North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[mauch1@aol.com]

If this explanation topic goes on longer, or gets annoying to some, 
I'll take it "offlist", but there may be others who wish to use the 
Yahoo Groups services who aren't aware of them.

A basic listserv uses sends messages to its distribution list 
(members emails).  Usually an archive of messages is kept (and on 
older systems, can be accessed using emails with Command strings in 
the e-mails)  YahooGroups (and Egroups, and Onelist before that) 
maintains such an archive, but instead of accessing it through 
emails, it has an easy to use interface on the Web.

> I was going to ask, 'What's a Web interface', but never mind, I've 
figured 
> it out now - I can/do check my email messages via Webmail from the 
computer 
> at home; now I understand.
Well, I'm not sure you do completely.  When I say Web Interface, I am 
browsing the messages on the Yahoo/nafex site, not my email.  

I'm assuming here you have access to the internet (unlike the Fluffy 
Bunny) and can browse the web - i.e. you can type www.yahoo.com and 
see that site come up.

To get to the yahoo groups interface enter:
http://groups.yahoo.com/

You will be prompted for your signon id (There is a process for 
taking you Egroups id (which was simply your email address) and 
converting it to a Yahoo Groups Id.  From there you can get to nafex 
(which is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nafex) and click on the 
Messages hyperlink which will show you the last series of messages 
that have been exchanged.  

> I had no idea we had an archive - anyone care to enlighten me as to 
how to 
> go about accessing it?
Well all the messages that have been exchanged since the group has 
left manual exchange (since we first went on OneList), have been 
maintained by the succeeding companies and can be accessed and 
searched.  So from the page I mentioned above you can type a topic 
(such as PawPaw) click the button 'Search Archive' and find all the 
messages that mentioned pawpaws.

[aside: the only place this isn't useful is for the Chinese Che 
(because the Chinese is often dropped ) and lots of words 
(particularly Cherry) begin w/ 'che'].  

Besides looking at messages, as you read them, you can choose to post 
a reply (by default to the group) or by choosing from the drop down 
in the "to" field to post a message only to the original sender of 
the post or to the list-owner.  I often do this and though it looks 
like the message was sent from my email, it's actually being send 
directly from Yahoo Groups.

Within the Yahoo Group you can also choose to change how messages are 
delivered to you:  You can receive individual emails (which I think 
is a default) from each poster; or you can have the day's messages 
for a group collected and sent as one e-mail to you.  Or you can 
choose to have no messages sent to you and only read the messages 
through the web interface. 

Hope this helps,

Chris Mauchline
SE PA, zone 6 

--- In nafex@y..., Lucky Pittman <Lucky.Pittman@m...> wrote:
> Being a computer/tech idiot/dummie, I'd not been able to understand 
much of 
> the consternation over the takeover by YahooGroups - so far as I 
can tell, 
> I'm still getting all my NAFEX messages, but after reading Chris 
> Mauchline's most recent post, I'm thinking, "Maybe I'm missing 
something." 
> (and, I probably am!).
> 
> Maybe some of you kind, enlightened souls would care to raise my 
level of 
> awareness - perhaps off-list, if you think it would otherwise 
clutter up 
> the discussion list or raise the ire of those who don't like to see 
> non-fruit topics discussed here.
> 
> Chris wrote:
> >    1) Would our own listserv have a Web interface for reading
> >messages?  - Currently (although I still have a digest sent to my
> >email) I read the messages for NAFEX on the Web almost exclusively.
> I was going to ask, 'What's a Web interface', but never mind, I've 
figured 
> it out now - I can/do check my email messages via Webmail from the 
computer 
> at home; now I understand.
> 
> >    2) How would we get/transfer the archive, (which has now 
become a
> >useful resource)?
> I had no idea we had an archive - anyone care to enlighten me as to 
how to 
> go about accessing it?
> 
> Lucky Pittman
> USDA Zone 6
> Hopkinsville, KY


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