The 411 on e-Mailing Lists

National Voter, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Gretchen Knell

E-mail is probably the most efficient and cost-effective means of communication available today. E-Mailing Lists take this useful tool one step further. They allow one person to reach many with a single e-mail message. So what are e-Mailing Lists? How do they work? And most importantly, how can you navigate the ins and outs of this powerful tool to get the most out of your e-mail.

WHAT IS AN E-MAILING LIST AND HOW DOES IT WORK?

An e-Mailing List is a group of e-mail addresses that can be contacted all at once. Basically, you send one message to the List and it is automatically distributed to everyone on that List. There are two general types of e-Mailing Lists: announcement Lists and discussion Lists.

WHAT ARE ANNOUNCEMENT LISTS?

Announcement Lists are sometimes referred to as one-way Lists (the recipient does not reply) and are used to distribute information from a central source. This type of List is often used for newsletters like the LeaguE-Voice, general announcements or call-to-action Lists like the Grassroots Lobby Corps.

WHAT ARE DISCUSSION LISTS?

Discussion Lists are for interaction--exactly what their name denotes. In practice, any member of a given List can submit a message for distribution to the entire List. This type of List is very useful for issue groups like the ERA discussion (lwv-era) and Reproductive Choice (lwv-reprochoice) or for organizational uses like the Presidents e-Mailing List (lwv-presidents).

HOW CAN USE THE LISTS?

Now that you know how e-Mailing Lists work, you need to know how to make the system work for you. Luckily, there are two easy ways to manage your List subscriptions and settings. You can use a series of e-mail commands or a Web interface. Both methods have benefits and drawbacks.

HOW DO E-MAIL COMMANDS WORK?

E-mail commands are quick and powerful; they allow you to perform a series of tasks in a single message. You can subscribe, unsubscribe and change settings, including your e-mail address iii a single message.

To subscribe to a given League List, you would send an e-mail to "LISTNAME"-subscribe@lists.lwv.org. For example, to subscribe to the LeaguE-Voice, the LWVUS HTML Newsletter, simply send an e-mail addressed to: league-voice-subscribe@lists.lwv.org. The subject line and body of the e-mail calm be left blank. To unsubscribe, address the e-mail as above, except replace the word "subscribe" with "unsubscribe."

You can also subscribe to more than one List with a single e-mail. In this ease, you would send your e-mail to lyris@lists.lwv.org. In the body of your e-mail you would put the necessary command(s) for each List: "Subscribe Listname" or "Unsubscribe Listname."

For example, if you wanted to subscribe to the LeaguE-Voice and the President's List and unsubscribe from the Campaign Finance Reform List, you would send an e-mail to lyris@lists.lwv.org. Then, in the body of the e-mail you would write the following:

Subscribe league-voice

Subscribe lwv-presidents

Unsubscribe lwv-cfr.

Changing your e-mail address is easy using e-mail commands. Simply send the e-mail to lyris@lists.lwv.org from the e-mail address currently receiving the List mail using the "set" command. In the body of the e-mail, place the following command: "Set Listname email=new address@yourisp.com."

The "set" command can also be used to change other membership settings like how you receive your mail--as Mail, Digest, Index or Nomail. What exactly is meant by Mail? Digest? Index? Nomail? Mail refers to receiving e-mail messages as they are contributed to the list--one at a time. If you set yourself to "Digest" you will receive one message daily comprised of all the messages sent that day. Index is similar to Digest, however, instead of getting all the messages, you only get the subject lines. If a subject line intrigues you, you can go online to read that message. Nomail means no e-mail. This is a good setting for someone who prefers to read the messages in the archive or if you will be away from your computer/e-mail temporarily and don't want your mail box to fill up.

For example: Jane Smith has opened a new free Web account and wants to send all her League List mail there. She is also going on vacation and doesn't want to come back to an inbox full of messages. Jane decides to change her e-mail on the four Lists (league-voice, lwv-cfr, lwv-reprochoice and lwv-pres-update) to which she is already subscribed. She also decides to stop all mail from lwv-cfr since she can cheek the List online (see online tools below), receive only an index of message subjects from lwv-reprochoice since she can check ones that interest her online (see online tools below) and have lwv-pres-update sent to her in digest form so that she gets just one message, not a dozen, a day. The message she would send to lyris@lists.lwv.org would look like this:

Set league-voice email= newaddress@newisp.com

Set lwv-cfr email= newaddress@newisp.com

Set lwv--cfr nomail

Set lwv-reprochoice email=newaddress@newisp.com

Set lwv-reprochoice index

Set lwv-pres-update email=newaddress@newisp.com