I am considering the possibility of setting up a digest version (*)
of this list. I would much appreciate to know whether anyone would be
interested in receiving the digested version of the postings.
(*) This means that, instead of receiving each [HM] message as an single
posting, you will receive (say, daily) a big posting including all the
messages clumped together.
=======
Moreover, I think it would be wise if everyone spends a few minutes in
reading CAREFULLY the following (updated) guidelines [see below], which
are also available sending mail to
majordomo@chasque.apc.org (which is NOT the list's address!)
with the following command in the body of your message:
info historia-matematica
=======
Many thanks! JGC
---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> info historia-matematica
HISTORIA de la MATEMATICA
mailing list [HM]
Table of Contents
1.0 Description
1.1 Purpose and standards
1.2 Languages
1.3 Configuration
1.4 Netiquette
2.0 How to join/leave the list
2.1 Subscribing
2.2 Unsubscribing
3.0 How to post a message
3.1 Address
3.2 Crossposting
3.3 Subject line
3.4 Body of message
4.0 Archives of postings
4.1 Math Forum
4.2 Mathematics Archives
5.0 Members of the forum
1.0 Description
1.1 Purpose and standards
The purpose of this list is to provide a virtual forum for
*scholarly* discussion of the HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS (in a
broad sense), amongst professionals, and non-professionals
with a *serious* interest in the field.
Postings are to be highly *relevant* to the purpose of the
list. All traditional and scholarly aspects of the history
may be discussed, and in addition such topics as:
- History of History of Mathematics
- Current trends in the History of Mathematics
- History of Mathematics outside Europe
- Ethnomathematics
- Pedagogical issues
- Origin of mathematical terms/symbols
- Biographies and obituaries
- Bibliographical references (databases)
- Announcements and reviews of new books, articles,
preprints, websites, ...
- Advertisements of conferences, meetings, jobs, ...
Contributors should strive to submit posts containing in-
teresting, worthwhile or new information about substantive
topics on the history of mathematics in a conscious effort
to keep the signal-to-noise ratio as high as possible.
Pertinent comments, queries, replies ... should be written
with the same standards of *thoughtfulness* and care that
apply to other *scholarly* activities; not necessarily at
the level of writing a book or an article for a journal,
but at least at the level of the informal printed material
(e.g. photocopies) used at courses.
1.2 Languages
ENGLISH, Portuguese and Spanish are the official languages
of the list.
Postings in other languages (e.g. French, German, Italian)
are also welcome. But, in this case, whenever a long post
is sent out, an abstract in English (say) would be highly
appreciated.
Although we do not think we should encourage too many lan-
guages on the forum (since many listmembers might just be
monoglots), the list is to be *open* to those contributors
who wish to communicate in their mother tongue, and do not
feel confident enough in other languages.
If you are *not* familiar with the language of a post, but
you suspect that the topic discussed is, for instance,
relevant to your own field of study (some key-words in the
email may suggest that), a solution somehow will be found
-- at least, we hope so.
If you are not sufficiently interested in that thread, you
may simply hit the 'delete' key. This list is intended to
provide a vehicle of communication for people of different
nationalities, and it is not reasonable - in our opinion -
to ask *everyone* to write in a specific language in order
to communicate.
1.3 Configuration
This is a CLOSED forum; that is to say, subscriptions must
be approved by the list owner. Those who subscribe to this
list are *encouraged* to identify themselves by full name,
profession, institutional affiliation (eg university), and
research interest if appropriate. This information should
be sent to
owner-historia-matematica@chasque.apc.org
1.4 Netiquette
'Ego trips' will mean trips outside the list.
Whereas freedom of speech is wonderful, and discussion of
controversial matters on the history of mathematics is to
be expected (and welcome!), personal invective cannot take
place on this forum.
From the beginning, it must be said very emphatically that
*abuse or misuse* of the list, in one way or another, will
cause cancellation of the subscription by the list owner.
2.0 How to join/leave the list
2.1 Subscribing
You can join the HISTORIA de la MATEMATICA forum sending
your subscription to
with the following command in the body of your message:
subscribe historia-matematica
You can also request your subscription to the forum (which
has to be approved) sending mail to
historia-matematica-request@chasque.apc.org
with the following command in the body of your message:
subscribe
2.2 Unsubscribing
If you ever want to *remove* yourself from this discussion
list you can send mail to
majordomo@chasque.apc.org
with the following command in the body of your message:
unsubscribe historia-matematica
If you ever need to get in contact with the list owner (if
you have trouble unsubscribing, or have queries about the
list itself), send email to
owner-historia-matematica@chasque.apc.org
3.0 How to post a message
3.1 Address
To submit a post to the HISTORIA de la MATEMATICA mailing
list send an email to
historia-matematica@chasque.apc.org
Please mind that 'historia' and 'matematica' are the words
in Spanish for 'history' and 'mathematics'; if you mistype
the list-address your postings will never reach the forum!
3.2 Crossposting
Crossposting (that is to say, sending a posting to more
than one discussion list or newsgroup at the same time) is
discouraged. If after reflection you decide to send a post
to more than one forum, *please* submit your contributions
as entirely separate emails. A strong reason for rejecting
crossposting is that _HISTORIA de la MATEMATICA_ mailing
list has been configured so that contributions can be made
only by members of [HM]. If crossposting is accepted onto
[HM], then members subscribed to other forums may reply to
our list as well, which might cause *fragmentation* of the
thread. Postings to many mailing lists often leads to dis-
cussions where members of each list see only a part of the
ongoing discussion, and this more often than not leads to
fragmentation, confusion, and misunderstandings. Majordomo
is currently configured so as to reject posts crossposted
to certain lists. This procedure generates a large amount
of work for me, the list moderator, in carefully approving
these particular emails (that have been crossposted to our
list by members and non-members of [HM] alike). Therefore,
I strongly encourage listmembers to choose the appropriate
list.
3.3 Subject line
The subject line should be informative so that people have
a rough idea about the *subject* of your message.
When you start a new thread, for instance
First incommensurables
majordomo attaches the prefix [HM] to your subject line,
so that your posting will be sent and archived as
[HM] First incommensurables
If anyone wants to post a followup on the previous thread,
s/he is strongly encouraged to write any of the following
subject lines:
Re: [HM] First incommensurables
[HM] First incommensurables
First incommensurables
However, the subject line
Re: First incommensurables
is not appropriate, since another thread generates; namely
[HM] Re: First incommensurables
This has the effect that your message is now not linked in
the archive with the original (at Swarthmore Forum), and
so it will be harder to locate the responses or comments
to the original issue.
Besides, do not write "RE:" (or other prefixes) instead of
"Re:". Please, use the previous subject line with the same
capitalization, etc. as was used before. This convention
makes it helpful for the archiving software (at Swarthmore
Forum) to sort postings by subject.
I strongly encourage listmembers NOT to change the subject
lines unless there is good reason. Now, if over the course
of a discussion, the subject evolves considerably you may
change the subject line accordingly.
3.4 Body of message
It is usually *unnecessary* to include the full text of a
previous post when replying to it. Do not quote irrelevant
segments; this will save downloading time, and disc space.
Nonetheless, please do include the relevant text that set
the context.
The omission of accents is strongly recommended. If you do
believe that a specific reference requires accents, then a
code would be advisable.
Now, some mailers programs send email out in formats which
cannot be read by other mailers. Please avoid this, and do
not put unusual symbols (such as ALT characters) into your
contributions. Never submit attachments to the list, which
are a particular problem to many subscribers, not only be-
cause of their format, but also because of their size.
PLEASE, configure your mailer so that the messages are NOT
delivered in enriched text (e.g. 'html' output).
Before sending email, contributors should *ask* themselves
the following crucial question:
"Is my posting relevant to the *purpose* of this forum?"
If you are not quite sure whether your post is appropriate
to this forum, please drop the list owner a private email.
4.0 Archives of postings
Two websites kindly host archives of all contributions:
4.1 Math Forum
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/epigone/historia_matematica/
4.2 Mathematics Archives
http://archives.math.utk.edu/hypermail/historia/
Greetings from Montevideo,
Julio Gonzalez Cabillon
P.S.: Suggestions and feedback about this discussion list would be,
as always, most welcome (as private emails). Many thanks!