What is an Internet Mailing List?

Internet Mailing Lists allow people from all over the world to form discussion groups on any imaginable topic through email.

Upon subscribing to a Mailing List, individuals automatically receive all email messages sent to that list. Mailing lists can generate from one email message per month to one hundred per day or more, depending on the popularity of the list and how it is managed.

Before joining your first Mailing List, it is important to learn as much as possible about the list. Below are some terms you should become familiar with before subscribing to your first Mailing List.

Subscribe: join a Mailing List.

Unsubscribe: signoff a Mailing List.

Signoff:unsubscribe from a Mailing List.
("Unsubscribe" and "Signoff" are both commands used by Mailing Lists to mean the same thing.)

Moderated List: a Mailing List that usually does not allow subscribers to email (or "post") directly to the list, but channels the email first to the Moderator (or List Owner) to decide whether the email adheres to the rules of the list (including appropriate topic, language, length, etc.)

Unmoderated List: list which allows subscribers to email the list directly, without previous filtering by a Moderator.

List Owner(s): person(s) responsible for managing the Mailing List.

List Manager Address: the email address that subscribers send commands to, for Mailing Lists maintained by software programs (such as LISTSERV and Majordomo). Nearly all large Internet Mailing Lists are maintained by these software programs, which allow subscribers to join or leave the lists automatically, by sending "Subscribe," "Unsubscribe," or "Signoff" commands via email to the List Manager Address. This may also be called the "Listserv Address." The List Manager (or Listserv) address often looks like: "LISTSERV@UNIVERSITYNAME.EDU".

List Address: the email address subscribers send messages to (or "postings") for all the Mailing List subscribers to receive. It is important to distinguish the List Address from the List Manager (or Listserv) Address so that commands are not send to all subscribers. The List Address often looks like: "NAMEOFLIST@UNIVERSITYNAME.EDU".

List Name: name of the Mailing List. It is important to use the exact name of the Mailing List you wish to subscribe to when sending commands to a List Manager Address.

Find an Mailing List whose topic interests you.

Email the List Manager (or Listserv) Address with the command supplied by the Mailing List's description.

If asked to send the command in this form: "subscribe listname your_name" in the body of the message, and the Mailing List name you want to join is called "ABLE-JOB," and your name is "Jane Doe," you will send an email which looks like this: "subscribe ABLE-JOB Jane Doe" within the body of your email, and with nothing in subject line. You should not add anything else. The software program which maintains the list will not understand anything but what it is programmed to understand.

Some Mailing Lists allow you to subscribe or unsubscribe through a website interface, so that you do not have to send commands to a listserv. Yahoo egroups, for example, can be subscribed to directly on the Web.

After sending your command to subscribe to the list, you will probably be asked to reply to an email with only "ok" in the body of the message. This is the software program's way of assuring that you did indeed mean to send the command you sent. If you do not reply to this email, your email address will not be added to the Mailing List.

You will then receive a very important email which informs you that you have been added to the Mailing List and instructs you on the various commands available to you, how to post to the Mailing List, and the rules of the list. It is very important that you keep this email so you will know how to unsubscribe from the list in the future. Print out this email, if need be. At some point you may find you no longer want to receive email from the list, or suspend it while on vacation, and you will need these instructions to unsubscribe.

Many Mailing Lists can now be joined by filling out a very simple form right on a website. However, many lists still require that you know the commands to join or leave a list, especially the latter, so it's important that you save the initial emails from the list.

Q: I've purchased items on the Internet and then started getting emails from that company (or similar ones) on a regular basis. Is that a kind of Mailing List? If so, I don't remember ever subscribing to it.

A: When you purchase items on the Internet you are often asked for your email address to confirm the purchase. If you read the fine print on all these websites, you'll generally find that there is an option to opt out of any of their "promotional mailings." Unless you've unchecked that option on the website, chances are they have automatically entered your email into their database of potential future purchasers. You have indeed been added to their Mailing List without having purposely subscribed to it. The emails you receive, however, usually have information on how to stop any future emails from them. These Mailing Lists are different from the Mailing Lists described above, as they are only "announcement-type," meaning they do not allow you to email to all the other members of the list. Only the company has the ability to do that. These kind of Mailing Lists are usually called "Distribution Lists."

Q: I want to unsubscribe from a Mailing List but lost the email instructing me on how to do this. What do I do now?

A: This happens for many unexpected reasons, such as computer crashes, so list owners often try to remind subscribers to put those instructions in various places or print them out to avoid just such a problem. However, if you need to get those unsubscribe instructions, the fastest way is to put the exact name of the Mailing List in a search engine (such as at www.yahoo.com). This should lead you to a website for the Mailing List that will outline the command necessary to unsubscribe, and the address to send the command to.

Q: I only have so much time to read emails. How can I have an idea in advance how many emails a Mailing List will generate?

A: Many Mailing Lists give statistics on the number of subscribers to the list. Some even provide the average number of emails per day/week/month. Generally speaking, the greater the number of subscribers, the greater the number of emails that are generated to the list. It is very common, though, to find that Mailing Lists fill up your email boxes much faster than you expect, which is one more reason it is important to keep the unsubscribe instructions.

Q: Can I subscribe to a Mailing List on a "trial basis," just to see if it suits my interests?

A: Certainly, but you will need to subscribe and unsubscribe in exactly the same way as you would ordinarily.

Q: The Mailing List that I joined says in its rules that "no flaming or spamming allowed." What does this mean?

A: "Flaming" refers to emails which insult or criticize another person on the mailing list. "Spamming" refers to sending unsolicited emails of a commercial nature to the mailing list, or "junk email."