Email Lists

PSD-L and Other Electronic Mailing Lists

Contents

• What is a mailing list?
• UUA Mailing Lists
• PSD-L : The Prairie Star District Mailing List
• Ground Rules for Using a Mailing List
• More Information on Mailing Lists

Subscribe to PSD-L, the UUA-sponsored list for keeping abreast of news and announcements about Prairie Star District.

What is a mailing list?

A mailing list is simply an automated way of distributing email to a list of email addresses. A computer program called the list server keeps track of the email addresses in the list. People can sign up for (subscribe to) the list by submitting their names to the list server. Once they subscribe, they receive a copy of any message posted to the list.

Does it cost anything?

In theory, list owners could charge money when you subscribe, much like magazines do. There are in fact commercial lists, that you pay to sign up for, but the vast majority of email mailing lists, including all the ones discussed here, are free.

How does it work?

The list has its own email address. To send a message to everybody on the list, you simply send one ordinary email message to the list’s email address. Then the list server automatically forwards a copy of your message to all the subscribers. This approach has two important advantages:

1. You don’t have to keep track of the email addresses of everybody on the list; the list server takes care of that for you.
2. People can decide for themselves whether to subscribe to the list and get its messages. If you are no longer interested in getting the list’s messages, you simply unsubscribe from the list. There is no need to get everybody else to take your name off their address lists.

Flavors of lists

There are variations on this basic pattern. In a moderated list the incoming messages are screened or edited by a human manager (the moderator) before they are posted to the list subscribers. Some lists are announcement lists: they don’t accept incoming messages from the subscribers, serving only to distribute news or announcements from the list’s owner to the subscribers. Some lists are open (anyone can join); others are closed (you must be approved to join). Some lists are public (details about the list are publicly available); others private (you must subscribe to get archives, a list of subscribers, etc.)

UUA Mailing Lists

The UUA hosts many lists, for a variety of UU-related topics. Some are intended for a broad audience; others are very narrowly focused on a specific topic or purpose. For an introduction and description of the lists available, see the UUA Mailing Lists webpage. That page has links to other good information on mailing lists and how to use them.

Two general-audience UUA lists deserve special mention:

• UUA-L is an announcement list for receiving announcements from UUA.
• UU-Community is a moderated list for discussion of just about any UU topic you can think of.

and of course, we encourage you to sign up for:

• PSD-L, the UUA-sponsored list for keeping abreast of news and announcements about Prairie Star District.

UUA uses Mailman as its email list management program. Mailman offers a convenient web interface for subscribing, for configuring your use of a list, and for unsubscribing.

Subscribing

To Subscribe to a UUA list, find the list name in the alphabetical Index of UUA Lists. Click on the link to go to the subscription page for that list. (This is the page to use for all requests dealing with this particular list: to subscribe, edit your options, or unsubscribe.) Fill in the subscription form amd click on the “Subscribe” button.

(The links above will take you directly to the subscription pages of UUA-L, UU-Community, and PSD-L, without having to wade through the alphabetic list.)

The subscription page also gives:

• The email address of the list (the email address to use to send messages you want the entire subscriber list to receive).
• Near the bottom of the subscriber page, a link to the list owners, whom you can email for help.

One of the items in the form is your email address, i.e., the one where you want to receive messages from the list. If your email address changes, you can come back to this page to modify your subscription.

You must also choose a password. This is required for coming back to this page to modify your subscription. Every month, Mailman sends you a message with your passwords for the UUA lists you’re signed up for, in case you misplace them.

Another item indicates whether you want to receive the list messages as individual emails or (in “batch” or “digest” mode) to have the list manager send you one message each day with all the list messages for that day . Digest mode is most useful for lists with lots of messages; for low-volume lists, getting the messages individual usually works fine. (This also is a detail you can change later by modifying your subscription.)

Unsubscribing (and other changes)

To Modify your subscription or to Unsubscribe from a list, go (as above) to the subscription page for the list, and:

1. Find the section for unsubscribing or editing your options (near the bottom of the page).
2. Enter your subscriber email address.
3. Click on the “Unsubscribe or Edit” button.
4. In the new page, select the options you want.

If Mailman needs your password, it will prompt you for it. One of the options is to have Mailman send you your password, but it will only send the password to your subscriber email address.

Help

For Help or More Information, UUA has published extensive Information about Using UUA Lists on their website. Each list also has a human administrator you can email for help: the address is given on the subscription page for each list.

PSD-L : The Prairie Star District Mailing List

PSD-L is the electronic mailing list for Prairie Star District. This list is hosted by UUA (it’s a UUA list run by Mailman, as described in the previous section), and it is managed by PSD volunteers. It is intended for exchanging UU information in the district, including announcements, events, and other PSD-related topics. PSD-L is a private, open list: anyone is welcome to join, but only subscribers can see the list of subscribers or post messages to the list. PSD-L is not moderated.

Subscribe to PSD-L.

You must be subscribed to send mail to the list. This is primarily to prevent outsiders from spamming the people who are signed up. The email addresses are not available to anyone not subscribed.

To send a message to all the subscribers (assuming that you are subscribed), send an ordinary email message to the list itself: psd-L@uua.org. Do not include attachments in your message. (Mailman automatically removes all attachments before forwarding the message to the subscribers.) Always remember to fill in the subject line of the message with a meaningful description of your message topic.

Be careful when replying to a list message. You can choose to reply to the sender (whose email address will be shown), or to the entire list. Often, the latter is not what you want to do! So check the “To” address before clicking “send”.

For help from a real human (when all else fails), send email with your problem or request to the PSD-L administrator at psd-L-request@uua.org, and someone will get back to you.

Addresses and URLs

• UUA List Home: http://www.uua.org/members/emaillists/
• UUA List Index: http://lists.uua.org/mailman/listinfo
• UUA List Instructions: http://www.uua.org/members/emaillists/subscriberguide/
• PSD-L Subscription Page: http://lists.uua.org/mailman/listinfo/psd-L
• Email address to post messages to PSD-L: psd-L@uua.org
• Email address of PSD-L administrator: psd-L-owner@uua.org

Ground Rules for Using a Mailing List

Discussion on a mailing list occasionally gets overheated. Please use common sense and decency when you write.

• Use polite and proper etiquette: Don’t “flame” (i.e., don’t light into someone on line).
• Don’t write if you have nothing to say.
• Specifically, resist sending messages that express agreement or disagreement without adding content to the discussion.
• Use descriptive subject lines.
• Quote the relevant part of a previous message when replying, but include only the relevant part, not the whole message.
• Reply privately (to the original writer, not to the list) when your reply isn’t of general interest, or contains “emotionally sensitive” material.
• Don’t post chain letters.
• Don’t post virus reports.
• Most of all, enjoy!

More Information on Mailing Lists

The UUA’s page, UUA.org Email List Subscriber Guide, has lots of information about the details of:

• Using a mailing list
• Behaving yourself on the list
• Finding out who is subscribed to a list
• Resolving problems
• Setting up a new list for a new topic

We recommend that you print a copy of this page for reference, or at least keep the URL handy.