From: schulz@informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Stephan Schulz) Newsgroups: soc.history.ancient Subject: [FAQ] Welcome to soc.history.ancient (Netiquette and Net Resources) Followup-To: soc.history.ancient Summary: FAQ on net resources and technical aspects of the group. Expires: 1 Dec 1997 00:00:00 GMT Supersedes: <5tc8ar$5g2@sunsystem5.informatik.tu-muenchen.de> Keywords: FAQ, welcome, ancient, history Archive-name: history/ancient/welcome-faq Posting-Frequency: about weekly (will drop to about monthly later) URL: http://wwwjessen.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~schulz/ancient_faq_net.posted URL: http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/past/faqs/net.html (pending) Maintainer: Stephan Schulz [Last changed: Tue Aug 19 12:19:03 MET DST 1997] Welcome to soc.history.ancient (Netiquette and Net Resources) ============================================================= [Hi! No changes...I think ;-) Stephan ] This document is intended as a primer to the newsgroup soc.history.ancient. It describes the purpose of this group and contains pointers to some interesting resources and general netiquette documents. It is not intended as a resource on ancient history in itself. Only time will tell us what frequently asked questions we will have to answer in the future. For the moment, a couple of questions are answered in a separate document with the subject line [FAQ] soc.history.ancient: Occasionally Asked Questions This is still only a draft. Please feel free to suggest changes, additional topics and corrections. Comments and requests are enclosed in [square brackets]. The last posted version of this FAQ will be available on the WWW under http://wwwjessen.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~schulz/ancient_faq_nn.posted, and will be mirrored at http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/past/faqs/net.html at some point in the future. ------------------------------ Subject: 1. Table of Contents 1. Table of Contents 2. What is the charter of this group? 3. How was this group created? 4. Discussion Style and Netiquette 5. Net resources 5.1 Newsgroups 5.2 Mailing lists 5.3 Mailing list how-to 5.4 WWW sites (indices only) 6. Credits ------------------------------ Subject: 2. What is the charter of this group? The newsgroup line and charter of the group as voted on during group creation are as follows: soc.history.ancient Ancient history (up to AD 700). This is a news group for discussion of ancient historical cultures existing up to circa AD 700. Appropriate types of articles include discussions of ancient cultures, FAQs, booklists, personal insight essays, announcements of new publications and research, analyses of historical patterns (i.e., styles of warfare, travel, agriculture, etc.), and reviews of current research and television series or specials. Short, non-hype, commercial announcements of books, seminars, etc. are also acceptable, but no more than once per month per business. Inappropriate types of articles include commercial advertisements posted more frequently than once per month, unrelated to ancient history, or including excessive length of hype; non-historical or pseudo-historical discussions (what if, alternate history, fantasy cultures, etc.); topics outside the date range of the news group; binary files (excluding PGP and similar short signatures); and articles focusing on legends (except insofar as they affected history), alternative history, and unverifiable events. Soc.history.ancient is intended to be the first, but not the only, resource on Usenet for the reader interested in ancient history. The newsgroup's focus is specifically on history, preferably as it can be known from texts. The texts in and of themselves, as literary or linguistic topics, or non-textual remains, are secondary in interest on this newsgroup, and there are other newsgroups where postings on these topics will often find more informed and interested audiences. Articles on topics for which textual evidence is scant or non-existant should be posted to sci.archaeology.moderated or sci.archaeology. While discussions of the Maya, the only known American culture with surviving texts from our period, are welcome, posters should be aware that sci.archaeology.mesoamerican is more likely to be read by informed specialists in that subject. And for postings on topics *primarily about* Old World texts and/or languages of the texts themselves, humanities.classics, humanities.language.sanskrit, or sci.lang will be a better place to go. There is no newsgroup for which discussion of ancient art is especially on-topic. Posters are asked to judge which group is most likely to be interested or informed on the topic of a post discussing the visual or other non-literary arts, and to choose the appropriate newsgroup, perhaps posting pointers in one or more other group. Pointers to binaries posted in alt.binaries.pictures.misc or available by e-mail are encouraged. This charter will be included in the newsgroup's first FAQ. Thereafter, it will be changed only by formal RFD or CFV, or in accordance with the renaming or creation of newsgroups relevant to ancient history (such as a binaries group for maps, or an Egyptology group, for example). This group will be unmoderated, allowing anyone with the proper access to create or participate in message discussions. ------------------------------ Subject: 3. How was this group created? The FAQ of a history group probably should contain some remarks on the history of the group. So here it is: The first proposal for the group soc.history.ancient was posted on Monday, July 29th 1996 to news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, and a lot of topical newsgroups and mailing lists. This posting was preceded by an email discussion among the proponents, Michael Martinez, Joe Bernstein, Patrick Conway and Stephan Schulz, as well as some other supporters of a group on ancient history. The second RFD, with an improved charter and rationale, was posted after an unusually long delay (due to a hard disk crash and some problems with the distribution of the proposal) on November 27th, 1996. Voting on the group started on January 8th 1997, and closed on January 29th. The UVV votetaker was David Bostwick, he announced the result of the vote on February 5th, 1997. The group passed with 333:13 votes. After the customary 5-day waiting period, the group was created by a newsgroup message send by the moderator of news.announce.newgroups, David C. Lawrence. All relevant documents (RFDs, CFVs, and the result posting) are archived at . ------------------------------ Subject: 4. Discussion Style and Netiquette Usenet is an entirely open medium. Everybody can read this group and everybody can post to it. This means that the groups will occasionally see trolls (strong worded postings intended only to provoke a lot of replies), flames, and off-topic posts. The best way to deal with this kind of postings is usually to ignore it. In case of repeated and significant violation of the charter you can send a polite email to the offender, perhaps with a copy to the postmaster at his site. If you personally object to some people or some subjects, most news readers allow the use of a KILL-file that can be used to filter out undesirable postings. Check the documentation of your news reader or look at the FAQ sheets in news.software.readers. In order to improve the communication on this group you might want to keep the following in mind: - Extensive cross-posting (posting to more than one group) often leads to different threads on the same topic. Consider using a Followup-To header to confine discussion to the most appropriate group. - People hate to read things again and again. Thus, try to avoid large quotes. Quote only what you respond to. Mark deletions with three dots or a short summary of what you deleted, if you think the context is important. In particular, don't quote large amounts of text and add "me too" at the bottom. - Use descriptive Subject lines. "History", "Test" or "Hi there" are not particularly useful. - If you change the topic of a thread, or if it has drifted until it has nothing to do with the Subject header line, you should consider a new Subject line as well. Add "(was: _old_subject_)" to the new subject. - Try to format your lines to 72 characters. Most terminals and windows are 80 characters wide, and quoting will often indent your text a couple of times. Lines wrapping around on the screen are very hard to read. - Don't try to pass on your homework assignments. Requests like "Please tell everything about Athenian Democracy, my paper is due tomorrow!" are usually met with well deserved sarcasm. Try to be specific and to give enough information to allow the reader to anticipate your problems. - Do not post binaries in the group. They are explicitly forbidden by the charter, and belong only in the hierarchies explicitly intended for them. The reason for this is to allow news servers with limited resources to avoid these (very expensive) postings. For more information on the appropriate behaviour on and the structure of Usenet check out the introductory postings in news.announce.newusers. This might pay off even if you think you are an experienced user or if you read them a couple of years ago. You might also want to check out the excellent alt.atheism FAQ on logical arguments. It is regularly posted to alt.atheism and alt.atheism.moderated (and, of course, to news.answers), and a copy can be found on the WWW at http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/atheism/logic/faq.html. For some topics technically out of scope of this group, but likely to turn up nonetheless, the excellent talk.origins FAQ archives provide a lot of information. This includes prehistoric catastrophes and flood myths, but also discussions of scientific principles and vocabulary. The talk.origins FAQ archives can be reached via the Welcome FAQ at http://earth.ics.uci.edu:8080/faqs/faq-welcome.html. ------------------------------ Subject: 5. Net resources [Contributed by Joe Bernstein,] OK, now that you've read about netiquette, here's the fun stuff. soc.history.ancient is meant partly to be a "welcome mat" enabling people to find out about other net resources for the study or enjoyment of ancient history; that's why the charter reads as it does. You will get more out of the resources that follow, though, and make it more likely that they'll be there and be useful for later people, if you behave well. On other newsgroups, behave more or less as you would on soc.history.ancient, but remember that different newsgroups have different styles and read the one you're visiting for a while first to find out how to do as the Romans do. This is still more true with respect to mailing lists. Most *scholarly* discussion of ancient history on the nets in fact occurs via e-mail on these lists. If you behave badly - and in fact much behaviour that would be fine on Usenet is out of place on many lists - you will simply discourage those scholars from ever coming out to Usenet and helping out, and you will also probably ensure that you're kicked off the list you joined. *All* mailing lists have owners, who are usually perfectly willing to pull the plug; when a mailing list is called "moderated", that means the owners screen the messages before posting them, but owners of "unmoderated" lists are just as free to cut off disruptive posters. It's pretty hard to violate netiquette by visiting a web site, but do remember when writing to web sites' creators or maintainers that they're people too. [This is only a first/second draft. Please help us to improve these sections. Thanks.] 5.1 Newsgroups [Based on a list provided by Chris Camfield, but all comments so far are by Joe Bernstein. Please feel free to criticize or supplement the comments or the list.] Archaeology sci.archaeology, sci.archaeology.moderated Mesoamerican area sci.archaeology.mesoamerican sci.archaeology.mesoamerican is basically meant, as I understand it, to be a sane home for Mesoamerican archaeology in particular - Mesoamerica is an area, not a period, running from about the middle of Mexico to the northern end of Chile - ideally, away from the routine flamewars over transatlantic contact in sci.archaeology. sci.archaeology.moderated was originally meant to be a discussion group so that sci.archaeology could be abandoned to the kooks, but has mostly been an announcement / question-and-answer group instead, and a lot of people seem to like it that way. Still, some people managed to have some discussions of Egyptology there a few months ago, so you never know ... try it and see what you think. Be warned that the charter contains a requirement for references for your claims; this is enforced to varying extents. Anthropology sci.anthropology [Comments, anyone?] Classical Studies/Classics humanities.classics, (Ancient Greece and Rome, sci.classics Greek, Latin) These are the same group, in the midst of an apparently perpetual renaming. Normally, discussion on these groups (slightly more so on sci.classics) tends to be heavily oriented toward the Greek and Latin languages themselves, with discussions about grammar, translation issues, etc. There are occasional thriving discussions on other topics though, and in fact several are happening now. A lot of serious classicists participate; beginners are also quite welcome. Classical and other Sanskrit humanities.language.sanskrit This was, the last time I visited, a quite serious, low-traffic group dedicated specifically to the language and not to other issues. History soc.history, soc.history.moderated of the Medieval period soc.history.medieval military soc.history.war.misc of science soc.history.science of South Asia esp. Pakistan soc.culture.pakistan.history The last is a moderated group; the main (only?) moderator, Moin Ansari, collects posts from elsewhere on the topic and reposts them there sometimes. Although Mr. Ansari provides a fair chunk of the traffic, open debate does in fact occur on the group. Mythology alt.mythology mythic animals alt.mythology.mythic-animals King Arthur alt.legend.king-arthur [Comments, anyone?] 5.2 Mailing lists [Unfortunately, this took a lot of time, and I haven't finished yet by any means; actually I'm maybe one-third done in the effort of finding and writing to list-owners. Quite a few owners (usually owners of dead lists) don't reply. So please feel free to notify me of any list not included here, but quite often it will turn out that I already know of it but have not contacted the owner, or that the owner has asked me not to list it here. (In particular, I haven't yet written to the owners of most listserv lists.) In addition, I am not listing any mailing list whose purpose is to serve the members of a particular organisation (for example, the American Classics League list). Comments on the lists described are based, wherever possible, on their official information file. For some lists, personal comments are added in brackets. ---Joe] There are hundreds of mailing lists out there which discuss ancient history either peripherally or (less often) centrally. Only those lists whose owners explicitly agreed have been listed in the FAQ. The following lists seem to be dead or unreachable as of the current date. Please let us know if they've just moved or some such: contex-l, elenchus, ioudaios, persia-l, humanist, mediber, francehs, eejh, medievale, romiosini, leucippus; perhaps oldnorsenet, medliteracy-l, h-costum The following lists are covered in some detail: aarghaeology, aegeanet, ane, arch-metals, bible-l, bmcr-l, bmmr-l, bmr-l, byzans-l, classics, eaan, easci, h-costume, indology, IusRomanum, l-math, RomanSites-L, as well as general discussions of H-Net, Mailbase. And now o the list of lists. Atlanteans may rest assured that it is pure coincidence that aarghaeology comes first: AARGHAEOLOGY Address: aarghaeology@mindspring.com (this list is MANUALLY run) Owner: Lady Summer Timesundzelivinsezi, Ye Olde Editor [This list is dedicated to the fascinating publications of the Reverend Colonel Ignatius Churchward Von Berlitz M.A. (Dom. Sci.) Oxon. (Oklahoma) and his loving disciples. To quote the Father's FAQ: "I hope that this piece lays to rest many doubts and fears that have kept my fellow Archaeologists awake at night. However, please remember - Insomnia is God's method of preserving our Vigilance. In reference to the need for Vigilance In Our Beds, I need only point out that Ninety Per Cent of Shark Attacks occur during the Hours of Darkness." Some, but not all, of the relevant writings are also posted directly to soc.history.ancient, with the subject tag "". Culled from various other parts of the welcome message to the Father Von Berlitz Hour of Power Reading List: ---Joe] From time to time, we post a few unusual items found here and there that can *only prove* that the Atlantean Potato People not only walk among us, but hold positions of power (I mean, really: have you seen the state of the world recently?). The articles of the Father come in irregularly: we suspect that this is so as he has to *gnaw* through those strait-jacket restraints and then find his way to a vacant computer while the keepers are looking the "other way". It could *also* be that he's just lazy....;) I have always suspected there was a *woman involved*, but good taste states that I can *say no more*... At any rate: when a new article from Father Von Berlitz comes in to this address: it is MARKED as "NEW" and forwarded to all of you. Some of you can check by your headers that there are a *lot* of you, so we have to be sure that *everybody* gets their article (some of your cohorts are *hidden* as well, so this takes time). When one of *you* get a "flash of brilliance" and either posts a response to the Father, or bring up a new thread for the group and/or Father to chew on, we post this as a "RESP-NEW". We ENCOURAGE SUCH ACTIVITY, as it keeps the *Father* "on his toes" (and we *all* want to see **that**).... AEGEANET Address: majordomo@acpub.duke.edu Owner: John Younger A discussion and news group on the pre-classical Aegean world from Palaeolithic to Homer and beyond. The purpose of AegeaNet is to facilitate discussion, initiate and test new ideas, and explore possibilities in the world of the Aegean Bronze Age. Ideas, musings and queries, sample arguments, fully developed theses, and even entire drafts of papers are welcome. There is no digest version. Archives available on the Web at . The list is for the informed primarily; the uninformed are welcome, but they should state their level of expertise before they ask their question. ANE Address: Majordomo@oi.uchicago.edu Owner: Charles Jones ANE is a mailing list on topics and issues of interest in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, from the Indus to the Nile, and from the beginnings of human habitation to the rise of Islam. It is intended to provide a medium for discussion among scholars and students actively engaged in research and study of this broad field. Subscription is open and unmoderated. Active (on-list) participation in ANE assumes an informed knowledge of the ancient Near East and knowledge of the rules. The act of subscribing to the list signifies the agreement of the subscriber to follow the rules and to accept the adjudications of the moderator. Languages: English, French, German, and sometimes others. Archived at , the list's general home page. The digest version is named ANE-DIGEST. There is a moderated announcement list, ANENEWS, available at the same address and with the same owner. ARCH-METALS Address: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk Owner: Chris Salter Arch-metals list is for the discussion of all aspects of archaeo-metallurgy and the dissemination of data related to all aspects of ancient metallurgy and metal artefacts: the applications of material science to archaeo- -metallurgy, and the development of methodologies to the study of archaeo- metallurical debris. A limited familarity with the standard technical terms is assumed; the list was unmoderated in February. Archived at , off the list's general home page. Traffic has averaged about 1.5 messages per day. In association with the list a bibliography on archaeometallurgy has been built up, available through the list's home page. Arch-metals is a MAILBASE list; please see below for more information about Mailbase. BIBLE-L Address: MXServer@wkuvx1.wku.edu Owner: Paul Bellan-Boyer BIBLE-L is a mailing list devoted to discussion of topics broadly related to the Bible: history, texts, culture, reference sources, philosophy, religious practice, and meaning. BIBLE-L is unmoderated, but posts are expected to be on-topic, courteous, and respectful of people if not of ideas. BIBLE-L averaged 19.1 messages/day over the month of January, 1997. BMCR-L Address: majordomo@brynmawr.edu Owners: Richard Hamilton and James O'Donnell An electronic journal devoted to reviews of current books in Greek and Latin literature and Greek and Roman history. The journal is published in both paper and electronic form (ISSN for paper: 1055-7660; ISSN for e-version: 1063-2948). Individual book reviews are sent to the list with serial numbers corresponding to the print issue to which they belong (e.g., 4.1.2 = volume 4, issue number 1, the second item in that issue). They tend to appear in clumps over a period of a couple of weeks with long hiatuses between. Archived at . BMMR-L Address: majordomo@brynmawr.edu Owner: Eugene Vance and James O'Donnell BMMR publishes book reviews in all areas of medieval studies. Archived at . BMR-L Address: majordomo@brynmawr.edu Owners: Richard Hamilton, James O'Donnell, and Eugene Vance BMR is the listserv name for the combined output of two e-journals publishing book reviews in the areas of Greek and Latin antiquity (Bryn Mawr Classical Review: BMCR, also published in a paper edition) and of medieval studies broadly conceived (Bryn Mawr Medieval Review: BMMR, published in electronic form only). [There have been something like 120 messages in the three months I've subscribed. Those reviews I've read have been quite scholarly; there are also occasional replies to reviews. A fine list. ---Joe] BYZANS-L Address: listproc@lists.missouri.edu Owner: Marcus Routman Since going on-line in December 1992, BYZANS-L has grown to include approximately 500 subscribers in 30 countries. Topics over the last three years have covered a wide range of topics related to historical Byzantium (ca. 312-1453 C.E.) and its larger cultural legacy. The comments the owner occasionally receives suggest that the list has become a modest but helpful forum for pursuing matters of academic and general interest in the field. [I was subscribed from November until quite recently and may well rejoin someday. There were about 20-30 posts per month, usually in spurts; topics vary widely and *do* include some discussion of the modern Greek Orthodox Church. A good list. ---Joe] CLASSICS Address: listproc@u.washington.edu Owner: Linda Wright An unmoderated list for discussing ancient Greek and Latin subjects. This list is open to everyone interested in Classics, and prospective members are warmly welcomed. The discussions assume a background in ancient Greek and/or Latin and postings are expected to remain within the confines of these subjects. Only list-members are able to post or reply to CLASSICS messages, and this list does not appear on Usenet. As of 09/95 the membership numbers over 1,100 subscribers. 40-50 messages per day. There is a digest version available, and also a moderated announcement list (write to Ms. Wright directly for the latter). EAAN Address: listproc@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Owner: Nathan Sivin The Group exists to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas between scholars, students, and others interested in the history and archeology of early East Asia. You can post a question for colleagues to answer, propose a topic for discussion, reply to an earlier query, trade information about publications and other resources, and so on. The Society, the East Asian Archeology Network, and other groups may use the list to announce meetings and other activities. This is a fairly quiet list, perhaps a dozen or two messages per month. The owner emphasises that this list is "unhospitable" to spammers, and works to get any spammers linked to it kicked off their ISPs. The list is archived. [I've been subscribed for about seven months. The discussion is usually concerned with archaeology in some sense, whether in its own right or because it brings to light new texts fairly regularly, and is generally at a fairly high level; a fair number of prominent scholars in the field are subscribers. Chinese, in Roman transcription, is often used. ---Joe] EASCI Address: listproc@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Owner: Nathan Sivin The Group exists to facilitate the open exchange of information and ideas between scholars, students, and others interested in the history of science, medicine, and technology in East Asia. You can post a question for colleagues to answer, propose a topic for discussion, reply to an earlier query, trade information about publications and other resources, and so on. The International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Medicine, and Technology, the Needham Research Institute, and other groups use the list to announce meetings and other activities. The owner emphasises that this list is "unhospitable" to spammers, and works to get any spammers linked to it kicked off their ISPs. The list is archived. H-COSTUME Address: listserv@brownvm.brown.edu Owner: Gretchen M. Beck is co-owner Historic Costume list. [Per Ms. Beck and my experience while subscribed for ten days, discussion focuses on the period from the 13th century to the present. She says however that questions about ancient period clothing are discussed when raised. 16 messages per day while I was there. ---Joe] H-NET [H-Net is possibly the most important arena of electronic communication about history. It consists of hundreds of listserv lists used mostly by scholars and people in related fields (e.g., librarians; I've been told that as a bookstore clerk I might be allowed to subscribe :-) interested in specific areas of the humanities or social sciences. A terse description from the web site: H-Net is an international cooperative initiative in Humanities and Social Science computing. Originally a consortium of e-mail lists aimed primarly at historians in the United States, the H-Net project has grown to encompass a wide range of projects, fields and disciplines. In addition to our e-mail lists, which distribute more than 150,000 messages a day, we are host to the extensive collaborative Web site you are now visiting. The Web site is indeed very ambitious, including several databases of things like book reviews; time does not allow me to evaluate it in full but you might want to check it out, . A much more detailed introduction to H-Net can be found at . Almost all the mailing lists named "H-Something" are H-Net lists, although H-Costume is an exception. The only one I've tried to subscribe to is H-Asia; the application form I got in reply to my attempt was intimidating enough that I went no further. But if you *are* a scholar, or can make a good case for yourself, give it a try. Since the H-Net lists are listserv lists, I haven't written the owners of potentially relevant lists yet; as I accumulate information about particular lists, I'll include it here. It's my understanding that all lists are more or less moderated, with teams of reviewers. ---Joe] INDOLOGY Address: listproc@liverpool.ac.uk (*will change sometime soon*) Owner: Dominik Wujastyk INDOLOGY Address: listproc@liverpool.ac.uk (*will change sometime soon*) Owner: Dominik Wujastyk INDOLOGY was started in 1990 as a forum for Sanskritists, MIA and NIA language specialists, Dravidologists, historians, and others interested in any aspect of Indological studies. That includes other languages, of course, and anything related. It's not restricted, except that discussions about contemporary politics and social issues are better carried out on soc.culture.india and other forums like that. As a rough guide to subject content, if you enjoy receiving journals like the JAOS, JRAS, BSOAS, IIJ, etc., then INDOLOGY is for you! The forum is targetted at professional participants in Indological studies, and is not primarily a forum for discussions with undergraduates or scholars from other fields who have an amateur interest in Indian history and culture. For example, if you do not recognise any of the above acronyms, or never read any of these journals, or if you never attend academic conferences in some aspect of indology, then perhaps another forum would be more appropriate for you. Of course non-professionals are welcome to join the list if they wish, but elementary questions and discussions about Indian history and culture should be addressed elsewhere. The discourse in INDOLOGY assumes a familiarity with the specialist literature of the subjects discussed. The list is archived, and the archives are accessible through its home page at . [This is almost the only scholarly list on South Asia, and topics vary widely. Discussion is usually basically in English but frequently presumes knowledge of any of a number of South Asian languages. I was subscribed from November until the other day, and found it a valuable but very busy list; in recent months it's averaged 400 messages per month though I think that partly reflects a six-week surge now ended. As scholarly lists go, it's *very* lightly moderated; flamewars do happen though they're rather better written than Usenet ones usually. ---Joe] IUSROMANUM Address: Majordomo@jurix.jura.uni-sb.de Owner: Thomas Ruefner IusRomanum has been initiated with the purpose to create a forum for scholarly discussion of all aspects of Roman Law. Possible topics include the history of Roman Law from the Twelve Tables to Justinian's codes as well as its continued presence in the early Middle Ages, its renaissance in 12th century Bologna, the development of the Ius Commune and the importance of Roman Law for the understanding of modern legal systems and the formation of European Private Law. The use of modern electronic resources for research in related fields may be a subject as well. The list is open to everyone interested in the discussion of questions connected to Roman Law. Jurists and historians are invited to take part. The participation of persons from a large variety of professional backgrounds will add to the list's value. Archived. Only 0.5 messages per day in the list's early days (it was started in January 1997). For further information see the list's home page at . L-MATH Address: l-math-request@math.uio.no (this list is MANUALLY run) Owner: Geir Waagbroe The purpose of this list is exchanges on the history and philosophy of mathematics and probability. It has no particular bias to any philosophy, and is open to all civilized exchange on the mentioned topic(s). The list is not directed at only discussion, nor only at polite exchange of book titles. As long as the post is relevant and civilized - anything goes. l-math has a twin list: l-logic. As well as having a life of its own, some discussions on l-math can move over to l-logic if the problems that are being discussed are of a logical nature. Archived at . According to the list-owner traffic is sporadic, and ancient history discussion uncommon but not unknown. MAILBASE [To summarise from the information available at : The Mailbase system allows researchers and academics to communicate and collaborate using electronic mail. This takes place via the Joint Academic Network (JANET), which links most of the UK's institutions of higher education. Regardless of geographical distance, researchers and academics can keep in touch with this fast and simple to use medium. The inexperienced user often finds that mailing lists are difficult to set up and use; with this in mind, Mailbase was developed to make "group communication" easier across JANET. From its inception in 1989 Mailbase has expanded rapidly; today the service manages hundreds of mailing lists with many thousands of members both in the UK and overseas. One of the main aims of Mailbase is to encourage the non-computer specialist to use the service. In effect, Mailbase is a UK equivalent to H-Net. I have not tried to subscribe to any Mailbase lists, but I presume that something of the same degree of professionalism would be expected. ---Joe] ROMANSITES-L Address: petworth@suba.com (this list is MANUALLY run) Owner: Bill Thayer (the above is his address) A list covering Roman Web sites. This list is a place to pass along info on Roman Web sites; possibly for limited discussion of access problems, broken links, related ftp's and gophers, etc. RomanSites-L is now on the Web. A good starting point is at http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/. Check it out. The site is multilingual, and has an execellent and extremely complete collection of links. [No discussion has taken place since I subscribed in February. This comment is long because this list is remarkable and unusual. When you subscribe, you receive the combined archives of the list to date, some 800 K in mail as of February and probably bigger now, so be prepared for that much mail. This combined archives amounts to a stupendous link list for practically any site that has anything related to Rome or the Roman Empire, even a single picture of a Roman sculpture, unless it's already listed in one of the owner's "key sites" noted below. It's all organised by topics or by regions, all described in massive detail by a very terse combination of descriptions, e.g. "glass bottle; bronze hummingbirds; rings" as a description of images, with a rigid format providing title, URL, evaluation of site quality and relevance, and a host of other kinds of information. You also get a document explaining how to use the format with automatic search functions. Basically, given the amount of information provided and the care taken to make it searchable and indexable, you can get as much out of this archive as you care to look for. After you get the archive, you receive updates roughly every week, generally less than 20K, following the same format. If you are interested in things Roman, or for that matter in impressive ways to build databases in text format :-), you owe it to yourself to check this list out. You owe it to the owner, who does *all* of it by hand, to be very, very nice. Oh, he's working on putting the archive itself onto the Web too; someday you should be able to subscribe without getting it in your box. ---Joe] 5.3 Mailing list HOW-TO The vast majority of mailing lists are run more or less automatically in one of three programs, Listserv, ListProcessor (Listproc), or Majordomo. The Mailbase lists are run through a Mailbase program; hardly any other program hosts more than one ancient history list, so giving information about other programs here would be wasteful. Listserv is the most commonly used program. It offers a vast range of options for archiving, digests, turning off your mail for the summer, interactive use by telnet, and everything but the kitchen sink. It appears to be relatively hard to run; lots of listserv lists, for example, don't have basic information files that you can get before subscribing to see what the list's about. However, when you do join a listserv list you will typically get such an information file telling you how to use the program and also what the list's customs or policies are. Supposedly, all listserv lists are tracked by some central listing index, but many of the lists named there are dead, and not all the lists are really there. All the H-Net lists are listserv lists. Listproc originated in a version of Listserv. It has slightly fewer options and may be easier to run. Listproc lists, however, are even harder to learn about than listserv ones. Sometimes when you join a listproc you'll get a welcome file, sometimes you won't; it will almost never be as informative as the welcome file for a listserv or majordomo list, so if you want to do anything fancy, you should write to the listproc for help. Majordomo is a separate and much more basic program; people can add options to it, but it doesn't come with very many. Most majordomo lists, however, do provide prospective or actual subscribers with a fair amount of information. The Mailbase system is not only a sponsorship program for academic lists, but a computer program too. For information on how to use it, send a "send mailbase user-guide" command to . For the other three programs, some basic commands, as they're *sometimes* implemented, are described below. Always send these commands only to the list host address, not the post submission address. Only list host addresses are named above; when you join a list, you will be told the post submission address (if any). There are various ways to give commands, but a command sent as the body of a message, with no signature and a blank subject line, will just about always work. (If you can't get rid of your signature try putting "end", by itself, on the last line of the message before your signature.) It usually doesn't matter whether you use upper or lower case for any part of a command. Most, but not all, list management servers reply *very* fast to these commands. [If you're familiar with a lot of lists or with list software in general, and you think I have something wrong in the following, or the above!, *please* let me (Joe Bernstein ) know.] listname = the name of the list (e.g. classics) your@address = your e-mail address (e.g. joe@sfbooks.com) Your Real Name = your real name (e.g. Joe Bernstein) TO INQUIRE ABOUT A LIST info listname -- listserv, majordomo information listname -- listproc TO JOIN A LIST subscribe your@address Your Real Name -- listserv join listname Your Real Name -- listproc subscribe listname -- majordomo If membership is screened, your request may wait for human attention; some servers also require confirmation messages to make sure people don't get subscribed against their will. TO JOIN THE DIGEST VERSION (if any!) after subscribing, set listname digest -- listserv set listname mail digest -- listproc for a majordomo list, any digest will usually be a separate listname. TO LEARN ABOUT OTHER COMMANDS help -- listproc, listserv, majordomo TO LEAVE A LIST signoff listname -- listserv, listproc unsubscribe listname -- majordomo, listproc Again, human attention or a confirmation message may be required. 5.4 WWW sites (indices only) There are *thousands* of web sites out there related to ancient history; several people spend incredible amounts of time on tracking them (lots of other people are lazier :-), and I don't want to be another. Someone else is welcome to start an FAQ about ancient history web sites, as Patrick Tingler has done for medieval history (see below). Meanwhile, here is a selective list of indices (lists of links) that I've found useful. This is for now based on my own web site; the links are current, but I haven't gone looking for further information since December 1996. In general, I would prefer to list only those indices that cover either a topic worldwide or a region for all topics. Thus Diotima (the wonderful index on women in the ancient Mediterranean world) is not included because it's both topic-specific and region-specific. Feel free to *send* me (Joe Bernstein, joe@sfbooks.com) information about other indices; I will not be prompt about updating this but will try to do it in some sort of reasonable time. Do *not* send that information to Stephan Schulz or anyone else posting this FAQ. The format in which the web sites' URLs are presented is unusual, but is intended to be useful in as many programs as possible. If you see three lines for each site, the first one includes the address of the site between quotation marks (as in "http://someplace.or.other"), the second line is the name of the site, and the third line can be ignored. If you see just one line, you should be able to use it directly as a link. Most of these sites have impressive images that take some time to download on a slow connection, but only ArchNet (one version) and Romarch have image maps, so you can safely check the others with image loading turned off. **Fundamental but aging** The Ancient World Web This was once by far the most comprehensive list of ancient-world related sites, and it has indices too! Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated for over a year, due to, first, employment problems and then, well, employment of its valiant keeper. Please don't write to her about this; just be glad for what the site currently offers and hope she can get back to it, maybe, someday. **Archaeology** ArchNet (frames and lots of images) ArchNet (text-only) This is a very good guide to archaeology on the Web. Besides the versions indicated above there are versions in several European languages! **Ancient Near East** ABZU is absolutely Web Central for this region. If you're interested at all, try this site first. There are indices by type of resource and (to a lesser extent) by topic, and there are sometimes annotations. EgyptCenter History page is part of the Egyptian Department of Tourism's massive site "Tour Egypt". There are thousands of pages in the department's main site, with apparently a lot about history, but it's not clearly indexed (there is a search engine, but with thousands of pages, you get *lots* of hits...). Curiously enough, though, the department's linklists, which the above URL refers to, are superbly organised, deep, and well annotated, about as good as link lists can possibly be. **Ancient East Asia** Asian Archaeology Information Plaza Ignore the name. This is an impressive suite of resources on Asian history generally, up through modern times. There is no annotation of links but they seem to work :-). I'm not sure whether the list is highly selective, or work on Asian history on the web is just unusually well planned, but many of the links are to "The History of Country X"-type pages. There is also a Japanese version. **Ancient South Asia** **Ancient South Asia** INDOLOGY *The* site for the serious student. Includes copious local resources plus a large array of outside links on topics Indological. Based on the INDOLOGY mailing list mentioned above, whose archives and associated files are included here. My own web site has a few links missing from INDOLOGY, but in particular I am also willing, until I find someone else doing it, to incorporate links for amateurs about ancient South Asia, and also links to materials about the "Aryan Invasion Theory", on all sides of that debate (I don't pretend to be without bias myself! but have not yet found a site that links to all sides). So if your interest is more casual or is in that specific topic, try my site too. For now. **Ancient West** Classicists Net Guide The classicists have, like the science fiction fans, been competing ardently in the Best Links-List battle. Of the thirty or so sites which list classical links, none is complete, but this one is the best I've found. Rich in listings and well indexed. Bill Thayer, who produces the RomanSites-L newsletter, considers a few other such lists particularly important, these being: Classics/Mediterranean Archaeology Home Page Classics Elsewhere [U. of Kentucky] Rassegna degli Strumenti Informatici per lo Studio dell'Antichita Classica (Computer Resources for the Study of Classical Antiquity) ROMARCH, Roman Archaeology Page Of course, you can find even more of the competitors via Yahoo Society for Late Antiquity Access to lots of stuff about the Roman Empire after the Christians started getting somewhere. An undeservedly neglected era finally getting some of its due; this is also a gateway to the mediaeval web. Another such gateway is the aforementioned net resources FAQ for soc.history.medieval: Patrick Tingler's medieval websites list ------------------------------ Subject: 6. Credits The first version of this FAQ, the "mini-FAQ", was written and posted by Stephan Schulz. The net resources section is the work of Joe Bernstein. The following people have, to a greater or lesser degree, influenced this FAQ: Martin Bemmann, Chris Camfield, and Bill Thayer. -- (c) Copyright 1996-1997 by Stephan Schulz and Joe Bernstein. All rights reserved. Redistribution of any or all of this article on Usenet or in e-mail is hereby freely granted so long as it is redistributed without alteration.