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Aucbvax.5803 fa.digest-p utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!digest-people Fri Jan 15 02:39:28 1982 Public Distribution >From Admin.MDP@SU-SCORE Fri Jan 15 02:28:57 1982 One way we could tell people that digest material is not public would be first to announce the fact as an administrative note in the digest and then to mention it whenever introducing a new member to the list (by sending them a "welcome" note). This approach is much less distasteful than that of putting a warning on the label.

The problem with it is that not all subscribers are added by one list maintainer. In fact, many of them get the digests by mechanisms essentially equivalent to a bulletin board. This means that a large fraction of our new readers will never get a welcome note.

If we regard the above as ineffective, then we want to make the warning as unobtrusive as possible. Two possibilities present them- selves. The first possibility would be to tuck it away in the header instead of the banner; for example

Date: Friday, 15 January 1982 From: PCP-IV at BAL Private: Not for public distribution Subject: PCP-IV Digest V9 #23 To: PCP-IV at BAL

The second possibility would be to place the warning at the bottom of the digest instead of the top; it might look like

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************** End of PCP-IV Digest ************** ********* (Not For Public Distribution) ********** ******************************************************

or perhaps something less ostentatious to the same effect.

The latter, like the warning in the banner, will break some undigestifying programs, but probably in a milder and more easily reparable way. The former will not break most software, but may not be as aesthetically acceptable.

Yours very sincerely,

Mike -------

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