The Content-Management mailing list

Posted 1999.03.24 | Updated 2000.03.16

See also: Anti-censorship policy

There now exists an Internet mailing list on content management-- the task of managing large corpora of electronic documents over the Internet and other electronic networks.

The concept of content management is a bit ambiguous. Here are some examples of activities and concerns related to content management:

1. Securing rights to reproduce content, including paying royalties to creators
2. Interfacing large pools of electronic content via databases, including SQL and CGI
3. Designing file and filename structures that are maintainable and resist linkrot
4. Working with mailing lists with hundreds or thousands of subscribers, and related mailing-list archives
5. Site management, including the creation, editing, and application of standardized HTML or other code modules in files, and graphical overviews of the sort produced by software like Dreamweaver
6. Use of cookies and other tracking methods to estimate the popularity of specific pages
7. Designing HTML layout to faciliate upkeep of sites, including automated or semi-automated flowing of new text into those layouts
8. Managing Web-based discussion boards

List policies

Like all my mailing lists, Content-Management is unmoderated. However, this list is different in one way: Your first message to the list must introduce yourself, at least briefly. You can combine that introduction with the substantive message you wish to send.

Subscription

To subscribe, send the words subscribe content Firstname Lastname in the body of a message to listserv@listserv.heanet.ie. Fill in your own real Firstname and Lastname. You could also try selecting this link, which for most browsers will start a new message for you with most of the information filled in.

The Content-Management list defaults to digest. Unless you say otherwise, you receive all the day's messages collated into one big message. To turn this feature off and receive messages individually, send set content nodigest in the body of a message to listserv@listserv.heanet.ie (or try this link).

To unsubscribe, send unsubscribe content to listserv@listserv.heanet.ie (or try this link).

Another option you may find attractive is Index. Under that option, all you receive each day is a list of subjects discussed on the Content-Management list. You can then pick and choose which topics interest you. To enable this feature, send set content index to listserv@listserv.heanet.ie (or try this link). To turn off the Index feature, you can send the command set content noindex to listserv@listserv.heanet.ie (or try this link) to revert to receiving all messages individually, or send set content digest to listserv@listserv.heanet.ie (or try this link) to receive digests.

A useful command for AOL, Hotmail, and other systems that lack mail filters is set content subj sent to listserv@listserv.heanet.ie (or try this link), which will add [Content] to the subject line of each message, unless you are a digest subscriber.

To post a message to the list so everyone can read it, subscribe first and mail your message exactly once to content@listserv.heanet.ie. System or administration problems? Never mail to the list. Instead, send a calm message to content-request@listserv.heanet.ie.

There are a zillion other commands you can use. The info refcard command sent to listserv@listserv.heanet.ie (or try this link) will return an information file.

Excess quoting on Content-Management is not permitted. You can excerpt from previous messages all you want, preferably by interspersing your own new text with the preceding text, but what you are not allowed to do is forward an entire previous message with a few lines of your own at the top or bottom. Edit. (Note that this places no restrictions on your own original content.)

Searchable, current Content-Management archives can be found here.