When you subscribe to Dairy-L, you automatically get all topics by default. You can designate your set of topics to whatever you want, and you can delete or add topics as you wish. A list of possible topics is in Table 1 below. Four examples of changing topics are presented.
If you receive your Dairy-L messages via digest (one big message per day), selecting only a few topics will not change your digest. Digests are always all messages for the last 24 hours. Topics don’t affect this. If you want to use topics, you’ll need to set your Dairy-L options to mail. To do this, send a message to listserv@listserv.umd.edu and put the following line in the body of the message:
set Dairy-L Mail
You need to do this before making any changes in the topics.
Information on Topics and Changing Topics
Table 1. Dairy-L topics and descriptions.
| Listserv Topic | General Description |
|---|---|
| vet | Veterinary Medicine, Mastitis, Disease & Health |
| breed | Reproduction, Genetics & AI |
| feed | Nutrition, Feeding, Forages, Rations & Grazing |
| crop | Cropping & Machinery |
| econ | Economics, Statistics, Marketing & Dairy Farm Finances |
| eng | Buildings, Farm Layout, Stray Voltage & Other Dairy Farm Engineering |
| young | Heifers and Calves |
| ed | Education, Research & Internet |
| mgt | Personnel & Management |
| ann | Positions, Meetings & Other Announcements |
Example of going from receiving all topics to receiving all but one topic
Some people might want to get all topics except for one specific area. To stop getting messages on that area is easy. For example, someone might want to get messages related to all topics except those related to economics and milk marketing. To stop getting messages on economics, send an email message to:
Put the following line in the body of the message:
set Dairy-L Topics: all -econ
This command tells the listserv software that you want to get all topics except for the messages with the econ topic.
Example of going from receiving all topics to receiving only two
Let’s take an example of when you only want to get information concerning feeding and youngstock. To change from getting all topics to just getting messages pertaining to feeding and youngstock, send an email message to:
Put the following line in the body of the message:
set Dairy-L Topics: feed young
You have just replaced the default setting of “all” for topics to “nutrition and heifer”. You would modify the set Dairy-L Topics: line to include the topics you wanted to the right of the colon. You would choose from the Dairy-L Topic list in Table 1. Choose only the words in the left-hand column for the topics you want. A description of what each topic entails is in the right-hand column of Table 1.
This example describes replacing the Dairy-L default topic list (all topics) with a more selective list.
Example of adding a Dairy-L topic
Let’s take the example of where you wanted to get information concerning nutrition and heifers. Now, you’d like to start getting AI information, too. To add messages on AI to those on feeding and youngstock, send an email message to:
Put the following line in the body of the message:
set Dairy-L Topics: +breed
You have just added the topic “breed” to “feed” and “young”. In general, you would modify the set Dairy-L Topics: line to include the topics you wanted to add to the right of the colon and precede each topic with a + sign. You would choose from the Dairy-L Topic list in Table 1. Choose only the words in the left-hand column for the topics you want. A description of what each topic entails is in the right-hand column of Table 1.
You can add more than one topic at a time. You must put a + in front of the topic you want to add. An example of adding buildings and veterinary information is below:
set Dairy-L Topics: +eng +vet
Example of deleting a Dairy-L topic
Let’s take the example of when you wanted to get information concerning feeding, youngstock, buildings, and veterinary information. Now, you’d like to stop getting youngstock information. To delete youngstock messages, send an email message to:
Put the following line in the body of the message:
set Dairy-L Topics: -young
You have just deleted the topic youngstock. In general, you would modify the set Dairy-L Topics: line to include the topics you wanted to delete to the right of the colon and precede each topic with a – sign. You would choose from the Dairy-L Topic list in Table 1. Choose only the words in the left-hand column for the topics you want. A description of what each topic entails is in the right-hand column of Table 1.
More than one topic can be deleted at a time. To delete youngstock and feeding, you would use the following command:
set Dairy-L topics: -young -feed