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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!hplabs!qantel!dual!ptsfa!abm
From: abm@ptsfa.UUCP (Al Margolis)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: WELL (and maybe BIX, too)
Message-ID: <1199@ptsfa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Mar-86 16:59:53 EST
Article-I.D.: ptsfa.1199
Posted: Wed Mar  5 16:59:53 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Mar-86 02:45:05 EST
References: <1240@brl-smoke.ARPA> <514@lzaz.UUCP>
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Francisco
Lines: 34
Summary: comments on well

In article <514@lzaz.UUCP>, psc@lzaz.UUCP (Paul S. R. Chisholm) writes:
>      But I've got some questions: [regarding the well]
I subscribe and will answer as best I can ...
> 
>      o  Are WELL conferences moderated?  Some, most, all, none?
Apparently all conferences are moderated, but there seems to be less
"supervision" than netnews mod conferences ... this can be good or
bad depending on you point of view
> 
>      o  I've noticed ...!well!foo on netnews.  Can you send and receive
> Unix mail as a vanilla WELL user?  Are netnews articles cross-posted?
> Vice versa?
The conferences are run on a bbs called Picospan.  Underneath is some
version of Berkely UNIX running on a vax.  You can "!" escape to UNIX
commands from Picospan or drop into a standard shell.  There is no
cross-posting to netnews as a matter of course, but netnews is available.
> 
>      o  Is the user interface such that your can write a script for your
> terminal program to read all your mail and download all your conference
> messages?  (I like reading off-line.)
I haven't tried, but it looks possible.  Since the system runs under UNIX,
I would guess that there is some way to read the files directly.

The well has an interesting mix of conferences and users.  Right now they
are suffering from success: too many new users and not enough VAX, but I
suspect they will get this straightened out.  It's cheap enough that you
can afford to try it for a month if you are at all interested.

The system manager is Mike McLure ... you can send him mail on
{ihnp4, dual}!ptsfa!well!mmc ... I didn't ask but I'm SURE its ok
with him ... or he'll let me know :-)

Al Margolis
{dual, ihnp4}!ptsfa!abm  or  {dual, ihnp4}!ptsfa!well!abm