and enjoyable resource.
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VICTORIA User's Guide
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1) "IS THERE A PREFERRED FORMAT TO USE FOR MESSAGES POSTED TO THE LIST (that is, to VICTORIA@IUBVM or VICTORIA@listserv.indiana.edu)?"
Yes. First, ALWAYS put your name and e-mail address(es) at the end of every posting. This is an important courtesy to your fellow subscribers, as most mail systems do not identify the writer anywhere in the header.
Also, please include a meaningful subject heading, so that people will know whether your message deals with a topic of interest to them. If you're responding to someone else's message, you'll usually want to put the same heading on the "Re:" line so that other subscribers can follow the "thread."
Please do not include in your message the entire text of the message you're replying to! This wastes an enormous amount of space, and is considered a thoughtless breach of net etiquette. If your mail system options are set up so that the text of the message (marked with ">"s along the left margin) is automatically included, either: 1. turn that option off, 2. do not use "reply," or 3. edit this out of your reply before you send it.
Finally, be very careful and cautious in your use of "reply." When you hit the "reply" key or type "reply" in response to a message you see posted to the list, your message will also be posted to the list--that is, all 1000+ subscribers will get a copy. Be sure that this is what you want to do. See section 6, below, for more about using "reply".
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2) "HELP! HOW DO I HANDLE ALL OF THIS EXTRA E-MAIL?"
Relax. The first thing you'll notice after subscribing to VICTORIA, especially if you are new to listservs, is that you're suddenly getting a lot more e-mail than you may be used to. We're all busy people, and no one wants to read dozens of messages at a time; and, too, many of us have to be careful about filling up our quota of disk space on the system.
Fortunately, most systems make it easy to call up a list of our messages (some do this through the "dir" command) showing the source and the "Re:" line for each. That way, you can save the ones that look interesting to read later, and simply delete the rest. Listserv mail does make you more ruthless about deleting messages after you've read them, so as not to clutter your disk. Some systems also allow you to store different kinds of mail in different folders or subdirectories, so that you can keep your VICTORIA mail separate. If you're unfamiliar with the e-mail commands available on your system, consult your local system-whiz for advice.
You may also want to consider setting your subscription to the DIGESTS option. This option sends all of your VICTORIA mail to you every day or two in one long message file, so that it's kept separate from your other e-mail. The disadvantage of the DIGESTS option is that, because it's all one long e-mail, you can't choose which individual postings to save or delete; the advantage is that there's less clutter in your mailbox. To try out DIGESTS, send the command SET VICTORIA DIGESTS to the >listserv< address: listserv@listserv.indiana.edu (Internet). If you later decide you want to go back to regular VICTORIA mail, the command SET VICTORIA MAIL, sent to the same (listserv) address, will do the trick. For more about listserv commands and addresses, please read the next note.
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3) "WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN listserv@listserv.indiana.edu AND VICTORIA@listserv.indiana.edu? HOW DO I TELL WHICH ADDRESS TO USE?"
VICTORIA@listserv.indiana.edu (on Internet) or VICTORIA@IUBVM (on BITNET) should be used ONLY for messages that you wish to send to all VICTORIA subscribers...all 1200+ of them.
Commands concerning your VICTORIA >subscription< should be sent to the "listserv address": listserv@listserv.indiana.edu (on Internet) or LISTSERV@IUBVM (on BITNET). For example, send commands to the listserv address when you want to do any of the following things:
Set your subscription to DIGESTS: SET VICTORIA DIGESTS
Cancel your subscription: SIGNOFF VICTORIA
Stop receiving mail temporarily: SET VICTORIA NOMAIL
Start receiving mail again: SET VICTORIA MAIL
See who is subscribed to VICTORIA: REVIEW VICTORIA BY NAME
For more extensive information about LISTSERV commands, send LISTSERV the following two-word message: INFO GENINTRO. You'll receive a file entitled LISTSERV.MEMO that contains more than you will ever want to know.
If you have a question about your subscription that you want a human being to read, do not send it to either VICTORIA or LISTSERV. Instead, send it to the "listowner" (listserv-speak for moderator), Patrick Leary, at pleary@indiana.edu.
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4) "I'M GOING ON VACATION FOR SEVERAL WEEKS. CAN I STOP MAIL WHILE I'M AWAY, OR DO I HAVE TO UNSUBSCRIBE?"
You can stop mail temporarily by sending the following message to LISTSERV@IUBVM (if you subscribed on Bitnet) or listserv@listserv.indiana.edu (if you subscribed on Internet):
SET VICTORIA NOMAIL [NOTE: NOMAIL is one word]
When you want mail to start arriving again, send the following message to the same address: SET VICTORIA MAIL
Note: BE SURE TO SEND THESE COMMANDS TO THE LISTSERV ADDRESS, NOT TO VICTORIA!
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5) "HOW CAN I GET A LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS TO VICTORIA AND THEIR E-MAIL ADDRESSES?"
To get a current list of VICTORIA subscribers, send the following message to listserv@listserv.indiana.edu: REVIEW VICTORIA BY NAME. You'll get back either a mail message with the subject heading "File: 'VICTORIA LIST' being sent to you" or a message telling you that the list is being sent as a Netdata file (not a mail file); listserv apparently chooses which method to use.
If you would rather not have your name and address appear on the list that other subscribers see, simply send a message to the listserv address with the command: SET VICTORIA CONCEAL.
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6) "WHEN SHOULD I REPLY PRIVATELY RATHER THAN TO VICTORIA?"
As explained above, VICTORIA is set up so that using "reply" to respond to a query or other posting sends your response to everyone on the list. Frequently, however, you may wish to respond directly to the person who posted the original message; to do this you will want to type in that person's e-mail address on the "To:" line, rather than using "reply". This is particularly appropriate when you are merely asking the original poster for details, for example, or simply wish to thank someone for answering a question.
If you can't "get through" to another listmember--that is, mail sent to them bounces back--check carefully that you typed the address correctly. If need be, contact the listowner to make sure you've got that person's correct address. Under NO circumstances, however, should you send your private message via VICTORIA. This is not only an enormous waste of resources, sending 1000+ copies where one would do, but is a discourtesy toward your online colleagues.
Likewise, truly casual remarks, unhelpfully vague suggestions, witticisms, or complaints should >always< be sent privately, not to the list as a whole. With so much mail on VICTORIA and with disk-quotas so tight, we all need to be careful not to inadvertently clutter one another's mailboxes with inappropriate postings to the list.
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[NOTE to sections 7 and 8, about retrieving and searching the VICTORIA logs of past messages: This can now also be done through the Victoria Research Web at http://www.indiana.edu/~victoria, via a search facility put together by Jian Liu of Indiana University Libraries, Bloomington.]
7) "I'VE BEEN AWAY FOR TWO WEEKS. I'D LIKE TO SEE WHAT I'VE MISSED ON VICTORIA DURING THE TIME I'VE BEEN GONE. IS IT POSSIBLE TO ACCESS PREVIOUS MESSAGES?" [also useful for new subscribers]
Sure. All VICTORIA messages are automatically archived. The 1993 archives through August are arranged in monthly logs; those after August 1993 are in weekly logs. To find out what logs are available, you can send the listserv address (listserv@listserv.indiana.edu) the following command: INDEX VICTORIA. You'll then receive a list of the available logs. To obtain the logs, send LISTSERV the following command:
GET VICTORIA [filename]
where [filename] is the name of the log file you want. For example:
GET VICTORIA LOG9310A
will get you all messages posted during the first week of October 1993.
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8) THAT'S FINE, BUT WHAT IF I WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT PEOPLE HAVE SAID ON A PARTICULAR SUBJECT WITHOUT SLOGGING THROUGH WEEKS OF MESSAGES?
Luckily, you can use the listserv software just like a database by sending a set of commands to the listserv address telling it to search for a particular word, name, or phrase. The tricky part is that you have to type these commands just exactly right for it to work. Let's suppose that you want to get all the lists of new books that have been posted to VICTORIA since day one. Here's the message you'd send to the listserv address:
// JOB Echo=No
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
SEARCH "New books" SINCE 1 JAN 95 IN VICTORIA INDEX
PRINT
Everything in the above set of commands must look just as you see it here, with capital and small letters and spaces arranged just this way; notice, for instance, that there is a space after the first "//", but not after the second one. (Note, too, that if you want to search for a phrase, you need to put it in quotes.) This will get you a list of all postings containing the phrase "new books," followed by the text of the postings themselves. If you just want to try some searches to see what they would turn up before getting the actual texts, simply leave off the "PRINT" command; this will get you the list, and you can then send the whole command-set again, with "PRINT" added, when you're sure that your search terms have retrieved what you want.
Note also that it is necessary to include a date-limiter on the SEARCH line, either in the form "SINCE day-month-yr IN VICTORIA" or as a range, such as "FROM 1 FEB 93 TO 31 DEC 95 IN VICTORIA" If you do a search and get back the message "CPU limit exceeded," it means that you need to narrow your search to a smaller range of dates.
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That's really all you need to know (rather more, in fact) to get the most from your VICTORIA subscription. If you have any questions or comments about VICTORIA, now or in the future, please don't hesitate to drop Patrick Leary a note at pleary@indiana.edu.
Thanks for joining us!
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Many thanks to Joan Korenman of the Women's Studies listserv, WMST-L, for giving permission to use her user's guide as a model in putting this one together.
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