Node: Policy, Previous: (INFO;SYSMSG)Top, Up: (INFO;SYSMSG)Top, Next: (INFO;SYSMSG)Sending (The above lines make this file accessible through :INFO. Please leave them alone.) These guidelines about where to send which system-wide messages are the consensus of opinion of AI and LCS staff, based on years of experience of what kinds of messages people send. Since these staff people are the official MIT users of the computers the messages are sent on, everyone who sends a system-wide message -- this means YOU -- should follow the guidelines. System-wide messages fall into two categories: System Messages (sysmsgs) and Bulletin Board messages (BBoard). Sysmsgs can be split into further categories according to which computers should receive them. The sysmsg addresses are for messages of general interest only. These include official Lab announcments, listings of Lab seminars, machine maintenance schedules, announcements about the Dover, questions of GENERAL interest to computer scientists, and similar things. All other messages intended for system-wide distribution, including requests for information, job offers, housing searches, political pronouncements, and other material of that nature, should go to the BBoard. Messages relating to "personal profit", such as messages offering household goods for sale, are frowned upon by the DCA (they run the ARPANET), but if you can't restrain yourself from sending such a message, it should also go to the BBoard. Good relations among users of the Labs' computers rely in part on people not being inundated with junk mail; system messages which go to inappropriate addresses are junk mail. Please think before you send your system-wide messages, and use consideration and discretion in addressing them. What follows is a list of addresses with descriptions of which machines they direct messages to. Send your message to the correct address at any ITS, e.g. *MAC@ML, to make it go where you want it to. Send to the address at only ONE ITS (which one doesn't matter -- *MIT@MC = *MIT@AI, and so forth), or people will see many duplicates of your message, which can only make them angry at you. *MAC The right address for reaching all AI and LCS members who use computers. Use this, not *ITS or *TENS, for things like Lab seminar info. This list now includes all four ITSs, OZ, XX, HT-VAX, and the RTS VAX; as the Labs acquire more machines that can receive mail, they will be added to *MAC. *MIT Everywhere at MIT that can hear -- all of *MAC, plus CIPG, DSPG, EE, Multics, also an address at CMU so that lonely former MIT people out there can see what's going on. (As more mail-server machines are added to the ChaosNet, they will join this list.) Use this address for messages of general interest to the MIT community, like Dover info (which even Multics can use). BBOARD These are the same address; use either. Unless your *BBOARD message is important to most of the people gathered in one of the above or below addresses (see the beginning of this file for specifications of "important"), send it here. This list includes all the *MIT sites, but users can choose whether to read these messages. Unless your message relates to a particular machine or kind of machine (or program on same), you probably want to use one of the above lists. The rest, which follow, are more special-purpose; send sysmsgs to them only when your message clearly should go to only their constituent machines. * On any ITS, becomes a sysmsg on just that machine. *AI, *MC Becomes a sysmsg on just that particular ITS. Use these or *ML, *DM * (above) for a sysmsg affecting only one ITS, like disk maintenance. *ITS Goes only to the four ITSs, listed above. Use if your message relates only to ITSs, for instance a new ITS version; otherwise you probably want *MAC or *MIT. *VX Goes just to the RTS VAX. *HT Goes just to HTVAX. *XX These are the same address. Forum@XX They go just to XX, the LCS Twenex. *EE These are the same address. Forum@EE They go just to the EECS Dept. Twenex. *OZ These are the same address. They go just to OZ, the AI Lab System@OZ Twenex, and are for important (see above) msgs only. Forum@OZ For BBoard msgs to OZ. *TENS The most unlikely address. This goes to the four ITSs, XX, OZ, and EE, but NOT the Vaxen or the RTS 11. Unless your message relates only to PDP-10s and DEC-20s, you probably want *MAC or *MIT.