At 06:40 PM 12/13/96 -0700, Eimii wrote:

On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, Robyn, Duke of Amber wrote:

<snip>

 addr : fanfic-request@fanfic.com
 Subj:archive
 
ls latest
get latest/50
quit


 any suggestions?

The problem here is that file 50 is not in the "latest" directory. File 50
is probably somewhere in the original directory. The oldest file in the
"latest" directory is probably something like latest/24000. Using the
archive isn't as simple at that, sorry to say. You're going to have to
find out the actual file numbers of the last 50 posts, then ask for them
individually, such as:

get latest/25705
get latest/25706
etc...

        Eimii's correct about that.  OTOH, Neil really should be getting
some response back from fanfic-request.  I sent out the same e-mail
as he did just a few minutes ago and got a prompt response.  For the
"ls latest" command, I got back a list from 23000 to 23510 with the
message "truncated after 512 names."  This is not particularly useful,
especially since current posts are around the 25600's.  The "get
latest/50" only got this response:

        File latest/50 is currently not available.
        N.B. Filenames are case sensitive!

        Neil's trouble seems to be with his server.  Even if he wasn't
subscribed, the fanfic-request commands should've worked (right?).
Perhaps Neil should direct mail towards WW.

Venkarel
(who thinks the FFML FAQ  should revise the section on the
archive retrieval commands...perhaps by dictating the process
by which one could get the last 50 posts)

(posted and mailed)