\section{An Introduction to Discuss}

\subsection{What is Discuss?}

Discuss is a networked, electronic conferencing system.  It is similar
to bulletin-boards that have become popular on microcomputers, except
that it is accessible from time-sharing machines and workstations on
the network.  Discuss allows a user to attend a set of electronic
meetings.  Each meeting has a specific focus, such as a project,
class, or special-interest.

Users may select (``attend'') meetings, and read messages
(``transactions'') that have been entered in those meetings.  A user may
choose to enter new transactions into a meeting, either by replying to
a previous one or by starting one on a new topic.

Additional information regarding Discuss can be found in {\it An Inessential
Guide to Discuss}, also published by the SIPB.

\subsection{Keeping track of meetings}

Discuss does not keep a central list of all Discuss meetings.
Instead, it maintains a list for each user of the meetings that they
attend.  To specify a meeting you can use the meeting name, or your
own abbreviation.  In the future it may be possible to use another
user's abbreviation by specifying the username in the command line.
This approach allows users to have their own names for meetings.  For
example, the ``Discuss\_development'' meeting could be known as
``discuss'' to one user, ``dsc'' to another, or both to yet another
user.  All this information, as well as the information needed by the
client programs, is stored in a file called {\it .meetings\/} in your
home directory.  Without this file, Discuss will not be able to locate
meetings.

\subsection{Using Discuss}

\paragraph{Initial setup}

The best way to understand the ideas above is to start playing
with the system.  They should become clear after a little practice.
Here is a step-by-step explanation of how to use Discuss.

First, run the Discuss run.  To run it, type {\tt discuss} to your
prompt. The first thing it will do is look for a {\it \~{
}/.meetings\/} file.  If you do not have one, Discuss will assume this
is your first time running it.  It will then ask you if you want it to
create a {\it .meetings\/} file.  This will create a prototype {\it
.meetings\/} file in your home directory for you to start with.

Running Discuss without a {\it .meetings\/} file looks like this:

\begin{verbatim}
% discuss
discuss: No such file or directory

If you are using discuss for the first time, or if you have only used the
experimental version of discuss, you need to run the 'dsc_setup'
command from the shell.

Run dsc_setup now? (y or n)  y

Running setup...
  Creating .meetings file:
  done.
discuss:
\end{verbatim}

The version of this program distributed on Athena will give you a
{\it .meetings\/} file that lists two meetings, called ``New\_Meetings'' and
``Everybody''.  The former is for announcements of new meetings, and the
latter is for random announcements, questions, and anything else that
may be of general interest.

\subsection{Finding interesting meetings}

  The meetings you currently attend are listed in your {\it .meetings\/} file.
To list the meetings in your {\it .meetings\/} file  type {\sl
list\_meetings\/}.

The transactions in ``New\_Meetings'' can be used to
add the meetings you wish to ``attend'' to your personal list of meetings.

To attend the New\_Meetings meeting, simply {\sl goto\/} it. 
\begin{verbatim}
discuss:  goto new_meetings
New_Meetings meeting;  175 new, 175 last.

discuss:
\end{verbatim}
To learn more about a meeting listed in ``New\_Meetings,'' {\sl print \/} the
corresponding transaction (This transaction is usually identical to the first
transaction in the announced meeting).  For instance, you could do
the following:


\begin{verbatim}
discuss:  print 163
[0163] srz@LCS.MIT.EDU  New_Meetings  04/01/88 15:17 (7 lines)
Subject: Central_America meeting
  Meeting Name:  Central_America
  Host:          bloom-beacon.mit.edu
  Pathname:      /usr/spool/discuss/ca
  Participation: Public

This meeting is an Athena-wide "panama" system.  This meeting is
fed nightly with all the changed .plan files of all Athena users.
--[0163]--
^L

discuss:  
\end{verbatim}

If you want to read the transactions in Central\_America you need to add it to
your personal list of meetings.  To do this use the command
{\sl add\_meeting\/} ({\sl am\/} for short), giving it the transaction
number of the announcement as an argument:

\begin{verbatim}
discuss:  add_meeting 163
Transaction [0163] Meeting Central_America (ca) added.

discuss:  
\end{verbatim}

\subsection{Saying something}

There are two ways you can enter a new transaction in a meeting.  To
start a new chain, use the {\sl talk\/} command ({\sl t\/} for short),
{\sl enter\/}, or {\sl send\/}. Discuss will ask for a subject which
will be printed at the head of the message.  It will then ask you to
enter the text of the message -- a {\tt C-d} or a ``.'' on a line by
itself is used to signal the end of the text.  If you prefer to use an
editor, you can type, or if you realize at any point while entering
the message that you want to edit it, type \verb+~e<RETURN>+ (Yes,
that's a twiddle, then an `{e}', then the RETURN or ENTER key.) on a
line by itself, and Discuss will start up the editor defined in your
EDITOR environment variable, with whatever text you have already
entered already entered into the editor.  Alternatively, if you prefer
to use an editor most of the time, you can use {\tt setenv} to set a
variable called DISCUSS\_EDITOR\footnote{You can put this command in
your {\tt .environment} file.} to the pathname of whatever editor you
prefer to use, and it will be called automatically each time you enter
a transaction.  In this case, if you wish to enter a message without
using the editor, you enter {\sl talk -no\_editor}.

The other way of entering a transaction is to reply to an existing
transaction.  For this, use the {\sl reply\/} command ({\sl rp\/} for short).
This will start up the editor as with {\sl talk\/}.  The transaction will be
entered as a response to the current transaction (by default), or the
transaction specified.

\subsection{Discuss archives on the Web}

There is a discuss to WWW gateway available at {\tt http://diswww.mit.edu}.
If you know the name of the server and the meeting you want to view,
you can do so in the web browser of your choice.

\subsection{More help}

See the document {\bf Using Discuss}, available through the SIPB, for more
complete and detailed information about discuss.

\subsection{Credits}

Many thanks to Stan Zanarotti, Ken Raeburn, and Nancy Gilman, writers of
{\bf Using Discuss},  from which this section was fabricated.