Local Directory Services

The result of any successful Usenet addresses search is a page containing links to an address-information page for each matched entry. This address-information page will include a "mailto" link for the person's e-mail address, and will often include one or more additional links to Internet servers at the person's organization. These links are provided because individual organizations often have accurate and definitive information about their own local users: if following one of these links uncovers an e-mail address, that address is almost always preferable to one found in our Usenet data. Currently, these links may be to:

• a form on that organization's web server for queries of that organization's local user-directory database
• a collection of personal home pages on that organization's web server
• a search page that covers home-page content on that organization's web server
• a "whois" user directory for that organization
• a "ph" user directory for that organization
• some other type of "gopher"-based user directory for that organization
• a reference to notes about finding e-mail addresses for that organization, as included in the College E-mail Addresses list.
• other brief notes about e-mail addresses at that organization
• a "finger" server on the person's Internet host

Note: the list of ph servers on the Internet is maintained by Joel Cooper at Notre Dame and John Norstad at Northwestern. The info.ph FAQ has instructions for contacting them about changes to their list. If your organization's ph server isn't accurately referenced on a page on the usenet-addresses.mit.edu web server, please check the list on the Notre Dame gopher server before contacting them.

Note: the College E-mail Addresses list is maintained by David Alex Lamb at Queen's University. If you have updates related to the information that he has compiled, please check the list on the Queen's University web server before contacting him.

Please report problems to webmaster@usenet-addresses.mit.edu