INFORMATION ABOUT COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY LIST (CCL). PLEASE... READ IT!

  I. WHAT IS THE COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY LIST (CCL) ?
     The COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY LIST (CCL) is an e-mail exploder which allows
     computational chemistry researchers to exchange information and 
     experience. It was created to promote contact between researchers
     involved in chemistry-related computation. This list is not restricted to
     any particular chemistry software or methodology and anyone is welcome to
     subscribe. It works on the principle,
     "WHAT ANYBODY POSTS, EVERYBODY GETS." All posting to this list is
     archived and available for downloading as described below. 
     The list of subscribers, however, will not be made available.
     By subscribing to the list you agree to ADHERE TO the rules
     outlined in this document.

     Examples of topics for the list are:
       - reports on bugs in chemistry software and possible work-
         arounds
       - new chemistry software announcements
       - announcements of computational chemistry-related workshops
         and symposia
       - new methods and techniques in computational chemistry
       - questions and answers about solving computational chemistry
         problems
       - programs and utilities
       - information on the availability of particular software, data, etc.
       - hardware-related issues relevant to the computational chemistry
         community
       - opinions about services and products

     Examples of topics which SHOULD NOT appear on this list are:
       - personal attacks
       - topics unrelated to computational chemistry
       - announcements of "vaporware"
       - annoucements of job openings or CV's. These are handled off line
         (see point V for more information).
       - address inquiries (you can post address inquiry only when you
         exhausted all other ways (i.e., looking up ACS Directory of
         Chemistry Departments in your library, searching the archives
         of CCL, using netfind, contacting CCL list coordinator: jkl@ccl.net,
         contacting the Postmaster at the target machine)

     Rules for commercial software announcements are described later in this
     file.

 II. HOW TO SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE.
       To subscribe (or to unsubscribe) to the Computational Chemistry List,
     send a short e-mail message to CHEMISTRY-REQUEST@server.ccl.net
     stating your name, affiliation and electronic mail address. You can
     also send these directly to jkl@ccl.net or JKL@OHSTPY.BITNET. Please,
     DO NOT SEND THESE MESSAGES TO EVERYBODY.

III. HOW TO POST TO THE COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY LIST.
       The list is uncensored, i.e. nobody screens the messages before they are
     posted. The machine delivers them automatically. Before you post to the
     list, be sure that your message is correct (use editor!) and ADHERES TO
     THE RULES. Use lines shorter than 80 characters since many mailers
     truncate longer lines. Remember that what you post will be received by
     many people in many countries. However, do not feel overly paralyzed
     about this. Communication is a two-way street. Be concise though.
     Not everybody has superworkstations connected to a high-speed network. 
     However, do not be overly concise. If you have a question to the list,
     describe your problem, and why you need it --- try to educate and be
     educated. Also, summarize to the list the responses you got. We want
     to know what you know.
       The most important part of your posting is the "Subject:" field.
     Your message will not be accepted by the list without it. The Subject:
     should not be longer than 40 characters. People screen incoming e-mail
     by the "Subject:" line, so make it clear. 
       If you are posting a long file (e.g. a program), please split it into
     chunks which are smaller than 50 kBytes. Always identify part number and
     total number of parts in the "Subject:" line (e.g. NiceDraw Part 2 of 5). 
       To post an article to the the list just send your electronic mail to
     CHEMISTRY@ccl.net the way you normally do. It will be automatically
     distributed to all subscribers. 
       If you are not sure that your post is successful, or if you have
     problems or suggestions, contact us first at: 
     chemistry-request@server.ccl.net  or jkl@ccl.net or JKL@OHSTPY.BITNET.  
     We are here to help you.

 IV. COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE ANNOUNCEMENTS.
     Commercial Software - software that was sold to anyone for more than
         the cost of handling and documentation (up to few hundreds dollars).

     Commercial Posting - commercial software advertisements posted by the
         people who develop or sell the software. Postings responding
         to user questions, as well as bug reports, requests for comments, and
         tips on efficient software use are not considered commercial
         postings and are highly encouraged. Commercial software reviews or
         evaluations conducted by people not associated with the software
         vendor/developer are also encouraged.

     Rules for Commercial Postings:
           Short (25 lines or less) commercial postings are allowed.
         They should include a straightforward "Subject:" line. Reposts
         are not allowed unless new features/releases become available.
         Please make them informative, since they are useless otherwise.
         Announcements of "vaporware" (software that is not yet working
         or available) are not allowed in any form.
           You can submit commercial postings of any length to list owners
         at chemistry-request@server.ccl.net. It will be referenced in the
         FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file and available in CCL archives.
           List owners will make these available for automatic download
         and will periodically post the index with such announcements.

  V. EMPLOYMENT (POSITIONS OFFERED AND WANTED)
     To limit traffic on the list to matters of general interest the
     announcements of positions wanted and positions offered will be
     handled off line. Simply, instead of sending them to 
     CHEMISTRY@SERVER.CCL.NET  you will send them to 
     CHEMISTRY-REQUEST@SERVER.CCL.NET (or jkl@ccl.net or JKL@OHSTPY.BITNET). 
     I will be collecting these announcements in files: positions.wanted  
     and  positions.offered which can be obtained
     from our archives (see Part VI. ARCHIVES). The announcements can be any
     length, but remember that people do not read lengthily essays. When 
     the offer is no longer current, please send me a request to remove it
     from the archive (to chemistry-request@server.ccl.net or jkl@ccl.net).

 VI. ARCHIVES OF THE COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY LIST.
       You can retrieve index, previous postings, free software, documenents,
     list of positions wanted and offered, and the help files through
     electronic mail by sending a simple message to MAILSERV@server.ccl.net.
     You can also ftp to the archives or use Gopher as described later. 
     The body of your message should consist of two lines:
        HELP CHEMISTRY
        HELP
     In response, you will get the overview of available commands and the
     information about additional information. The MAILSERV@server.ccl.net
     allows to retrieve binary files, produce lisitings of archives,
     directories, encoding, etc. The syntax resembles UNIX commands.
     To retrieve this help file, index of archived messages, and jobs
     available,  you could use the following commands:
         select chemistry
         ls
         cd instructions
         ls
         get help
         cd ../indexes
         get index
         cd ../jobs
         get positions.offered
         quit
     To obtain more information about the archives, send the following
     requests to MAILSERV@server.ccl.net:
         select chemistry
         get README
         quit
     To retrieve a posting for a given date (e.g., Oct. 9, 1993) use:
         select chemistry
         cd archived-messages
         get 93/10/09
         quit
     The postings are organized in files named after the day of original
     contribution in the format yy/mm/dd 
     The index and archives are updated automatically after each messasge.

     Files are also available on anonymous ftp: ftp.ccl.net
     (or 128.146.36.5). Here is how you get them using ftp:
        ftp ftp.ccl.net        (or ftp 128.146.36.5)
        Name: anonymous
        Password: your_e-mail_address (please !)
        ftp> cd pub/chemistry
        ftp> ls          (to get the listing of all files which are there)
        ftp> get README
        ftp> cd instructions
        ftp> get help
        ftp> quit
     Of course, you need to know ftp to use it efficiently. Here are some
     more popular commands:
       ascii - set text mode (for text files only!)
       binary - set binary mode (for binary files) - very important if you
             retrieve compressed (*.Z) or tar files.
       cd - change directory
       get - get a file from the remote machine to your current directory
             (no * allowed in the name)
       glob - toggle (glob/noglob) the use of wildcard character (*) in
              filenames
       help - list commands of ftp
       ls - list files in the current directory
       mget - get all files fitting the pattern (* allowed)
       prompt - toggle asking (yes/no) for each file in mget command
       pwd - tells in which diretory you are now
       quit, bye - end the ftp session
     For example, to get a file with messages posted between June 20 and 29
     of 1992 you would do:
        ftp ftp.ccl.net  (or ftp 128.146.36.5)
        Name: anonymous
        Password: your_e-mail_address             (please !)
        ftp> cd pub/chemistry
        ftp> cd archived-messages/92/06   (all files for June 92 reside there)
        ftp> ascii                        (messages are text files)
        ftp> glob                   (you do not want to be asked for each file)
        ftp> mget 2*                (will get 20, 21, ... 29)
        ftp> quit                   (bye, bye... ftp)

     The archives are also available on Gopher. They are located at
     ftp.ccl.net If you type:
        gopher ftp.ccl.net
     you will be connected to the OSC Gopher manu. You can then choose the
     OSC Chemistry Gopher Server and you will be placed in the top directory
     of the CCL archives. You can also go directly to the CCL archives by
     using port 73:
        gopher ftp.ccl.net 73
     The Gopher is a good way to scan the previous messages, since the
     Subject lines are displayed in the menu. At some point, we will allow
     searching the messages by keywords withing Gopher.
   

VII. SEARCHING THE FILES IN THE ARCHIVES BY KEYWORDS

     The archives can be searched by keywords, regular expressions, etc.
     Since the syntax of the search queries is complex (though not difficult),
     the search procedures are described in a separate file: help.search.
     You can retrieve a file help.search via anonymous ftp on
     ftp.ccl.net from directory pub/chemistry/instructions
     or by sending a message:
        help search
     to MAILSERV@server.ccl.net
     We encourage you to perform the search before you post to the list.
     Many times the questions were already answered on the list, and
     posting them over and over again makes some people angry.


VIII.DISCLAIMERS.
     The list is organized as a service to computational chemistry researchers
     and is not aimed at monetary gains of lawyers. By posting to this list
     you agree that the content represents your personal opinion. In no event
     should Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) be liable for the opinions or
     materials posted. The OSC is not reviewing the materials submitted to
     this list and cannot stop their distribution. The software and messages
     distributed by the Computational Chemistry List come without any warranty.
     They may be perfect or totally wrong, and if you decide to use it, you do 
     it on your own risk. 

 List owners:
 David J. Heisterberg (djh@ccl.net, DJH@OHSTPY.BITNET, ph. 614-292-6036)
 Jan K. Labanowski (jkl@ccl.net, JKL@OHSTPY.BITNET, ph. 614-292-9279)
 Ohio Supercomputer Center
 1224 Kinnear Rd
 Columbus, OH 43212-1163
 FAX: 614-292-7168