AMERICA ONLINE AnswerMan Conference, Thursday, January 4, 1996, 9 P.M. ET Host: Kevin Savetz (Netanswers) Topic: Mailing Lists ____________________________________________ CJ Ellen: Good Evening and welcome to AnswerMan. I'm CJ Ellen of the Internet Connection and your host for tonight is Kevin Savetz (Netanswers) as the AnswerMan. Our topic tonight is Mailing Lists. The AnswerMan is here to tell you how they work, how to take part, and how to find mailing lists that interest you. Kevin, hi! Sounds like an interesting program tonight. Netanswers: Hi, Ellen. Thanks. I hope so :-) CJ Ellen: Want to start off by explaining just what a mailing list is? Netanswers: Certainly. A mailing list is a discussion forum that takes place within electronic mail. Like Usenet News, mailing lists let you chat with others interested in a particular topic, say, dog breeding or sports or whatever you're into. Netanswers: You can take part in a mailing list by sending email to a special email address. When you do that, your message is automatically forwarded to everyone on the list. They get your message in their email box, and can read it, and may choose to reply to the list (so everyone will see the reply) or personally to you. CJ Ellen: Kevin, how does a mailing list get started? Netanswers: A mailing list gets started by someone who wants to start a talk on a particular topic. He or she sets up the mailing list "Server" using special software and then announces the list to the world (for instance, on newsgroups, other mailing lists, web pages, etc), so that you can find out about it. But to just use a mailing list, you don't need any special software. Just your plain old email is enough. Smokeylady: What is the difference between a mailing list and a newsgroup? Advantages? Disadvantages? Netanswers: That's a good question. Both mailing lists and newsgroups are good ways to have a "public" conversation on the Internet. Mailing lists are a little bit more private however. Although for most mailing lists, anyone may "subscribe" (sign up to receive messages), you can't read the conversation on a mailing list until you sign up. Contrast that to a newsgroup, where it takes almost no effort to read (or "lurk"). So mailing lists, although "open" usually have more active members, and fewer "lurkers". Netanswers: Another advantage of mailing lists-since AOL lets you read and compose email while offline, you can participate in a mailing list discussion and save a little off your AOL bill. Usenet News can currently only be used when you're online. Other than that, BOTH mailing lists and Usenet are great ways to have an online discussion. S1K1A1T1E: How do you get on mailing list? Netanswers: That's a good question! Before you subscribe to a mailing list, you need to know which one you want to join. There are thousands. We'll get to finding the right one(s) for you in a minute. Once you find the perfect list to discuss your interest, you need to "subscribe." Basically, you need to send email to a special address with a subject line that says something to the effect of "This sounds interesting, sign me up!" (If you later decide it isn't so interesting after all, it's good to know that each address also has a way to unsubscribe.) Netanswers: Now:finding the perfect list for you. There are, as I said, a lot of them. My favorite list of mailing lists is called simply "Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists." You can get this list on the Web (at http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/). It is also posted often to the newsgroup news.lists CJ Ellen: How big is it? I mean, how many Lists does it list? I've seen lists that were a long download. Netanswers: This is a huge, but thorough list. There's also another list of mailing lists on AOL itself-- it is at Keyword: MAILINGLISTS. It's also huge :-) DrJim 101: How do you get a specialized list?? Netanswers: There are a couple of different types of lists. There are moderated and unmoderated lists. Moderated lists, like moderated newsgroups, are overseen by a person (or people) who control what information actually gets to the list. If you try to post to the list, the messages goes to the moderator for approval. This system can be used to keep a conversation on track, or to make sure only press releases get posted to a mailing list intended for such things. Netanswers: There are also pubic and private lists. The public lists are ones that anyone may join and participate in. (Most of these are listed in the directories I mentioned earlier.) Private lists are just that: small, invitation-only lists that aren't open to the public. For instance, there are private mailing lists for women only. I'm a member of a private mailing list for people who write about the Internet. Athenee: Help! I joined a mailing list and it's snowing me under. How do I get off it? Netanswers: I hate that! I bet you that when you joined the list, you received a message welcoming you to the list. Among the information on that list, I betcha, is information on how to unsubscribe from the list. So check to see if you saved that message. If not, you can try contacting the list's owner or moderator and asking nicely to be removed. It's considered very bad netiquette to send a message to the list ITSELF asking to unsubscribe. Why? Because each of the hundreds or thousands of people on that list will have to see your query. CJ Ellen: Kevin, do you have any idea how many mailing lists there are? As many as newsgroups? Netanswers: Not really. Tens of thousands. Certainly there are at least as many mailing lists as newsgroups. You can look at the list of mailing lists for an idea, but even that index doesn't list them all. CJ Ellen: I have another question of my own. Are public mailing lists archived anywhere? Netanswers: It depends on the mailing list itself, and on the whims of the person who runs it. So, it's possible, but I wouldn't bet on it. Then again, some mailing lists are nicely indexed in WAIS (Wide Area Information Server). Others are simply in the here-and-now. CJ Ellen: My last question. Do you have any favorite mailing lists you'd recommend for Internet Beginners? Netanswers: Well, I'm fond of one of my own :-), "The Internet Press," which is a mailing list that announces online newsletters about the Internet. You can subscribe to it by sending email to ipress-request@northcoast.com with a subject line of "subscribe." There's also the Scout Report, which is a great index to new Internet sites. To subscribe, send email to majordomo@is.internic.net and in the body of the message, put "subscribe scout-report." You can check out AOL's "AnswerMan" area for more info about mailing lists, and find some good ones for Internet newbies. CJ Ellen: Kevin, we have to wrap it up in a minute. Netanswers: Awwww.. CJ Ellen: Why don't you tell our audience what other kinds of information they can find at Keyword: ANSWERMAN? Netanswers: Well, if you go to Keyword: ANSWERMAN, you will find "Ask AnswerMan," a message board where you can ask *anything* about the Internet, and someone will help you. There are no stupid questions :-) "Accessing the Internet via AOL," a list of common questions and answers about, well, Accessing the Internet via AOL. Netanswers: And starting tomorrow, a new feature! In the "Answer of the Day", I'll answer a user's Internet question each days, until there aren't any more! There's other good stuff in AnswerMan too, check it out. CJ Ellen: Well, Kevin, hope everybody stops by to check it out! Time for us to say goodnight. Netanswers: :-) Thank you all for coming! Goodnight! CJ Ellen: Goodnight, everyone. OnlineHost : Copyright 1996 America Online, Inc.