Topics

Why

COGSCI is a discussionlist about many topics. And all of those topics can be looked at from different fields of science. In an attempt to keep this a little surveyable I've split this list into several sublists so to speak, by the use of these very topics.
By default you are subscribed to ALL topics. You can change that to subscribe to fewer topics.

How

In order to change your topic settings, you send a mailmessage to LISTSERV@nic.SURFNET.nl and in the BODY you write

SET COGSCI TOPICS: +/- something

About that +/- something:

:) Assuming you're subscribed to ALL topics:

• SET COGSCI TOPICS: -AI
  This will have you subscribed to all topics EXCEPT AI
• SET COGSCI TOPICS: AI
  This will have you subscribed to ONLY AI
• SET TOPICS: AI PSY
  will have you subscribed to ONLY AI AND PSY

:) Assuming you're subscribed to ONLY AI:

• SET COGSCI TOPICS: +Psy
  will ADD Psy to your topicsettings, which in this case will become: AI AND PSY
• SET COGSCI TOPICS: +Psy Conn
  will ADD Psy and Conn to AI

In general

With a + in front of the topics you'll ADD them to your current subscriptions. With a - in front of them you'll DELETE them, and using no - or + will REPLACE the current topicsettings.

Special case

LISTSERV(tm) will automatically classify your mail as OTHER in case you don't use any of the topics this list is using. You can subscribe to this topic as well. People who are subscribed to ALL will automatically get those mails as well.

Sending mail

As you (are supposed to) know you need to use this topics at the start of your Subject: -line in the mailheader, and finish with a colon. If you use more than one topic you need to separate them by a comma.

For instance:
Subject: AI,Ann: Call for papers

Reply button

I know it's very tempting to use the reply button, but for two reasons one should be careful with that:
1. the reply-address is automatically set to COGSCI@nic.SURFNET.nl. I've demonstrated myself how that can turn out: sending a Dutch mail to this list instead of the intended recipient.
2. use of topics. If someone uses 'Thought and language' as a subject, don't reply to it in a reflex, think about what topic(s) (sublist(s)) you want to reach and replace the subject.

NOTE: The Re: in front of the topics on the Subject: -line doesn't affect LISTSERV's 'understanding' of the topics.

Other settings

To find out about your settings, you can send a mailmessage to LISTSERV@nic.SURFNET.nl, in the body you write:

QUERY COGSCI

By default you're set NOREPRO and NOACK, meaning you DON'T receive your own posting to the list, and you don't get an acknowledgement like 'mail has been distributed to 640 subscribers'.

SET COGSCI REPRO and/or SET COGSCI ACK in the body of a mail to LISTSERV@nic.SURFNET.nl will change that for you.

I know you didn't join this list to become a LISTSERV expert, but I hope you can understand the profits we all obtain by the proper use of these topics.