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Node: Policy, Previous: (INFO;SYSMSG)Top, Up: (INFO;SYSMSG)Top, Next: (INFO;SYSMSG)Sending

(The above lines make this file accessible through @XINFO.  Please leave
them alone.)

These guidelines about where to send which system-wide messages are the
consensus of opinion of AI and LCS staff, based on years of experience
of what kinds of messages people send.  Since these staff people are
the official MIT users of the computers the messages are sent on,
everyone who sends a system-wide message -- this means YOU -- should
follow the guidelines.

System-wide messages fall into two categories: System Messages
(sysmsgs) and Bulletin Board messages (BBoard).  Sysmsgs can be split
into further categories according to which computers should receive
them.

The sysmsg addresses are for messages of importance and general
interest only.  These include official Lab announcments, listings of
Lab seminars, machine maintenance schedules, announcements about the
Dover, and similar things.  The main sysmsgs addresses are *MIT and
*MAC (see below).

All other messages intended for system-wide distribution, including
requests for information, job offers, housing searches, announcements
of entertainment events, political pronouncements, and other material
of that nature, should go to the BBoard. Messages relating to "personal
profit", such as messages offering household goods for sale, are
frowned upon by the DCA (they run the ARPANET), but if you can't
restrain yourself from sending such a message, it should also go to the
BBoard.  The main bboard address is *BBOARD (see below).

Good relations among users of the Labs' computers rely in part on
people not being inundated with junk mail; system messages which go to
inappropriate addresses are junk mail.  Please think before you send
your system-wide messages, and use consideration and discretion in
addressing them.

What follows is a list of addresses with descriptions of which machines
they direct messages to.  Send your message to the correct address on
 ONE system only (which one doesn't matter -- *MIT@MC = *MIT@OZ, and so
forth), or people will see many duplicates of your message, which can
only make them angry at you.

    *MAC	The right address for reaching all AI and LCS members
		who use computers.  Use this for things like Lab
		seminar info.  This list now includes MC, OZ, XX,
		HT-VAX, and the RTS PDP-11 and VAX; as the Labs acquire
		more machines that can receive mail, they will be added
		to *MAC.

    *MIT	Everywhere at MIT that can hear -- all of *MAC, plus EE
		and Multics, also an address at CMU so that lonely
		former MIT people out there can see what's going on.
		(As more mail-server machines are added to the
		ChaosNet, they will join this list.)  Use this address
		for messages of general interest to the MIT community,
		like Dover info (which even Multics can use).

    *BBOARD	This list goes to the same sites as the *MIT address,
		but it goes as a bboard rather than system messages, so
		users can choose whether to read these messages.
		Unless your message is important to most of the people
		gathered in one of the above or below addresses (see
		the beginning of this file for specifications of
		"important"), send it here.

Unless your message relates to a particular machine or kind of machine
(or program on same), you probably want to use one of the above lists.
The addresses listed below are part of *MIT or *BBOARD. Send msgs to
them only when your message clearly should go to only their constituent
machines.

  *MC		Becomes a sysmsg on just MC.

  *VX		Goes just to the RTS VAX.

  *HT           Goes just to HTVAX.

  *RTS		Goes just to the RTS PDP-11.

  *XX		These are the same address.
  Forum@XX	They go just to XX, the LCS Twenex.

  *EE		These are the same address.
  Forum@EE	They go just to the EECS Dept. Twenex.

  *OZ		These are the same address.  They go just to OZ, the AI Lab
  System@OZ	Twenex, and are for important (see above) msgs only.

   q
  Oz-BBoard@OZ	Msgs sent here become BBoard msgs on OZ only.
  Forum@OZ

  All-AI@OZ	This is for very important messages to all AI lab people
		regardless of what machine they live on.

  *TENS		The most unlikely address.  This goes to MC, XX, OZ,
q
		and EE, but NOT the Vaxen or the RTS 11.  Unless your
		message relates only to PDP-10s and DEC-20s, you
		probably want *MAC or *MIT.