One of the recurring "annoyances" of participating in a high-volume 
mailing list with a constantly changing population of "newbies" is
continual appearance of questions that have been answered before.

These are known as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).  Many (but not
all) mailing lists have a number of good samaritans that maintain 
lists of those questions and thier answers which get posted 
periodically to the list in question.

For those listserv mediated mailing lists that don't have a FAQ
maintainer, the listserv software includes one optional feature
that allows for extremely sophisticated searches of mailing list
archives.  

This allows newbies (and others) to search the accumulated wisdom 
of the list participants in order to find the answers to common but
vexing questions.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Note: Not all listserv lists maintain archives and not all that keep
      archives activate the database feature.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have compiled this document in the hopes that it will assist others
in making use of this powerful feature.

What follows is a real world example that I used on the PM-Win list
to get a copy of a post I had previously made on the location of a 
web-page containing a variety of address book conversion programs.

This is the barest introduction to the topic of listserv database
search capabilities.  For detailed information, send the command:

      info database

in the BODY of a message to the listserv of your choice.

The command:

      database list

will tell you which mailing lists (if any) have a database
available for searching on that particular listserv.

Simeon

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>>>>>>>>> ListServ database search template

# This is the minimal template for searching a listserv database:

To: listserv@list.server.address
From: yourname@somewhere.com
Subject: Anything you want

//DBlook Job Echo=yes
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Select (search parameters) in listname
index


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>>>>>>>>>Example ListServ database search job

# This is the actual search job I submitted to find the posting I had
# earlier

To: listserv@ua1vm.ua.edu
From: me@at.my.site
Subject: Anything you want

//DBlook Job Echo=yes
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Select (address and convert) in pm-win
index

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>>>>>>>>>Example ListServ database search job response

# This is the actual contents of the response I got back from the
# listserv

> Select (address and convert) in pm-win
--> Database PM-WIN, 64 hits.

> index
Item #   Date   Time  Recs   Subject
------   ----   ----  ----   -------
000029 95/09/18 17:35   41   System-wide Distribution Lists WinPmail 2.1
000191 95/10/02 21:44  177   Re: general protection faults 
000368 95/10/20 22:20   57   Questions... 
000377 95/10/22 13:12  165   Re: Questions...
               [many others snipped]
009361 96/10/06 00:23   22   Conversion of address books 
009474 96/10/10 21:36   74   Re: Winpmail losing advantages 
009530 96/10/11 16:49   56   Re: how to convert pegasus mail to unix mail 
009596 96/10/14 09:35   18   Address Book Converters

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>>>>>>>>>Example ListServ database retrieval job

# In order to retrieve one or more of the documents listed by the
# index command in your first "job", resubmit the *same* search with
# the addition the "print" command line(s) to select the posts of 
# of interest.  You may ask for more than one message to be retrieved
# by adding additional "print" lines

//DBlook Job Echo=yes
Database Search DD=Rules
//Rules DD *
Select (address and convert) in pm-win
index
print 9361

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>>>>>>>>>Example ListServ database retrieval job response

# Last but not least, here's what the final response (with the
# requested message(s) appended) will look like.

> Select (address and convert) in pm-win
--> Database PM-WIN, 64 hits.

> index
Item #   Date   Time  Recs   Subject
------   ----   ----  ----   -------
000029 95/09/18 17:35   41   System-wide Distribution Lists WinPmail 2.1
000191 95/10/02 21:44  177   Re: general protection faults 
000368 95/10/20 22:20   57   Questions... 
000377 95/10/22 13:12  165   Re: Questions...
000502 95/11/08 15:30   56   Re: AHA!! 
000503 95/11/08 19:11   69   Re: AHA!! 
000655 95/11/17 11:48   53   Version 2.22 questions 
[index list snipped]

> print 9361 
>>> Item number 9361, dated 96/10/06 00:23:12 -- ALL 

Date:         Sun, 6 Oct 1996 00:23:12 -0700

[rest of retrieved posting snipped]