Restitution
front page

What's new?

Archive front page

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2007

2006

2008

2009

This is a follow up to my "welcome to the restitution group" message of Saturday 30 September.

First, welcome to the several people who have signed up since then and who therefore did not get that message. There has been a strong Antipodean influx.

Second, two technical notes. The computer boffins here have been working on some changes to the list and finished them just this weekend.

1. The list server will now automatically add the word "restitution" to the beginning of the Subject line of all postings before it distributes them. This allows you to identify which messages in your mailbox are from this discussion group, before you even open them. You may have noticed this on David Stevens's inaugural posting. (Thank you David!) It is still a good idea to put something in your Subject line when you post a message. In fact, for boffiny reasons, the prefix will not be applied if the subject line is left blank (as it was in my message of Saturday).

2. The list server now also modifies the posting in an attempt to make it possible simply to use the "reply" function of your mail program to send a posting to the server. The idea is that if you are reading someone else's posting and choose "reply", your mailer will set up a message to the list server, and not a personal message to the person who wrote the posting you are reading. Note however that this does not seem to work with all mail programs, eg it works with Eudora on the Mac but not with WordPerfect Office Mail under DOS (those are the only two I have tested). You will have to try it yourself to see what happens. Eg if you choose "reply" for this message, and your program sets up a message to "liosmith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca", then it doesn't work for you. If on the other hand it sets up a message to "restitution@quartz.ucs.ualberta.ca" then it works and your reply will go as a posting. "But," (you say) "you told us that to send a posting it has to go to 'restitution@majordomo.srv.ualberta.ca'!" Indeed I did, and it does. More boffiny reasons. Either one will work.

Note that the "info" file which you got when you subscribed says that you cannot use the reply function to make a posting. That info file has now been modified to reflect this change. You can get a new copy of it by sending a message to "majordomo@majordomo.srv.ualberta.ca", leaving the subject line blank, and putting in the message body (on its own line) "info restitution".

If all of this gives you a headache, please ignore it.

Many thanks and I look forward to reading your postings.

Lionel Smith
Faculty of Law
University of Alberta
403 492 2599; Fax 403 492 4924