From odonnell@cs.uchicago.edu Tue Sep 27 04:30:09 1994 Return-Path: Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 13:58:47 -0500 From: Mike O'Donnell Subject: Re: conclusions and 5th digest of comments on the new AMAST list In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 26 Sep 1994 18:20:09. <9409261720.AA01220@cerberus.cs.utwente.nl> To: amast@cs.utwente.nl Message-Id: <9409261858.AA23423@cs.uchicago.edu> Status: RO The basic plan sounds good to me. My experience with a few other interest groups suggests that some moderating is needed, since there is a growing number of unwanted solicitations sent to lots of lists. But, heavier editing will quickly become very labor intensive. For the near future, I suggest that you be alert for ways to reorganize the AMST list around WWW. For material that has been prepared in HTML form, WWW interfaces, such as Mosaic and Lynx, seem to me to be *much* better than any of the mail interfaces that I have tried. At the moment, an elegant adaptation of the list to WWW is probably too labor intensive. An intermediate step would be to provide an archive in HTML format. I expect that soon someone will offer an automated means for incorporating messages from different people into a single elegant HTML structure, and at that point you should consider a more radical switch. Mike O'Donnell From scollo@cs.utwente.nl Sun Oct 9 21:39:53 1994 Return-Path: Date: Sun, 09 Oct 1994 13:04:14 +0100 From: scollo@cs.utwente.nl (Pippo Scollo) Subject: AMAST numbers To: amast@cs.utwente.nl Message-Id: <9410091204.AA02470@cerberus.cs.utwente.nl> Status: RO By this communication I'd like to inform the amasters that the Call for Editors issued in the last sample issue of the AMAST newsletter has had a numerically very low response, that is: (1) Mike Johnson, when having appropriate material available, and (2) V.S. Alagar, after July 1995. While thanking both Mike and Alagar for their offer, which will be useful to all of us, I must note that if the number of editors will not substantially increase in the near future, then we'll have to accept a lower frequency of the newsletter -- viz. the best I can offer at present is a monthly frequency. This does not affect the distribution of the digest of messages sent to the list, that can be thus kept at a fortnightly frequency. Independently of the aforementioned problem, rather because of an indisposition which affected the undersigned last week, the first issue of `AMAST Links' will appear later than originally scheduled, that is on: o Tuesday 11 October : text form, distributed by e-mail o Friday 14 October : hypertext form, available on the WWW Finally, the up-to-date statistics on the number of subscribers and people contributing messages to the list are as follows: (A) 51 contributed messages (9 twice, 3 thrice), (B) 302 subscribed, of which: (B1) 262 to full newsletter and digest of messages, (B2) 5 to full newsletter and no digest of messages, (B3) 25 with the ToC-only option and no digest of messages, (B4) 10 with the ToC-only option and to digest of messages. Pippo From mike@macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au Mon Oct 10 22:04:31 1994 Return-Path: Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 22:29:46 +1000 From: mike@macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au (Michael Johnson) Subject: Re: AMAST Mail Digest, Year 01, N. 01 (26.09.94--10.10.94) To: amast@cs.utwente.nl Cc: mike@macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au Message-Id: <9410101229.AA02206@macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au> X-Envelope-To: cisps@cis0.levels.UniSA.Edu.Au Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Status: RO I personally think that monthly would be better. I also think that if we package the job of the local editors a little more we will get more volunteers as things get off the ground. Mike. From cisps@cis0.levels.unisa.edu.au Fri Oct 21 15:24:49 1994 Return-Path: Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 14:29:08 -0600 (CST) From: cisps@cis0.levels.unisa.edu.au (Pippo Scollo) Subject: frequency of AMAST Links To: eka@cs.uq.oz.au, mike@macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au Cc: amast@cs.utwente.nl Message-Id: <9410210459.AA24674@cis0.levels.unisa.edu.au> X-Envelope-To: cisps@cis0.levels.UniSA.Edu.Au Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Status: RO This is my viewpoint about the question of the frequency of the AMAST newsletter. First, in the present situation, a monthly frequency is the only realistic option for the rest of 1994. Besides the limitedness of our time, I'll take a two-week holiday during mid-November, then I'll fly back to Europe on the 24th of November, and I'expect it will take me at least one week to get back to the desk under ordinary conditions. Having said this, I must say that at least two reasons stand in favour of a fortnightly frequency: 1. with a monthly frequency, the risk of getting more voluminous issues is higher; it can be avoided by sacrificing possibly interesting information; 2. with a monthly frequency, there's also a higher risk of just missing the chance of distributing interesting information because it may appear too late for one issue, but losing validity for inclusion in the subsequent issue. In conclusion, I would propose that, at least for the rest of Volume 1, that is until the end of this year, the newsletter appears monthly. Meanwhile, we may usefully invest some time in producing templates and other tools that should make the editing easier and reduce the time needed for it. We can reconsider whether or not to restore a fortnightly frequency as soon as there will be enough resources to have this as a viable option. Pippo From eka@everest.cs.uq.oz.au Mon Oct 24 16:27:07 1994 Return-Path: Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 16:51:53 +1000 From: eka@everest.cs.uq.oz.au (Ed Kazmierczak) Subject: AMAST links - some personal thoughts To: amast@cs.utwente.nl Cc: eka@cs.uq.edu.au Message-Id: <9410240651.AA23784@everest> X-Envelope-To: cisps@cis0.levels.UniSA.Edu.Au Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Length: 1132 Status: RO AMAST Links - The Frequency of Issues ===================================== Electronic publishing is an exciting and extremely useful media for propagating information made more so because of the access to the World Wide Web. Articles can be posted to the Web and while their abstracts and tables of contents can be freely distributed electronically. This keeps people informed and gives them access to the goings on in the world but without overloading their mental capacity for information. Having said that the ease with which new electronic publications can be brought into existence is something of a worry, especially if the aim is to keep the quality high. AMAST links does this but some effort is required to keep its quality high and its news worthy. Therefore while I'd like to see a fortnightly distribution of AMAST links a monthly distribution seems more appropriate at present. This approach also allows us to gather experience, regular subscribers and some tools to help with the distribution of AMAST links as well as ensuring that there is enough good material for each issue. Ed. Kazmierczak From U.Faigle@math.utwente.nl Tue Oct 25 22:52:08 1994 Return-Path: Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 14:12:58 +0100 (MET) From: Ulrich Faigle Subject: Re: AMAST newsletter (for your information) In-Reply-To: <9410230432.AA14770@cerberus.cs.utwente.nl>; from "AMAST Mailer" at Oct 23, 94 5:32 am To: amast@cs.utwente.nl (AMAST Mailer) (AMAST Mailer) Message-Id: <9410251313.AA13797@utmfu0.math.utwente.nl> X-Envelope-To: cisps@cis0.levels.UniSA.Edu.Au Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Mailer: Elm [revision: 66.36.1.1] Status: RO The setup of the AMAST newsletter appears to be similar to the opt-net newsletter started a while ago by the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung for the the area of optimization (digest + newsletter). My group here had begun with DMANET ( = Discrete Mathematics and Algorithms) already a year before opt-net. Our philosophy is different. Instead of a digest we forward messages to DMANET subscribers more or less "immediately". In order to avoid too much `graduate student' type contributions (as witnessed, e.g., by theorynet), we subject the contributions to a quick (and basically generous) `pre-screening'. DMANET has currently about 650 subscribers worldwide. I have heard some favorable comments on our philosophy vs. the one by opt-net. For example, - people seem to prefer short mailings `on-line' to a (often rather large) digest that they have difficulties to digest. - people are too lazy to make regular use of look-up facilites such as ftp, mosaic etc. Ulrich Faigle From scollo@cs.utwente.nl Tue Nov 8 05:01:33 1994 Return-Path: Date: Mon, 07 Nov 1994 19:30:39 +0100 From: scollo@cs.utwente.nl (Pippo Scollo) Subject: forthcoming distribution, etc. To: amast@cs.utwente.nl Message-Id: <9411071830.AA11884@poseidon.cs.utwente.nl> X-Envelope-To: cisps@cis0.Levels.UniSA.Edu.Au Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Length: 1639 Status: RO Here is some space*time information about the forthcoming issue of AMAST Links. Space: as expected, the halving of the frequency makes the size of the newsletter grow, close to the double of the previous issue. This is likely to occur for the next couple of issues, but there's hope that the fortnightly frequency could be restored at the start of 1995. Time: the plain-text form of `AMAST Links 01 02' is going to be distributed today (still Monday 7 November in Europe), but it will be loaded on the WWW server on Tuesday 8, most likely, and on the FTP server later this week. The hypertext form will only be available at the end of the week. The delay, however, is largely due to the concurrent production of the software which will generate the hypertext form from the plain-text form. There's hope that, starting from the December issue, the two forms will be made available simultaneously. Also about time, the next digest of messages won't be distributed before Monday 28 November, since I won't have access to my e-mail for nearly two weeks, starting from Monday 14. The relatively long gap should not be too much of a problem, however, since most of the communications to the AMAST list take place through the newsletter rather than the digest. Finally, here are the up-to-date statistics about subscription to the AMAST list: 325 subscribers, of which: a. 275 to full newsletter and digest of comments, b. 5 to the full newsletter only -- no digest of comments thus, c. 32 with the ToC-only option and no digest of comments, d. 13 with the ToC-only option, and digest of comments as well. Pippo From scollo@cs.utwente.nl Fri Dec 23 10:33 MET 1994 Return-Path: Date: Fri, 23 Dec 1994 10:33:39 --100 From: scollo@cs.utwente.nl (Pippo Scollo) Message-Id: <9412230933.AA10284@cerberus.cs.utwente.nl> To: amast@cs.utwente.nl Subject: Best Wishes Content-Type: text Content-Length: 545 Status: RO With some delay with respect to the planned schedule, the December issue of `AMAST Links' is going to be distributed today. It is a very voluminous issue, as it was to be expected. During the last few weeks we have received several contributions for the AMAST newsletter, but no other message for the AMAST list. The digest update, therefore, only consists of this one message. I take this opportunity, also on behalf of the other Editors of `AMAST Links', to wish all AMASTers a joyful Christmas and a very happy and prosperous 1995! Pippo From cristian@cs.aukuni.ac.nz Fri Dec 23 13:21 MET 1994 Return-Path: Date: Sat, 24 Dec 94 01:20:19 +1300 From: cristian@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Cris Calude) Subject: Re: Season Greetings X-Sender: cristian@cs18.cs.aukuni.ac.nz To: amast@cs.utwente.nl (AMAST Mailer) Message-Id: <9412231220.AA28013@cs18.cs.auckland.ac.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 318 Status: RO Christmas reminds us we are not unrelated atoms, bouncing and ricocheting amid aliens, but we are part of something, which holds and sustains us. It reminds us that there are people in our lifes who are worth our love and care, and people to whom we are worth the same. Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year! Cris From scollo@cs.utwente.nl Fri Dec 23 13:41 MET 1994 Return-Path: Date: Fri, 23 Dec 1994 13:41:47 --100 From: scollo@cs.utwente.nl (Pippo Scollo) Message-Id: <9412231241.AA15334@cerberus.cs.utwente.nl> To: amast@cs.utwente.nl Subject: enriched retransmission Content-Type: text Content-Length: 332 Status: RO My first attempt to distribute the latest AMAST digest ran into local troubles with the mail server -- more than 30% of the messages were returned, with diagnostic `host unknown'. As you may see, however, this is not a mere retransmission, thanks to the thoughtful Greetings which precede this message... from the future. Pippo