faq...help me!
- what is a mailing list?
- what's the different between a discussion and an announcement list?
- how do I subscribe to a mailing list and what's the difference between digest and individual modes?
- what do the list owner and the moderator do?
- how do I switch between individual and digest modes on a mailing list?
- what's the difference between an open and closed mailing list?
- can I post html emails to the Chinwag lists?
- how do I unsubscribe from a mailing list?
- where can I find more mailing lists?
- where is the web archive of the mailing lists at Chinwag?
- other questions...
If your question is not listed here, each list has it's own information page:
Put simply, a mailing list, like it's real-world counterpart is a list of email addresses. How these addresses are treated depends on the type of list and also whether the list is intended for the general public or a specific group of people. Broadly speaking, the lists at Chinwag are intended for the general public. Each public mailing list hosted at Chinwag has a dedicated page, which you can reach directly by using the menu on the left-hand side of your screen. If you have any problems or queries with any of the mailing lists here, your first port of call should be the list's owner.
2. what's the different between a discussion and an announcement list?
A discussion list is intended to allow members of the list to discuss a particular subject area via email. Email that is sent to the list, will then be distributed to everyone else on that list, sometimes via a moderator. For a large list, this may mean a single message being re-distributed to several thousand people, so it's worth thinking about what you put in your message and only including as much of the message you're replying to, as necessary. There is a useful guide to etiquette for mailing lists on the links page. By their very nature discussion lists are two-way, with members both sending and receiving email. They will, in time, take on a life of their own, with the nature of the list growing organically by virtue of the people on the list.
An announcement list is a one-way affair, as the name suggests. They are used for product announcements, keeping customers up-to-date, and increasingly by news and sport organisations to provide frequent bulletins to subscribers via email.
3. how do I subscribe to a mailing list and what's the difference between digest and individual modes?
There is a subscription form on each list page, which you can use to subscribe to the mailing lists. You get to these pages by using the menu on the left-hand side of this page. Many lists have two modes: individual and digest.
Individual Mode
Each message posted to the mailing list is relayed to you individually. On a high traffic mailing list, they may mean a great number of single emails.
Digest Mode
Instead of receiving individual messages, they are grouped together and mailed to you (along with a handy list of the subject lines) at a specified interval. This is recommended for mailing lists which have a high volume of traffic.
If you have any problems subscribing, you should contact fixEmail('help', 'chinwag.com', 'problems').
4. what do the list owner and the moderator do?
The list owner is responsible for the day-to-day running of the mailing list, and should be your first port of call if you're experiencing any problems. The list owner's email address is listed on each mailing list's page. List owner's will be able to help you subscribe, unsubscribe or change from digest to individual (or vice-versa) if you're having problems.
The list moderator only exists if the list is a moderated one! Often it is the same person as the list owner. The moderator's role varies from list-to-list, but broadly speaking their role is to keep conversation on track. Moderator's will see each email before it is posted to the mailing list.
5. how do I switch between individual and digest modes on a mailing list?
There are details on each list's FAQ page, which you can reach from the menu at the top of the page in each section. Basically, changing from one mode to another requires you to send an email to the correct address for each list (eg: digest-listname
lists [dot] chinwag [dot] com)
6. what's the difference between an open and closed mailing list?
An open mailing list is open to the general public, and generally this means that you will be able to subscribe and unsubscribe to the mailing list as you wish. However, a closed mailing list is intended for a specific group of people, and membership will normally be restricted i.e. you're request to join the mailing list will have to be approved by the list owner.
7. can I post html emails to the Chinwag lists?
Unfortunately you can't post html mails to the Chinwag lists. There are several reasons why this isn't possible. To find out more, read the page about plain text.
8. how do I unsubscribe from a mailing list?
On each list's web page, which you can reach directly by using the menu on the left-hand side of the screen, there is a web-form that will help you to unsubscribe from a mailing list. Please remember, you must use exactly the same email address you originally used to subscribe to the list. If you have any problems, the list's owner will be able to help you out, their email address will be listed on the same page. Although your request will be processed immediately it may take up to 36 hours for the email to stop, especially if you were subscribed using individual mode. This happens because outgoing email gets put into a queue, and particularly if it's a high volume list, a certain amount of email will already be queued for you before your unsubscribe request is received.
9. where can I find more mailing lists?
There are some other handy mailing list resources on the Useful Links page.
10. where is the web archive of the mailing lists at Chinwag?
Err...good question. Web archives and a search engine is planned for the website soon. Please be patient while we get our act together!
If you've got any other questions, suggestions, problems, things that should be added to this FAQ etc. then please feel free to contact us.
