Re: Dealing with requests for faq by e-mail

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Jay B Parker (jbp3@Ra.MsState.Edu)
Sun, 22 Jan 1995 17:32:02 -0600 (CST)

On Sat, 21 Jan 1995, Henry van Cleef wrote:
> What approaches do other people take when getting requests like this? I
> sometimes feel I've got a mail list going as a side business.

I keep the alt.tv.animaniacs New Readers' Guide, which, due to our
abnormally high newbie-attraction-factor, we go to great lengths to make
as easily available as possible. (Among other things, I've just begun
keeping the master copy in HTML [*] and creating the plaintext via lynx,
as has often been discussed on this list...)

[*] http://www2.msstate.edu/~jbp3/animx/atanrg.html

Primarily, though, I've set up a mail filter on my account that will
automatically reply with a copy of the NRG, FAQ, or a few other reference
documents whenever I receive mail with certain strings in the subject.
This feature is highly advertised both in the various documents, and
thoughout the newsgroup by several people by way of .sig lines (see below)
and X-Headers (which probably aren't all that effective, but look kinda
cool.)

I know several people who use 'procmail' to implement something like this;
I keep meaning to convert, but in the meantime I'm still using 'filter'
(part of the Elm distribution). I use lines like the following in my
filter-rules file: ( >80-char lines split for your viewing convenience...)

----- begin included file -----
#### ('executec' means "execute and copy message to INBOX")
#### A.t.a reference pseudo-server
if (subject contains "<<ATAFAQ>>") then executec "/usr/ucb/mail -s\
'AUTOREPLY: A.t.a FAQ' %r < /home/coen/jbp3/doc/atafaq"
if (subject contains "<<ATANRG>>") then executec "/usr/ucb/mail -s\
'AUTOREPLY: A.t.a New Readers Guide' %r < /home/coen/jbp3/doc/atanrg"
----- end included file -----

This is in addition to another *real* mailserver we have, three ftp sites,
and a host of web pages. All in all, it seems to be working rather well.
We survived net.september this year with relatively few annoyances,
although the bandwidth has gone through the roof...

-Jay-

-- 
====Send=mail=with="<<ATANRG>>"=in=subject=for=A.t.a=New=Reader's=Guide!====
Jay Parker jbp3@Ra.MsState.Edu   "You've got to jump off cliffs all the time
http://WWW2.MsState.Edu/~jbp3     and build your wings on the way down."
AnswerManIac Emeritus                                          -Ray Bradbury

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