1. WHAT CAN I DO ?
Mailinglists, like the 
Usenet Newsgroups,
are for discussion. The only difference is, that you don't have to check the discussion to keep up to date. Mailinglists are totally e-mail based,
which means, that you send an article to the mailinglist and it automatically will be distributed to all other subscribed members. Also you will get all
articles of other members delivered to your mailbox.
2. WHAT DO I NEED ?
If you have your e-mail configured correctly, then there is nothing more to do. The requirements are the same as they are for E-Mail. See
Electronic Mail for details. The only thing that you have to know is the address of a mailinglist server. See the next chapter for details on
this.
3. WHERE CAN I CONNECT ?
Unlike other Internet services, where you connect to a server, transfer data and then disconnect again, a mailinglist uses e-mail addresses for discussion.
There are special e-mail addresses, where a special software is installed, which automatically handles all the commands and mails sent to a list. The most
popular software packages are listserv and
majordomo. This software is a kind of command processor, which handles
commands and automatically distributes all incoming mail. As you already know, an e-mail address is made up of a username and a host name.
When referring to a mailinglist, the username for the command processor usually is listserv or majordomo.
I have addresses of some servers hosting mailinglist available:
listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com
majordomo@bridge.net
listserv@nic.umass.edu
listserv@uscvm.bitnet
listserv@psuvm.bitnet
listserv@uwavm.bitnet
listserv@bitnic.educom.edu
Originally we had a list of available lists at listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com. But the number of lists known for that address has grown to more than 10.000, which would result in a file with a size of more than 1 MB. So they have set up an online List database, which you can use. This called the CataList. Please use this service to see what lists are available.
4. HOW DO I WORK WITH MAILINGLISTS ?
Mailinglists are controlled via e-mail. You first have to subbed to a mailinglist before you can receive mail from it. Generally, a command to a
mailinglist server has no subject line and a single line (the command) in its body. Be sure, that there is no signature or similar in such a mail, as it will
unnecessarily waste resources and only produce error messages.
AVAILABLE LISTS
The first thing, before you can take part in a discussion is to get a list of available mailinglists. The following examples will refer to the
listserv at peach.ease.lsoft.com. Start your mail client and enter listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com as the receiver of the mail.
Leave the subject line totally blank and type the command
lists global <keyword>
as the only text in the body of you mail. Please remove any
signature, as it will only produce error messages. <Keyword> can be replaced by a
word of your choice, that will act like a filter. If you use keyword, then only the name of mailinglists containing the keyword will be returned.
Note that a complete list may have several hundred kilobytes. Now send your mail.
The response may not come at once. It might last as long as a day or two, until your command is processed. When you receive a response,
you will find two mails in your mailbox. One mail telling you, that your command has been processed and a list of used resources and the second
mail being the list you requested. You now can browse through the list to find a mailinglist you are interested in.
SUBSCRIBING TO A LIST
The next thing to do is, to subscribe to a mailinglist. Therefore note two things in the list of mailinglists returned as the result from the example above:
The name of the list (left column)
The mail address of the list
Then send mail to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com with no subject line and
subscribe <listname> <Your Name>
as the only text in the body of your message. <listname> has to be replaced with the name of the list you want to subscribe to. <Your Name> obviously has to be replaced with your real name. Then again, patience is required as listserv processes your request. Depending on the mailinglist, you will receive either a command confirmation request which you have to reply to in order to finally confirm your subscription or a message indicating that you know are subscribed to the desired mailinglist. Most times, you will also receive a mail containing some guidelines for discussion, like an outline about the discussion, and/or a list of commands the mail server understands. I suggest that you keep this mail for later reference.
SENDING TO A LIST
Now you want to participate in the discussion. To send your own articles to the list, you have to use the list's mailinglist address.
NOTE:
The address of the list you have subscribed, is not listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com any more. USe this address only to send commands to a list.
So if you have subscribed to a list which is for MS Access development (Access-L), which is hosted by peach.ease.lsoft.com, then you have to send mail to
Access-L@peach.ease.lsoft.com
Note that a mailinglist needn't to be hosted by peach.ease.lsoft.com. They also can be hosted by any other server. In general it can be said, that you need to remember two mail addresses in conjunction with a mailinglist. You have to know the mail address of the command processor to send your commands to (normally begin with listserv or majordomo) and the mail address of the mailinglist (usually equal to the name of the list). When you send a message to the mailinglist it is automatically distributed to all other subscribers of the list.
RECEIVE A DIGEST
If you don't want to receive all posted articles mail by mail, you can advise listserv to combine multiple mails into one large mail. This single large
mail is called a digest. To receive a digest,
end mail to the command processor listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com, with no subject line and the following command as the only text
in the body of your message:
set <listname> digest
From now on you will receive all mails posted to the list in a digest form. Depending on the volume of the list, you will be receiving one or more
digests per day. The disadvantage from a digest form is, that you have to find the e-mail address of a person who posted an article, if you want
to reply directly to him. Furthermore, replying to a digest is not a good idea, you will have to remove any other mail in your reply. Also be sure to
edit the subject line, otherwise it will read something like Re: Access-l digest #123. So its a better idea to copy the mail you want to reply
to into a new mail (don't forget to quote it and send it to the list).
AVOID GETTING YOUR OWN MAIL
By default you will also receive your postings to the list. If you don't want this, then you can send the following command to the command processor:
set <listname> [Repro|NoRepro]
<listname> is the name of the mailinglist to set this option. Then use either the keyword repro to receive your own postings or norepro to avoid getting back your own postings.
UNSUBSCRIBING FROM A LIST
I you are not interested in the mailinglist anymore, then you have to unsubscribe. An often made mistake is, that unsubscribe commands are sent to
the list, which is totally useless. An unsubscribe command must be sent to the command processor, which is, in our case,
listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com. To unsubscribe send a mail to the mentioned address using a blank subject line and
unsubscribe <listname>
as the only text in the body of your message. After a while you will receive a notification, that you have been removed from the list.
5. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
A mailinglist, which is managed by listserv software offers many options like receiving files, customizing the way you receive your mail, etc. .
All this information is available in a reference card, which we have ready for download here. The most important commands will be discussed
later in this document.
Download Listserv RefCard V1.8b
ZIP File; 5 KB
There is also a hypertexted version of RefCard 1.7 available at Earn.