Popular Lab Mailing Lists

You are automatically subscribed to several mailing lists:

• csail-all* -- Important CSAIL announcements. examples
• csail-announce -- Announcements about CSAIL Events. examples
• csail-internal* -- CSAIL internal announcements. more information
• csail-related -- General CSAIL discussion. examples
• seminars -- Announcements of seminars sponsored by CSAIL or of interest to its members.
• floor mailing lists* (second-floor, third-floor, d4, g4, d5, g5, g6, g7, g8, g9)
• grads*, undergrads*, or other lists based on your status.

*: Email csailhrpartners@csail.mit.edu if you believe you should be subscribed but are not, want to unsubscribe, or want to change what email address is listed for you.

If you wish to unsubscribe from one of the mailing lists shown without a * above, follow the link to the mailman page for that mailing-list and then follow the directions at the bottom of the page.

There are several mailing lists at the lab that you may find it helpful to subscribe to. Feel free to add to this list.

• workstations-announce -- Announcements regarding TIG-supported workstation platforms.
• workstation-discuss -- Discussion and help with CSAILUbuntu workstations.
• java-hackers -- Java programming discussion and help.
• cyclists -- Bicycing, parking, and other human-powered transport issues; low-volume. examples
• matlab-users -- Discussion and announcements related to the Matlab package from Mathworks.
• vultures -- Announcements about free food at CSAIL.
• machine-shop -- CSAIL machine shop announcements.
• csail-lasercutter -- CSAIL laser cutter problems, tips, and questions.
• stata-reuse -- Reuse list for the Stata community only.

Searching the archives

Before you ask a question on one of the mailing lists, you may find it helpful to search the archive for previous discussion of the topic. Unfortunately, many of the archives are viewable by list members only, so they are not indexed by public web search engines, and Mailman does not provide a way to search them either. One way to search an archive (suggested by rmccutch, 2016-01-26):

1. git clone https://github.com/philgyford/mailman-archive-scraper/
2. Install dependencies:
   • Fedora: sudo dnf install python-BeautifulSoup python-clientform python-mechanize python-PyRSS2Gen
3. Download MailmanArchiveScraper.cfg and fill in the name of the list you want to search (if not csail-related) and your member email address and password.
4. python ./MailmanGzTextScraper.py && cat downloadtext/*.txt >all.mbox
5. Search all.mbox using your favorite tool. Your usual desktop email application will likely work: create a local folder, import all.mbox, and search the folder. Alternatively, notmuch is supposed to scale well.

If you'd be interested in a centrally supported solution, please communicate that to TIG.

Examples of messages appropriate to each list

csail-all

The csail-all list is generally used for official announcments by CSAIL HQ and TIG, such as

• fire alarm testing
• announce building damage
• vassar street traffic flow changes
• network outages
• csail research abstracts
• energy crisis

csail-announce

Attachments in proprietary formats will not be permitted, and plain text without attachments is strongly encouraged.

• next Monday and Tuesday are institvte holidays.
• invitation to a commencement reception
• csail awarded 10k cpu hours on sun grid
• Nominations for the Dertouzos Lecture Series
• CSAIL organizational changes
• Announcement for Dertouzos Lecture Series
• 4th floor terrace furniture has arrived
• GSL (one announcement per term)
• GSB (one announcement per term)
• CSW (one announcement per term)
• Olympics (one announcement per term)
• Holiday party invitation (one announcement per term)
• come to the 4th floor for ice cream social in two weeks.
• new csail lab calendar
• machine shop mess
• new course announcement
• sign up for _ IM sport (one announcement per sport per term)

csail-internal

csail-internal is an announcement list with the same membership as csail-all (i.e., it's automatically generated from HQ's list of current CSAIL members), but a somewhat wider scope. As with csail-all, you can't unsubscribe, but you can turn off mail delivery (effectively unsubscribing), or select a daily digest rather than individual messages. You can do that at the bottom of its general list information page.

csail-related

• Stata survey
• pet policy: request for comments
• come to the 4th floor for ice cream social now.
• I need a thingamabob for my whatsit. Do you happen to have one?
• This is probably a naive question, but...
• I have an apartment that you want to move into
• I have a job that you want to apply for
• I am going to Six Flags. Wanna come?
• weekly GSB announcement
• volunteers needed for tours
• I'm in the Walk for Hunger. Support me.
• Clean up your #$@%@ from the Xth floor!
• Micro$oft sucks
• Don't send attachments in stupid proprietary formats!

cyclists@csail

• someone locked my bike to theirs. come get it or lose it.
• how do I fix X?
• do you have a patch kit/spoke wrench/etc.
• we're having a cycle repair workshop, wanna come?
• I'm going for a ride, wanna come?