KIDSPHERE - How does it work?

IV. How does it work?

A. Subscribing

From the user's perspective the operation of KIDSPHERE is very simple -- although it might prove to be a little daunting in practice. A typical new subscriber has heard about the mailing list from a colleague or from a book describing various online services. "This one might be interesting," they say, and send a message to kidsphere- request@vms.cis.pitt.edu to ask for more information. What they receive in response is shown below:


			KIDSPHERE mailing list

  The KIDSPHERE list (originally known as KIDSNET) was established in 
  May, 1989, to stimulate the development of an international computer 
  network for the use of children and their teachers. The first pieces 
  of this network have already begun to take shape, and the mailing 
  list now helps to guide its continuing evolution.  Subscribers to 
  the list include teachers, administrators, scientists, developers of 
  software and hardware and officials of relevant funding agencies.  
  Topics of continuing interest include: 
     * networks at the local, regional and national level
     * news and mail interfaces suitable for children's use
     * network services for the K-12 audience
     * development of new network services and projects
     * collaborative projects at the national and international level
     * network access for the handicapped

  Subscription requests may be sent to the following Internet address:
     kidsphere-request@vms.cis.pitt.edu
  Please use this address for all administrative correspondence 
  relating to KIDSPHERE - subscriptions, cancellations, address 
  changes, etc.

  Postings to the KIDSPHERE list are accomplished with mailings to the 
  Internet address 
     kidsphere@vms.cis.pitt.edu
  Please do NOT send subscription requests or cancellations to this 
  address.

  Bob Carlitz

If, in fact, this seems like the sort of activity in which they are interested, they write back to kidsphere-request@vms.cis.pitt.edu and request a subscription. Those who have been tutored in the ways of automated mailing lists may follow the rigid format required by the old LISTSERV software of BITNET, sending a message with no subject line and the terse command "SUBSCRIBE KIDSPHERE" in the message body. This might be a good idea to encourage if KIDSPHERE becomes increasingly automated, but at present it suffices to be more colloquial, and a message that says "Hey, neat-o -- me, too" would work as well as the BITNET-authorized format.

Upon receipt of a subscription request KIDSPHERE sends out a form letter welcoming the new subscriber. If the "From:" line of their subscription request contains something that looks like a personal name (to the not-too-well-trained eye of the robot which reads these messages), then the reply is addressed to this name. If no personal name is recognized, a note is attached to say that the robot could not find a personal name. The reason for this is that many sites fail to configure their mailers so as to attach a personal name as a matter of course, and many people new to the network fail to sign their messages. As a result many postings can't be traced beyond an obscure user identification code. The robot's reminder helps KIDSPHERE subscribers recognize this problem and perhaps correct it before they make an initial posting to the discussion group. A copy of the welcome message is given below.


  Dear ...,

  I have added your name to the KIDSPHERE distribution.  If you
  like, I can send you instructions on how to access an archive
  containing back postings to the mailing list.  This would allow
  you to get some idea of the nature of discussions on this list.  
  The fundamental idea is to try to set up an international network 
  for the use of children and their teachers.  Detailed efforts 
  range from getting individual classes online to planning a grand 
  scheme to link the whole world together.  If you find this 
  interesting, I hope you will take part in the discussion - and 
  in the projects that ensue.  It would be nice if you could introduce 
  yourself to other members of the group with a brief initial posting.  

  Cheers!
  Bob Carlitz

The welcome message invites new subscribers to introduce themselves to the group, and many do so, often with a delay of a few weeks while they get an idea of what is going on in the KIDSPHERE discussions. The welcome message also offers information on access to archives of previous postings, which provides another way of learning something about the flavor of the discussion group.

B. Handling the Traffic

It does not take long for people to figure out what is going on on KIDSPHERE. Indeed, for many people there is far too much going on for them to be able to easily handle. A typical day's message traffic involves 30-50 new messages, on a set of topics which spans the entire range of interests of the KIDSPHERE readership. For people with slow network links or people who must pay by the byte for each character received, this may simply be too much traffic to handle, and a small fraction of new subscribers are forced to cancel after only a few days online. This statistic says something important both about KIDSPHERE and about the architectures that many sites employ to provide network access. Both could stand improvement as the network grows and readership expands.

Sites which have addressed the problem of high-volume mailing lists have typically funneled traffic from these mailing lists into local newsgroups or electronic bulletin boards. Messages which are available to read in this form do not fill up the mailboxes of individual subscribers. News readers allow people to scan a number of messages sorted according to subject and to search for topics of particular interest without having to read through everything that appears on the mailing list.

Another means of reading KIDSPHERE messages is through the gopher server provided by the ASK-ERIC project. A gopher client can access KIDSPHERE articles by using the gopher address given below.


  Type=1+
  Name=KIDSPHERE-List
  Path=1/Listservs/KIDSPHERE-List
  Host=ericir.syr.edu
  Port=70
  Admin=Nancy Morgan or R. David Lankes +1 (315)443-3640 
  
  ModDate=Sun Oct  2 11:25:39 1994 <19941002112539>
  URL: gopher://ericir.syr.edu:70/1/1/Listservs/KIDSPHERE-List

Although gopher and news provide technically more efficient access than direct electronic mail, mail does remain the access means of choice for a great many readers. It is the lowest common denominator to access, in that anyone with an electronic mail gateway to the Internet can subscribe to KIDSPHERE through this mechanism. Furthermore, many subscribers like the immediacy of electronic mail -- new messages from KIDSPHERE show up in their mailbox the minute they are first available on the network. The fact that so many people regard this immediacy as an important feature of the mailing list -- even after they have seen several thousand messages from this source -- is another testimony to the dedication that people feel toward this activity.

C. Interacting with the Group

After an initial introduction, subscribers often write to KIDSPHERE to respond to questions or comments that others have posted to the group. The mailing list is structured so that the "reply" command in any electronic mailer will direct a reader's reply back to the group as a whole. The message headers on KIDSPHERE's messages are such as to assure that this takes place. A minor source of confusion is the fact that some mailers distinguish between group replies and individual replies. KIDSPHERE effectively overrides this distinction by placing the mailing address of the person who submits any message in what is formally the body of their message. While it is certainly desirable to allow readers to select individual or group replies in their responses, it does not appear that this feature is supported in a uniform manner in enough mailers to allow its use for a novice population such as is found on KIDSPHERE.

If subscribers wish to make a personal reply to someone who has posted a message to KIDSPHERE, they can find the person's address at the top of the posted message (just in front of the message body proper). They must address a personal reply directly to this address and not use the "reply" function of their mailer to make this type of response. KIDSPHERE's approach to the "reply" function is to encourage group interactions and inclusive online discussions. While this approach does swell overall traffic, it has functioned effectively to help build a cohesive group of subscribers.

Subscribers who need to change their electronic mail addresses or temporarily cancel their subscriptions may do so by writing to kidsphere-request@vms.cis.pitt.edu with an appropriate request. As with subscriptions, this process is semi-automated, so that minor syntax errors do not prevent the intended action from taking place.

D. Administration

From the viewpoint of the moderator and the service provider, KIDSPHERE takes the form of two parallel streams of messages. One stream is administrative in nature, consisting of all those messages addressed to kidsphere-request@vms.cis.pitt.edu. Subscription requests and cancellations are handled through the semi-automatic mechanisms described previously. Address changes and local problems with mail delivery are taken care of on an individual basis.

A major problem in the administrative stream arises from the instability of many subscriber sites. Since the traffic volume on KIDSPHERE is high, a site which rejects incoming mail can yield a very large pile of electronic mail at KIDSPHERE within a very short time. Some sites compound this problem, returning copies of mail addressed to every individual who subscribes from their site. This requires one to monitor bounced mail closely and to act quickly to cancel the subscriptions of people whose accounts have lapsed or whose sites fail to provide reliable mail transport. The task is complicated by the fact that any site can suffer from temporary delays, and that one should distinguish these temporary problems from ones which are more systemic. Otherwise people who find their subscriptions canceled will simply write to reinstate their subscriptions, and the administrative mail which must be processed will grow from that side.

The total administrative time requires to handle these various activities amounts to about 10 hours a week. Considering that the weekly traffic volume on KIDSPHERE approaches three quarters of a million outgoing messages, this is not a large amount of time. But insofar as KIDSPHERE has operated as a volunteer service since its inception, with a readership that has grown to expect a very reliable level of service, this chore becomes at times a burdensome one.

The second message stream involves traffic sent to the list itself -- kidsphere@vms.cis.pitt.edu. For the most part these are messages meant for distribution to the mailing list as a whole. A moderator scans this message stream at regular intervals and forwards those selected for distribution to the whole list for processing on another machine. Mixed in with the stream of KIDSPHERE postings are subscription requests and cancellations which have been mistakenly addressed to kidsphere. The moderator forwards these to kidsphere-request for appropriate handling. In addition, there are many messages which should have been sent out as personal electronic mail. These include responses to surveys, responses to request for greetings and personal correspondence. There have even been love letters from one subscriber to another, mistakenly addressed to the list as a whole. All such inappropriate postings are returned to their senders with a note asking them to send such messages by personal electronic mail. The total time for the moderator's activities is in the range of 10-20 hours a week.

Both message streams are processed by a mix of networked computers. When KIDSPHERE was first set up, distribution was accomplished through a mail alias on the host machine (vms.cis.pitt.edu). As traffic volume grew, some tuning of this alias was required, and messages had to be split into several outgoing message queues. Finally, in the fall of 1993, traffic volume became so large as to interfere occasionally with the operation of the public mail system at the University of Pittsburgh. At this point mail distribution was moved to a private workstation. This machine -- a SPARCstation 2 that had been donated by Sun Microsystems to the Department of Physics & Astronomy to facilitate the development of the school networking project Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh -- handles the load of the current mailing list with enough reserve capacity to accommodate growth over the next year or two. Actual distribution is accomplished through a set of custom scripts. Further automation will allow for increased efficiency and throughput.

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