pynchon-l Frequently Asked Questions
Murthy Yenamandra
yenamand at cs.umn.edu
Mon Jun 2 10:34:55 CDT 1997
This is the monthly informational posting for pynchon-l. Please direct all
comments, questions and suggestions to <yenamand at cs.umn.edu>.
List Purpose and Policy:
-----------------------
You are on the pynchon-l mailing list (or its digest version), devoted
to the discussion of the life (if you must) and works (please!) of
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon.
As far as we're concerned, pretty much any Pynchon-related topic is OK
on this list, from Pynchon apocrypha through light discussion of your
favorite passages, to litcrit as heavy as you want. We interpret this
liberally, but that's no reason to conduct extended discussions of
unrelated topics on the list - do use your discretion. This is at
present an open and unmoderated list, meaning that anyone is free to
join, leave or (while a member) post to the list without the prior
approval of the list owners. If you are not hearing enough from the
list, start a discussion.
If you intend to discuss _Mason & Dixon_, please see the special note
later on regarding spoiler warnings. This is a temporary measure
intended to give everyone a fair chance to finish reading it before
reading about it (and an alternative to having a separate mailing list
for discussing it). We foresee discontinuing this warning system on June
16, 1997.
List Audience:
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We keep the actual list of pynchon-l members confidential in order to
protect the list members' privacy (we will name no names!). But we can
tell you that including you and Thomas Pynchon (we like to think), 483
people from around 20 countries receive pynchon-l. Here is a domain-wise
breakdown of the list audience (as of June 1, 1997):
Domain Count %age Domain Description
------ ----- ---- ------------------
com 171 35.4 Commercial
edu 123 25.5 Educational (not all lit-crit)
net 72 14.9 Network
org 21 4.3 Organization (Non-profit?)
uk 17 3.5 United Kingdom
de 13 2.7 Germany
ca 10 2.1 Canada
jp 8 1.7 Japan
us 6 1.2 United States
au 5 1.0 Australia
nl 4 0.8 Netherlands
fr 4 0.8 France
fi 4 0.8 Finland
gov 3 0.6 Government
dk 3 0.6 Denmark
be 3 0.6 Belgium
za 2 0.4 South Africa
se 2 0.4 Sweden
it 2 0.4 Italy
es 2 0.4 Spain
ch 2 0.4 Switzerland
at 2 0.4 Austria
ua 1 0.2 Ukraine
mx 1 0.2 Mexico
ie 1 0.2 Ireland
gr 1 0.2 Greece
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Total 483
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List Commands:
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Pynchon-l uses the majordomo software which automates most of the
administrative steps. You will get the quickest results if you stick to
the following directions, otherwise your requests will have to wait for
listowner intervention to take effect. All list commands should be
addressed to <waste at waste.org>. For a complete list of commands,
send mail to <waste at waste.org> with the body "help".
If you're not already on pynchon-l, then feel free to join the list by
sending a message to <waste at waste.org> with the line "subscribe pynchon-l"
in the body. To leave the list, send "unsubscribe pynchon-l" instead.
There is also a digest version of the list that bundles the pynchon-l
traffic into a couple of manageable digests a day. By subscribing to the
digest version, you will not miss any content at all, but receive fewer,
longer compilations (instead of receiving each message as it is posted).
If you'd like this digest version, send "subscribe pynchon-l-digest"
to <waste at waste.org>. You must then send "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest"
to leave the digest version.
To send mail to the list, address it to <pynchon-l at waste.org>
(that's pynchon dash ell, not pynchon dash one).
Please remember to distinguish between replies to individuals and
replies to the group. In most cases you will want to reply for the
whole group to read, so you have to intentionally reply to the whole
group.
Special note regarding discussion of _Mason & Dixon_:
----------------------------------------------------
With the publication of _Mason & Dixon_, many of us hope to keep our
reading experience uncluttered, and so we ask you to follow these
Spoiler Warning Guidelines to accommodate everyone and make the First
Reading of the long-awaited Book an enjoyable experience filled with
Unanticipated Pleasures.
If your message includes comments on or references to the contents of
_Mason & Dixon_, please indicate that in your subject header. Identify
the highest page number that you feel relates to your comments and use
the following subject line:
Subject: M&D [page number]
If you are responding to someone else's message, be sure to edit the
subject line to change the subject (if you are introducing M&D content)
or the page number (to reflect the extent of your comments). Do not
include references to _Mason & Dixon_ content on the subject line
itself. In the body of the message, include the line:
***** Mason & Dixon Spoiler *****
at the beginning of your message. And if you feel it necessary, include
a few blank lines after the above warning to avoid accidental reading on
email programs with preview windows.
Be aware that a lot of your questions or comments about _Mason & Dixon_
may remain unanswered or undiscussed because few people may have read
them or the corresponding parts of the novel.
pynchon-l Archives:
------------------
If you would like the Pynchon-l archives, just go to the San Narcisco
Community College Thomas Pynchon home page:
http://www.pomona.edu/pynchon/index.html
or Andrew Dinn's searchable archive at
http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~andrew/pynchon-l.html
There is also an FTP archive on W.A.S.T.E.:
ftp://ftp.waste.org/pub/lists/pynchon-l/
And a new searchable archive on W.A.S.T.E.:
http://www.waste.org/pynchon-l/
Your list owners are:
Murthy Yenamandra <yenamand at cs.umn.edu>
Oliver Xymoron <oxymoron at waste.org>
Please contact us if you have any problems.
Enjoy.
--
Murthy Yenamandra, Dept of CompSci, U of Minnesota. mailto:yenamand at cs.umn.edu
"Every heart/to love will come/but like a refugee" - Leonard Cohen
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