How to Use Mailing Lists: Introduction In its most basic form, a mailing list offers a means of communicating electronically with a collection of people through a single e-mail address. Whenever someone sends an e-mail message to a mailing list address, that message goes out to everyone subscribed to the list. Participation in electronic mailing lists at Cornell costs nothing; there are no subscription fees of any sort. Anyone who has access to e-mail (such as Eudora and the Cornell campus network) can take advantage of the service. This guide describes how to join, participate in, customize your subscription to, and leave mailing lists. It also describes how to obtain additional assistance if this documentation is unable to resolve a difficulty you have encountered. If you are interested in setting up a mailing list, please see Managing Mailing Lists.   How Mailing Lists Are Used Names of Mailing Lists Other Methods of Group Communication   How Mailing Lists Are Used Electronic mailing lists can make collaboration and communication easier. Since the introduction of the CIT List Server, students, staff, and faculty at Cornell have discovered many ways to make use of mailing lists in their classes, work, research, and personal lives. Professors and TAs set up class lists to communicate information to students. Departments use electronic lists to share information with staff members. Researchers create discussion lists on topics of mutual interest. Committees form lists to discuss issues and cut down on the number of meetings. Student clubs and organizations registered with the Student Activities Office use lists to keep members informed of their activities. Alumni groups have lists for activities related to Cornell alumni affairs.   Names of Mailing Lists Almost all electronic mailing list names end in "-L" so that their addresses immediately stand out from personal or department names. For example, a mailing list for the history department at Cornell might be called history-L@cornell.edu, in order to distinguish it from the address history@cornell.edu which could be the e-mail address for the department office. (A few older lists exist at Cornell that do not end in "-L" since they were set up before the naming rule went into effect.) In this guide we follow the convention of always using an uppercase letter "L" at the end of the list name. This is simply for clarity; a lowercase letter "l" can be mistaken for the numeral one ( 1 ) or a vertical line ( | ). When it comes to sending messages to the list, or sending requests to listproc@cornell.edu about the list, uppercase and lowercase generally do not matter at all. There are a few exceptions to this rule; they are indicated in the documentation. In order to keep mailing list names relatively short, people often choose to use common abbreviations in their names; you will often see "cu" in the name of mailing lists running at Cornell. This abbreviation reminds people that the list was established for use at Cornell. Since there are literally thousands of mailing lists at Cornell, it can be hard to figure out which list someone is talking about. For example, if someone refers to "the 234 list," which of these lists might they mean?   cs234-L@cornell.edu comp-234-L@cornell.edu         history234-L@cornell.edu law_234@law.cornell.edu Without the exact name, it's impossible to know. Make it a habit to refer to a mailing list by its complete e-mail address. Note: Please do not refer to mailing lists as "Listservs." In the same way that not all tissues are "Kleenex" and not all photocopies are "xeroxes," mailing lists is the generic term and "Listserv" is a trademarked name.   Other Methods of Group Comunication Mailing lists hosted on the CIT List Server are only one of several methods used at Cornell to facilitate group communication. Other methods include: Course Info USENET News Other mailing list servers Direct e-mail (from you to a group of recipients) If the forum you are looking for can not be found among the mailing lists hosted on the CIT List Server, perhaps it can be found in one of these other places. For example "Cornell Marketplace" is not a mailing list. It is a USENET News group called cornell.marketplace. Using Mailing Lists home | Introduction | Sending Commands | Obtaining Info About Lists Joining and Leaving Mailing Lists | Posting and Replying to Messages Customizing Your Subscription | Summary of ListProc Commands Archives | Getting Help | Addresses | Using Non-CIT List Servers Last modified: May 23, 2007 Questions about this topic: listmgr@cornell.edu Comments about this web page: cit_pubs@cornell.edu