Saturn
Internet Discussion
Group
Saturn is an Internet Discussion Group (electronic journal) founded in 1992 by Tom Buck to discuss Sun Ra and the Arkestra. This is a basic "how to" message for the SATURN list, posted at approximately monthly intervals. Please send any corrections, suggestions or objections which you may have to: owner-saturn@nic.surfnet.nl.

 

1. Subscribing & Unsubscribing
To subscribe to the Saturn list, send a message like SUBSCRIBE SATURN [YourNameHere] to the administrative email address: listserv@nic.surfnet.nl (Substitute your name or nickname, not your email address, for YourNameHere. Note also that the address may differ for you if you have a BITNET account). To unsubscribe, send a message of SIGNOFF SATURN to the same address.

 

2. Changing Your Subscription Options
You can set and query many options once you are successfully subscribed - for example you can suspend mail delivery during holiday periods by sending the message SET SATURN NOMAIL to the administrative email address: listserv@nic.surfnet.nl.

For full details of all the other options available to you (daily digests, message acknowledgment options, etc.) send a message INFO REFCARD to the same address: listserv@nic.surfnet.nl

 

3. Sending Messages to the Saturn list
You contribute to the discussions on the list itself by sending mail to saturn@nic.surfnet.nl

 

4. Accessing the Saturn List Archives
Here are three different ways of doing this - use whichever suits you best:

A. Searching the Archives with a Web Browser
Point your browser at http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/saturn.html. This gives you the opportunity to search the archives by keyword, or to browse through the postings month by month.
B. Downloading Archives by E-Mail
A list of archive files can be obtained by sending a message INDEX SATURN to the list's administrative address: listserv@nic.surfnet.nl. Monthly archives can then be requested by sending a message such as: GET SATURN LOG9805 to the same administrative address. (This particular example will retrieve all the May, 1998 postings.) You can put multiple such "get" lines in your message, to request several months' archives at once. The monthly archive files will then be sent back to you by email, so that you can read them offline. (Warning: some of these files are large, 500KB or more, depending on the level of list activity during the month. If your internet account cannot cope with large incoming email items, this method will probably not work reliably for you.)
C. Searching the Archives by E-Mail
This method avoids any problem of large incoming emails, by retrieving only individual postings. You can ask the listserver to search the Saturn archives by keyword, by sending a message such as SEARCH 'Popcorn' IN SATURN to the administrative address: listserv@nic.surfnet.nl. The listserver will send you an email reply giving details of individual postings containing your keyword (in this example "Popcorn") and will give details on how to then obtain any/all of the matching postings by email.

5. Other Addresses for the Saturn List
Basically, sending mail to other Saturn list addresses probably won't achieve what you intend.
  • Sending subscribe, unsubscribe messages, etc., to the list itself will just cause spurious messages to be distributed to everybody on the Saturn list. These administrative messages will ONLY work properly if they are sent to listserv@nic.surfnet.nl.
  • Messages sent to addresses such as saturn-request, owner-saturn, etc. will not receive any automatic response from the listserver software, but will eventually reach the list administrator.

    • The current Listowner (editor) is Chris Trent.

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