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Did you ever have a pen pal or participate in a group discussion? Mailing lists are a combination of both pen pals and discussion groups, except you can have hundreds of pen pals and participate in dozens of discussions. Internet Mailing Lists fulfill this function. You send ONE message, and EVERYONE who subscribes to that mailing list gets a copy. Don't worry. Subscriptions don't cost a penny and no one will come knocking at your door, trying to win a scholarship by selling you subscriptions to Internet mailing lists. There are thousands of different mailing lists. Each List has its own focus of interest. There are frivolous lists and there are academic lists. The bottom line is, if you want to get in touch with a person whose interests are similar to yours, there's probably a list fitting your needs. The biggest problem is often locating the proper list for you. That isn't always easy. I will help you zero in on a list of your choosing later on in this lesson, but for now, let's look at how a list functions. I mentioned that people subscribe to lists. This means someone must process the subscriptions. That may be a person or a specially dedicated computer known as a Listserv. Other subscriptions are handled by humans. Regardless of whether you write your subscription request to a computer or a human, there are certain procedures you must follow. Lists Administered by Humans If you are writing to a human there is no formal subscription format, but there are certain points of netiquette you should follow. If there are no specific instructions provided, type SUBSCRIPTION REQUEST as the subject line and keep the message simple, short and polite. The person on the other end is generally overworked and processes subscriptions in batches. S/he doesn't know you and probably doesn't want to indulge in idle chit-chat, comments or questions that will interrupt that process. Save that for the appropriate time.
Lists Administered by Computers Many of the mailing lists are administered by a special computer called a Listserv. A listserv computer may handle thousands of lists without human intervention. It handles requests to subscribe, unsubscribe, hold mail, and many other functions. It acts as a copy machine and a postoffice. Listservs are really powerful, efficient, and fast. However, they are incredibly dumb. Everything must be perfect when you write a request to a computer. It has a very limited vocabulary.You must learn how to talk to the computer in its language, because it is incapable of understanding yours. Once you find a mailing list that interests you, you subscribe to the list by sending a message to the Listserv computer hosting the list. When subscribing to a list administered by a Listserv you must do the following, substituting the proper information in place of the words computer.name, List Name, and Your Name. To subscribe, send email to If you do everything right, the subscription will be processed and you will even receive a welcome message as one of your first messages. This message is very important. Don't throw it away. It contains information you will need later on. Here's an example of what can happen if you don't keep it. If you do ANYTHING wrong your subscription request will be rejected. However, all is not lost. If you make a mistake, the listserv will generate an automatic message with the rejection. It will cover commonly made errors and give instructions about the proper way to process your subscription. Some lists are managed by a program called Majordomo. If the list you want to subscribe to is a majordomo list, this is the procedure for subscribing. To subscribe, send email to An Example Let's look at an example of how it might work. When I first started creating web sites I thought I should subscribe to a group centering around HTML, the HyperText Mark-up Language used to write these pages. With thousands of lists, I needed a way to locate a mailing list without having to read through a long list. After doing a net search, I came up with three places which helped me locate a mailing list.
After I located the group I sent a message to the computer using the instuctions I found. The computer sent me a note indicating the subscription was received and that I had 48 hours to confirm the subscription. After confirming the subscription, I received a welcome message from the computer, along with great deal of useful and important information, such as how to unsubscribe, how to put a hold on mail while on vacations, and other things I might not need now but WILL need sometime in the future. So I printed the information and placed it in a folder with other important papers. Then messages started coming in. There were about a half-dozen full blown discussions in progress, questions and answers, a few notices of conferences and other things one would suspect, but there was a problem. HTML is one of the hottest topics on the web today, and if I wasn't the type of person who checks his mail daily, my subscribing to this group would have flooded my mailbox very quickly. The list generates about 30-50 messages a day. Perhaps I should have subscribed to a list dealing with the care and feeding of aardvarks. If I had, I would probably only get a few messages a month (if that many). When you subscribe to active lists you often simply scan the subject lines deleting large numbers without even opening them, reading only those messages catching your interest. This is another reason for using good subject lines as covered in the email lesson. Points of Confusion GET THIS STRAIGHT! When dealing with mailing lists there are ALWAYS multiple email addresses to consider. There is one address you use when you want to subscribe, unsubscribe, or hold your mail. There is another address if you want to sent mail to EVERYONE in the group. There may even be a list owner you can contact with specific questions. Of course every message coming your way has been sent by an individual and you may post your reply privately, to the sender, or send a reply for every person in the group to see. A goof, embarrassment, or a disaster awaits the person who neglects to watch what they write and to whom it is written. For example, it would be appropriate for me to post a message such as this to the Porsche 914 list. I'm looking for information on a place in South Jersey where I can get my 1971 2.0 restored. Art Wolinsky Anyone who sees it and has my information should reply to me, at my private email address and NOT reply to the list. Someone in Kalamazoo or Timbuktu has no interest in finding out about a restoration shop in New Jersey. Probably the most common petty annoyance is the person who sends a message to the list that should have gone to the listserv computer or the list administrator. Almost every day I can go to my mail and find at least one message that simply says UNSUBSCRIBE. I know that the other 2500 list members got the same message. That message says a great deal about the user. Exactly what it says is open to interpretation. Here are two possibilities. 1) The message was sent by a newbie who didn't take the time to read the welcome message and make note of important subscribe and unsubscribe information. 2) Perhaps it was late at night and they made a careless mistake. Remember, your name is on every message. This is not the way you want to get your name know on the net. Now that you have completed this lesson you'll never make that mistake. Will you? Helpful Hints Subscribing to lists can be confusing, but the good news is the WWW is quickly coming to the rescue. Many lists are making it easier and easier to subscribe to mailing lists by providing subscription forms right on the web. When you are using the publicly accessible mailing lists, you may see a web URL in blue. If you click on the URL with the mouse you will be taken to that list's web page. There you will find out more information about the list, how to subscribe, and possibly a simple subscription form you can fill out while you are there. |
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