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About Mailing Lists

“We must be on a mailing list.”

One of the most exciting aspects of internet use is that it opens up the entire world of e-mail messaging. You can use e-mail to reach a friend, but you can also use it to sign up for mailing lists. Mailing lists are electronic discussion areas where people exchange messages on a whole library of topics, ranging from astrophysics to the blues. Somewhere in between these two there are also a lot of mailing lists which are interesting for social scientists.

These mailing lists (or discussion groups) differ from Usenet newsgroups in that messages are sent via e-mail; Usenet subscribers have to access the newsgroup to read messages.

All messages posted to the group's central address are distributed to the mailboxes of subscribers, each of them has the opportunity to answer them. To join a mailing list send mail to the appropriate address. In general:

Subscribe to a Mailing List by sending the following message:
Subscribe <List_Name> <Your_Full_Name>

Postings will soon begin to arrive in your mailbox. When you send messages to the list, you will use a second address that will be specified when you subscribe.

Mailing lists often provide a good forum for discussion and getting answers to questions you may have. However, some mailing lists may fill up your inbox faster than you can read mail. When you subscribe to a mailing list, you will get a message that your subscription has been registered with information on how to unsubscribe yourself from the list. In general:

Unsubscribe yourself from a Mailing List by sending the following message:
Unsubscribe <List_Name> <Your_Full_Name>

Moderated? Be aware that some of the lists are moderated: all contributions are evaluated by a moderator who decides on the relevance of before it will be sent forward to the subscribers.

Archives
Some lists have an archive which you can visit freely, others don't.

Open or closed
Some lists are open for everybody, but some are only accessible for a limited group of people (for instance: only for persons with an e-mail address within the domain of a specific university or institute).

Make your own mailing list
If you want to make your mailing or discussion list read the conditions of JISCmail.

Mailing Lists	Home	Search	Contact	Dutch version