MAP-EXTRA: SUBSCRIPTION TOTALS


A few alert readers have reminded me that I never sent you a final
list of subscribers by country. For this I apologize.

Since I seem to have this uncanny ability to turn even the most
mundane task into a lesson and a humorous story, I don't see any
reason why this situation should be any different :)

First, the lesson:

Back in MAP06, James Milles told us that we can obtain a list of
all of the people who are subscribed to a particular LISTSERV list
by using the

     REVIEW listname F=MAIL

command. James also told us that we could sort the subscriber list by
name or country by using the

     REVIEW listname BY NAME F=MAIL
     -- or --
     REVIEW listname BY COUNTRY F=MAIL

commands. That's simple enough.

Unfortunately, some lists -- this list included -- will not allow you
to review their subscription lists (I don't allow it because I don't
want some salesman stealing my subscription list so that he can spam
you with ads). What can you do?

Well, if a list has closed it's subscription list to review, you will
not be able to get a detailed list of its subscribers. You can still,
however, get a generalized list of its subscribers by adding one additional
word to your review command -- SHORT.

If you use the command

     REVIEW listname SHORT F=MAIL

replacing "listname" with the name of the list you want to review,
the LISTSERV will send you a copy of that list's header, along with
a total subscription count for that list. For example, if you
use the command

     REVIEW ROADMAP SHORT F=MAIL

you will recieve the following:

*
*  ROADMAP WORKSHOP SUBSCRIPTION LIST
*
*  REVIEW= OWNER               SUBSCRIPTION= OPEN
*  SEND= EDITOR                NOTIFY= NO
*  REPLY-TO= SENDER,IGNORE     FILES= NO
*  VALIDATE= NO                STATS= NORMAL,OWNER
*  AUTO-DELETE= YES,FULL-AUTO  NOTEBOOK= YES,E,SEPARATE,OWNER
*  MAIL-VIA= DISTRIBUTE        ACK= YES
*  DEFAULT-OPTIONS= REPRO      CONFIDENTIAL= NO
*  ERRORS-TO= CRISPEN@UA1VM.UA.EDU    EXIT= RM1
*
*  OWNER= PCRISPE1@UA1VM.UA.EDU     (PATRICK DOUGLAS CRISPEN)
*  OWNER= CRISPEN@UA1VM.UA.EDU      (ROADMAP ERROR PROCESSOR)
*  EDITOR= PCRISPE1@UA1VM.UA.EDU    (PATRICK DOUGLAS CRISPEN)
*  EDITOR= CRISPEN@UA1VM.UA.EDU     (ROADMAP ERROR PROCESSOR)
*
*
* Total number of "concealed" subscribers:         9
* Total number of users subscribed to the list:17307  (non-"concealed" only)
* Total number of local node users on the list:   14  (non-"concealed" only)
*

Gee ... that's thrilling.

But wait! This actually tells you a whole bunch of things about
the list. Look at the OWNER line. That's my e-mail address, and
the list of the Roadmap error processor.

If you ever need to find the e-mail address of a list's owner,
all you need to do is use the

     REVIEW listname SHORT F=MAIL

command! Neat, huh?

BTW, "concealed" subscribers are those subscribers who used the

     SET listname CONCEAL

command to keep their names hidden when someone reviews the list
(gee, that's kind of moot, isn't it?).

Anyway, getting back to the whole point of this letter, you can
see a breakdown of subscribers by country by using the

     REVIEW listname BY COUNTRY SHORT F=MAIL

command. That's a mouthfull, but a REVIEW ROADMAP BY COUNTRY SHORT
F=MAIL command returns the following to you (and I edited out the
header because we've already seen it):

*
*  Country        Subscribers
*  -------        -----------
*  Argentina              3
*  Australia            331
*  Austria               51
*  Belgium               15
*  Botswana               1
*  Brazil                65
*  Canada              1872
*  Chile                  1
*  China                  1
*  Columbia               6
*  Costa Rica             2
*  Croatia                3
*  Cyprus                 1
*  Czech Republic        32
*  Denmark               30
*  Ecuador                1
*  Egypt                  2
*  Estonia                6
*  Fiji                   2
*  Finland               34
*  France                38
*  Germany              153
*  Great Britain        429
*  Greece                 6
*  Hongkong              12
*  Hungary               80
*  Iceland                4
*  India                  6
*  Ireland               29
*  Israel                60
*  Italy                 38
*  Japan                 33
*  Korea                  2
*  Latvia                 5
*  Lithuania              3
*  Luxembourg             2
*  Malaysia              42
*  Mexico                12
*  Mozambique             1
*  Netherlands          102
*  New Zealand           52
*  Norway                33
*  Phillipines            1
*  Poland                13
*  Portugal              12
*  Romania                7
*  Russia                 1
*  Saint Lucia            1
*  Saudi-Arabia          16
*  Singapore             17
*  Slovakia               4
*  Slovenia               1
*  South Africa          64
*  Soviet Union           4
*  Spain                 18
*  Sweden               100
*  Switzerland           36
*  Taiwan                 2
*  Thailand               4
*  Turkey                 5
*  Ukraine                1
*  Uruguay                4
*  USA                12861
*  Venezuela              9
*  ???                  527
*
* Total number of "concealed" subscribers:         9
* Total number of users subscribed to the list:17309  (non-"concealed" only)
* Total number of countries represented:          65  (non-"concealed" only)
* Total number of local node users on the list:   14  (non-"concealed" only)
*

The total number of countries is not really exact. Our two friends in
Antarctica are counted in Australia's numbers, and I think I remember
reading something about how the people in Kenya are actually listed
in Norway's numbers (yeah ... that makes a LOT of sense).

I'm still not sure who those 527 people from country ??? are. I think
they must be zombies (or tax collectors).

So much for the lesson ... now for the funny story (and you can stop
reading here if you want) :)

An alert reader (whose name I can't for the life of me remember (sorry!))
sent me a story that I thought that our two friends in Antarctica might
enjoy. (I accidentally deleted the story, so I am doing this from memory).

It seems that the Faulkland islands are infested with tens of thousands
of penguins. These penguins pretty much waddle around the beaches all
day, looking for fun things to do.

Argentinian pilots have developed a little game that they play with the
penguins. The pilots fly by the beaches, and all ten thousand penguins
turn their heads in unison to watch the planes fly by. The planes then
turn around, and again all ten thousand penguins turn their heads in
unison and watch the planes fly back the other way. It's sort of like
a slow-motion tennis match.

Then the pilots fly out to sea, turn around, and fly directly over
the penguin colony. The penguins stretch their heads up, up, up
... and all ten thousand penguins gently fall on their backs :)

(You'd never catch a squirrel doing that!)

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ROADMAP: Copyright Patrick Crispen 1994, 1995. All rights reserved.


