Rules for posting to the pangea msgs bulletin board

Last revision March 23, 2005

Anyone in the School can post any message of any length on the pangea msgs bulletin board. Only one copy is kept on disk for everyone to read. Each message lives for only three weeks before it is removed by automatic system management programs.

You use the email system to post messages to the msgs bulletin board. Send an email to msgs@pangea.

Messages will only be accepted if they originate from a computer directly connected to the Stanford campus network, or from a login to pangea. This is to block "spam" email. See below for more details.

Do not include any images or file attachments in your message. They will not be displayed and there is no way to download them. They will appear as thousands of lines of nonsense characters! Put these kinds of supplementary materials in your personal web space on pangea and provide the URL to view or download them in your message.

You must include a subject header in your message. This subject should at least say who is the intended audience (for example, GES dept.) so other people can skip reading the message if it is not for them.

If you don't include a subject header, the message will still be posted, using the first line of the message text itself as the subject, but a copy will be returned to your email inbox with a complaint that subject line was not included. Do not repost; just remember to include a subject next time.

Please post only plain text messages. Some email programs must be configured to use plain text rather than HTML formatted text. You are not creating web pages here. Your message text is simply stored as a plain file and copied to the screen when people read it. Messages formatted with HTML will not display properly, even from the web interface. It is okay to include URLs in your message; they will be turned into proper hyperlinks when viewed on the web.

Pangea will only accept posted messages if they are mailed from a Stanford computer, or from a pangea login from a remote computer. This is necessary to prevent obnoxious spam email messages from appearing on our internal bulletin board. This means that you cannot post messages to msgs@pangea from your home computer (unless you have Stanford DSL) or from a third-party email account such as Yahoo or Hotmail. Use one of these methods to post:

• Use your normal PC or Mac based email program on your computer that is directly connected to Stanford's campus network (in your office, lab, or residence hall). Don't use a yahoo, gmail, stanfordalumni.org, or other outside based web account from this or any other computer.
• From any computer, use a command line login to pangea and run the pine email program to post.
• From any computer, use a web browser to connect to pangea's webmail system to post.
• If you do not have access to any of the posting methods above, send your email to a contact in one of the School's departments and ask that person to post for you.

If you make a mistake and need to remove a posted message, contact the pangea system manager. Be sure to include the message number in your removal request!

 

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