This page gives access to the raw logfiles, for those who wish to consult the raw archive of discussion on RDG, rather than the edited version. It also contains technical information on list administration,including location of other copies of the logfiles.

The contents of the files are fairly garbled at times. The messages may have passed through a number of machines, working under various different operating systems. Further, mail messages generally are very varied in their format, with some using plain text, others HTML, and yet others proprietary codes which vary more or less from HTML. The occasional participant has sent WORD or WORDPERFECT documents to the list, which after encoding typically result in substantial quantities of ASCII code. I have found that this code is usually (thought not invariably) recoverable with UUDeview or similar utilities.

Copies of the raw logfiles held on this server (in ASCII) are as follows:

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Technical information, and location of other copies

RDG was set up by Lionel Smith in September 1995. From the point of view of most of those who have participated in it, its running has been very smooth, and the infrequent administrivia messages could mostly be sent to the recycle bin in short order. However, the technical story is more complicated. Lionel has globetrotted somewhat, and everywhere that Lionel went, the list was sure to go. The technical history of the list therefore has 4 chapters so far:

1. Lionel started the list while he was in Alberta. It ran under MAJORDOMO on a UNIX machine. No automated archive was made, but Lionel preserved most of those messages as e-mails. Evidently a few messages have gone astray, though not I think very many. The messages on this server are an edited version of Lionel's record.

2. On his move to Oxford in 1996 Lionel transferred the list to a similar UNIX system there.

3. Automated archiving started in February 1997. Those ASCII files are still (at the time of writing) held on the Oxford server, though I'm not sure they are publicly accessible. If you wish to retrieve them from Oxford, try sending a message to majordomo@maillist.ox.ac.uk. The files are monthly, on the pattern restitution.yymm. So to get the logfile for August 1999, the body of your message should read: get restitution restitution.9908.

4. Lionel has now headed back to an even more prestigious Canadian position (at McGill), and in October 2000 he took the list with him. It now runs (under the new name "enrichment") under LISTSERV. Logfiles are weekly, on the pattern logyymmx. So to get the logfile for the 4th week of October 2000 (the first one) send a message to listserv@lists.mcgill.ca, with message body saying: get enrichment log0010d . (From November 2004, this changed to a monthly file, so lose the last letter.) You can alternatively look at the log via the web, at http://lists.mcgill.ca/archives/enrichment.html. These files are searchable on the McGill server.

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