Mailing Lists

Mailing lists use e-mail to send messages on a particular topic to a group of subscribers. Most mailing lists that are of interest to people are interactive, which means that subscribers to the list can send messages to the entire list, encouraging discussion and the exchange of ideas among subscribers. Also, some mailing lists are distribution-only, which means that only the list owner of the mailing list can send messages to the entire list.

Once you find a list that sounds interesting, you should look for important information like:

• · What exactly do the members of the list talk about, and how do they do it?
• Is this list open to anyone who wants to subscribe?
• · How much mail will I get if I subscribe to the list? Can I handle this?
• · What features are available to me? Can I get a digest version? Can I temporarily suspend my subscription?
• · What is the e-mail address of the list server where I send commands? What is the e-mail address of the list itself, where the other list subscribers will see my message?
• · How do I subscribe? How do I unsubscribe?
• When you've found the answers to these questions, and you still want to participate, you can try subscribing to mailing lists

Once you've subscribed to a mailing list, you'll start getting e-mail from the list. You'll recognize mailing list mail because the "TO:" field will be addressed to the name of the mailing list.
Take some time to read the list and get acquainted with the way people talk to each other. When you're ready to send your first e-mail to the mailing list, you can reply to an existing message, or you can send an entirely new message. In either case, keep your message on-topic, and send it to the mailing list address.

A few points on participating in a mailing list:

• · When replying to a mailing list message, you have the option of sending your reply to the entire list, or sending a private e-mail message to the sender. Be careful not to send mail that's meant to be private to the entire list.
• · Also remember that if you need to send commands to the list server, send them to the list server - not to the mailing list. Because, if you do, all the subscribers will be annoyed at you.