General List Information

Lists are mechanisms to send email to groups of people, rather than individuals as discussed above. They may be organised in different ways, but the main groups are:

Newsgroups:
are a type of discussion group, but are different to mailing lists and discussion groups in that the messages of the group are not usually circulated to each member but are collected on special computers called news servers. To participate in the discussion you have to connect to the news server and read the messages on-line, which usually requires a special program called a news reader and a direct Internet connection. This will not be discussed further here.

Mailing lists:
are usually used for one-way traffic, for example distribution of a newsletter from an organisation to its members. An example of this would be the HealthLink Bulletin mailing list.

An electronic conference or discussion group:
is intended for multiple-way traffic - in other words, any member of the list can send mail to the list, thus stimulating interactive discussion and sharing of ideas and information. Therefore both types of list are run by the same software and function in a similar way, but differ in their purpose and how they are used

Some usage guidelines

• Write your emails in sentence case, not UPPERCASE
• Use plain text (avoid HTML or rich text formatting in email messages)
• Identify yourself - the best way is to include a signature with your name, institution and perhaps some contact details
• Do NOT forward junk mail, chain letters or any similar material
• Always check the address that you send messages or replies to before sending
• More suggestions on appropriate list use:
  • Tidbits Mailing list manner http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05386
  • Netiquette guidelines http://eleccomm.ieee.org/email-netiquette.shtml  

List servers and Services available

There are several List servers available including: Lyris www.lyris.com , Listproc listproc.net , Majordomo etc and list hosting services eg www.onelist.com   and www.egroups.com

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