August 1998 INFORMS Online: Old Technology, Only Better By Michael Trick A few days ago, I was putting together some information for an article on the Web and operations research, and I began thinking about the time not very long ago when there was no World Wide Web. I put together my first page (Michael Trick's Operations Research Page [http://mat.gsia.cmu.edu], a compendium of operations research links that is still in existence) in May 1994. In early 1995, Jim Bean and Mohan Sodhi translated their INFORMS gopher server (gopher was an alternative information system that was popular for about a year) into the World Wide Web precursor of INFORMS Online (http://www.informs.org), for which I became editor in April 1995. Before the Web, there was still an active electronic exchange among researchers. Outside of individual electronic mail (then and now, a necessary part of life for me and apparently many others), the primary means of communication were e-mail lists. Perhaps surprisingly, this "old" technology is still vibrant and useful, and is part of INFORMS Online's activities. Mailing lists have been around since practically the start of electronic mail. In a mailing list, a group of like-minded people exchange messages, generally on a narrow topic. Each person receives copies of all messages, and is often able to post replies to all members of the list. Examples of such lists include the ORCS-L list that discusses issues pertaining to the interface of operations research and computer science (http://orcs.bus.okstate.edu/orcs-l/) and the Opt-Net Digest (http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/opt-net) for the optimization community, both of which have been active for at least five years. Mailing lists have some advantages over the World Wide Web. In modern terms, they are a "push" technology, whereby subscribers receive new information when it is available, not when they ask for it. Furthermore, e-mail readers are easy to use and make minimal demands on technology. You can even arrange to read e-mail on some pagers and other tiny devices! E-mail messages are not right for some things, such as large graphics files or complicated formulae, but still have a large role in our electronic lives. I personally subscribe to a dozen e-mail lists, which generate more than 100 messages per day to me. Because of the advantages of e-mail lists, IOL uses a number of lists to supplement its offerings. Our most important list is also its simplest: our "What's New" mailing list. Every week, 3,000 people receive an e-mail from IOL that lists what is new on INFORMS Online. This list is limited to this information; people cannot argue over what should be offered or otherwise interact with members of the list. The list provides useful information in a timely manner, and we hope that it reminds people of the offerings of IOL and encourages them to visit often. We support other lists that are more typical in that they allow list members to send mail to others on the list. Our "ORMS-Students" mailing list has 400 members and was developed to provide students an outlet for their concerns and issues. Many subdivisions have mailing lists, some of which are supported by IOL. For a full listing of IOL supported lists, as well as a Web interface to subscribe, unsubscribe and browse the archives, simply go to our interface form (http://mail.informs.org/cgi-bin/lwgate.informs/listsavail.html). This interface form brings me to the main point of this column: advances in information technology have improved even an "old" technology such as e-mail lists. Before the Web, subscribing to an e-mail list required sending specifically coded commands to particular e-mail addresses. These commands were a nightmare, with command messages being accidently sent to the whole list, and different commands for every mailing list. Now, there are easy Web interfaces that allow all basic commands. Getting past issues used to be a laborious task involving finding file names and writing complicated e-mail to get the software to return the past messages. Now the archives are all online and fully browsable. No longer do new members need to feel that they are in the middle of a conversation; the archives are only a click away. Technology also helps with another aspect of e-mail ­ the automatic handling of non-critical or, worse, junk e-mail. As I said, I get approximately 100 messages a day from my various mailing lists, and perhaps another 100 a day from other sources (students, deans, IOL business and so on). Of the 200, I really only want to see 20 or so immediately. Some I don't want to see at all. I get approximately 20 junk e-mails a day, and they never fail to make me angry. I have been much calmer since I started to use e-mail filtering tools (I use procmail, but there is a good FAQ at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/filtering-faq/ on how to filter mail) to avoid junk mail. Ninety-nine percent of junk mail (Make Money Fast, Get your XXX password, messages from deans) never gets through. Furthermore, I am able to archive non-critical e-mail in Web pages. For example, I subscribe to the Portuguese OR e-mail list. Generally, I read the messages about once every two months or so. Rather than handling them as they arrive, my automatic handler puts them in a Web page (http://mail.informs.org/APDIO) that I can read when I please (and also acts as the archive for the Portuguese OR Society). E-mail lists are a very useful and an easy way to get focused information. With Web interfaces to the lists and with automatic handlers, I find e-mail lists even more useful than they were a few years ago. New at IOL • The Job Placement Service (http://www.informs.org/JPS) has been upgraded and is accepting information from job seekers and companies looking for people. • The online program for INFORMS Seattle is available (http://www.informs.org/Conf/Seattle98) including online conference registration. Michael Trick of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon University, is the editor of INFORMS Online. Table of Contents OR/MS Today Home Page OR/MS Today copyright © 1998 by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. All rights reserved. Lionheart Publishing, Inc. 506 Roswell Street, Suite 220, Marietta, GA 30060, USA Phone: 770-431-0867 | Fax: 770-432-6969 E-mail: lpi@lionhrtpub.com URL: http://www.lionhrtpub.com Web Site © Copyright 1998 by Lionheart Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.