Cinema-L FAQ & User Guide

How to Access Cinema-L

Version 4.04, Last Modified June 26th, 2000

Cinema-l exists in 4 main forms:

1. email subscription
2. email digest subscription
3. Usenet News feed
4. Archives

Just click on any of the links above to go straight to the relevant details...

1. Email subscription

   Pros

   • fast
   • very interactive
   • very easy for personal archiving

   Cons

   • can be hell on your mailbox
   • can be hell for your attempts to actually do some work
   • has occaisional bouts of poor reliability

   Notes

   • Email subscriptions are handled by a LISTSERVER. To control an email sub, you send email to the listserver, and it carries out your instructions. The address for the listserver that allows access to cinema-l is:

     LISTSERV@AMERICAN.EDU

   • Email to this address should have no subject line, and have a one line message body with the command you want to issue. The first thing you need to do is subscribe to the list, for which the command is:

     SUBSCRIBE CINEMA-L

   • this will put you on the list, and as well as a confirmation and some handy instructions (some reproduced here, in case you lose them), you'll soon be getting the avalanche of mail associated with the list. To add to the deluge yourself, you send email to the list's address, which is:

     CINEMA-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU

   • If you want to leave the list, use either a SIGNOFF or UNSUBSCRIBE command. Usual no-subject, one line message with either:

     SIGNOFF CINEMA-L or UNSUBSCRIBE CINEMA-L

     Don't forget this goes to the Listserver, and not the list!

     Some time afterwards (usually within an hour, but system bottlenecks may cause delays) you should receive a confirmation request message from the Listserver. This message will ask you to confirm that you really want to unsubscribe from Cinema-L. To confirm that you want to unsubscribe, reply to the confirmation request message with the word

     ok

     and nothing else (the confirmation request should come with instructions, in any case). The catch is, you must send the confirmation message within 48 hours of receiving the confirmation request, or your original unsubscribe request will be cancelled. This command confirmation precaution is in place so that obnoxious hackers and the like cannot easily unsubscribe people or change peoples' mail settings.

   • Try not to get the addresses of the list and the listserver confused, as sending your thoughts on "The Bicycle Thief" to an UNIX box won't impress it much (computers are so uncultured...), and sending everyone on the list thrilling messages like SET CINEMA-L ACK NOREPRO probably won't add much to your kudos as a film buff and Internet surfer.

2. Email digest subscription

   Pros

   • much less of a strain on your mailbox
   • usually reliable

   Cons

   • daily turnaround, so not as interactive as other access methods

   Notes

   • Many find the load on their mailbox from a standard subscription is a bit too heavy, so an option of a single daily post is given, called a DIGEST. To setup your sub to be a digest, use the following command to the listserver (assuming you have already subscribed as described in email subscriptions):

     SET CINEMA-L DIGEST

   • To set the list back to usual mail again from a digest, use:

     SET CINEMA-L MAIL

   • If you want to leave the list, use either a SIGNOFF or UNSUBSCRIBE command. Usual no-subject, one line message with either:

     SIGNOFF CINEMA-L or UNSUBSCRIBE CINEMA-L

     Don't forget this goes to the Listserver, and not the list!

     Some time afterwards (usually within an hour, but system bottlenecks may cause delays) you should receive a confirmation request message from the Listserver. This message will ask you to confirm that you really want to unsubscribe from Cinema-L. To confirm that you want to unsubscribe, reply to the confirmation request message with the word

     ok

     and nothing else (the confirmation request should come with instructions, in any case). The catch is, you must send the confirmation message within 48 hours of receiving the confirmation request, or your original unsubscribe request will be cancelled. This command confirmation precaution is in place so that obnoxious hackers and the like cannot easily unsubscribe people or change peoples' mail settings.

3. Usenet News feed

   Pros

   • no strain on your mailbox
   • very easy to browse
   • very interactive
   • easy to follow threads of discussion
   • easy to bypass mail of little interest

   Cons

   • the News feed goes through occaisional periods of congenital unreliability and slow response. In fact, for quite some time now it appears to have become congenitally broken.
   • you need access to a Usenet News feed and a suitable News reader program

   Notes

   • Accessing through Usenet news is the same as any other group: just look for the group

     bit.listserv.cinema-l

     and subscribe, using whatever mechanism your particular newsreader has for this. Note that many World Wide Web browsers have the ability to read News, but for this to work you'll need a link to a News server: if you're not sure about this, check with your Internet provider.

     However, in light of the almost total lack of working functionality of the Newsfeed over the last year, at least on the FAQ writer's News server, this source for Cin-L can't be recommended, at least until you've checked it against an email subscription to make sure everything's coming trhough.

   • If you do have a browser with News links, click here to access the list through WWW/News.

4. Archives

   All posts to the listserver are archived for retrieval by anyone who wants to look. Previously this was done through deeply horrible listserver commands, but now it all lives behind an easy to use Web powered front end. To get at the archives, just point your browser at:

   http://listserv.american.edu/archives/cinema-l.html

The FAQ section of this document gives some details on other listserver commands.

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this document is maintained by Peter Clinch, email p.j.clinch@dundee.ac.uk

This page is the personal responsibility of Peter Clinch. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the official views of the University of Dundee