E-MAIL DISCUSSION GROUPS

Groups of people with common interests on virtually any topic and all over the world have on-going discussions via e-mail. All subscribers to a group automatically receive all messages sent to the group. If you are doing research, it can be very helpful to find and subscribe to a e-mail discussion related to the general area of your research topic and then ask the group for suggestions on where to find information on the specific topic you are researching. No special software is required to subscribe to an e-mail discussion group. These email discussion groups are often called "listservs."

There are "moderated" and "unmoderated" groups. "Moderated" groups have a human manager to make sure all of the posted messages are on-topic and appropriate. Some groups are very active, with a dozen or more messages every day. Others groups only have a few messages a week or less.

Indexes to E-Mail Discussion Groups

Various Web sites index e-mail discussion groups by topic or keyword, including:

• Directory of Scholarly E-Conferences
• Liszt: e-Mail Discussion Groups
• Tile.Net Index to E-Mail Listservs
• H-Net (History/Humanities) Discussion Lists
  

How Discussion Lists Work

You subscribe to a list using the “subscription” address. To subscribe:

Send a message to the “subscription” address with the following in the body of the message:
SUBSCRIBE {the official "Title" of the list} {Your first name} {Your last name}
(Do not include the {} brackets when you type your message. The list title should be the official name of the list, e.g. MEDIA-L or NETTRAIN).

After you subscribe, you should receive a message that confirms that you have successfully subscribed. (Sometimes you will be asked to send another message to confirm that your email address is active. If so, be sure to do this promptly to insure that you are subscribed.)

Be sure to save the message that tells you that you have successfully subscribed. This message should give you directions for how to "unsubscribe" and answers to other questions you might have about the group.

You will then begin receiving messages from the list.

It’s good to “lurk” for a while to get the feel of the list. "Lurking" is just reading others' messages rather than posting (sending in) your own messages. Lists are little communities with their own styles and ways of doing things.

You post messages to the list using the posting address.

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These materials may be used for educational purposes if you inform and credit the author and cite the source as: LSCI 105 Online Research. All commercial rights are reserved. To contact the author, send comments or suggestions to: Eric Brenner at brenner@smcccd.cc.ca.us