E-MAIL
DISCUSSION GROUPS
One
of the benefits of the
Internet is the opportunity
it offers to people
worldwide to communicate
via e-mail. The Internet
is home to a large community
of individuals who carry
out active discussions
organized around topic-oriented
forums distributed by
e-mail. These are administered
by software programs.
Probably the most common
program is the listserv.
A
great variety of topics
are covered by listservs,
many of them academic
in nature. When you
subscribe to a listserv,
messages from other
subscribers are automatically
sent to your electronic
mailbox. You subscribe
to a listserv by sending
an e-mail message to
a computer program called
a listserver. Listservers
are located on computer
networks throughout
the world. This program
handles subscription
information and distributes
messages to and from
subscribers. You must
have a e-mail account
to participate in a
listserv discussion
group. Visit Tile.net
at /http://tile.net/
to see an example of
a site that offers a
searchablecollection
of e-mail discussion
groups.
Majordomo
and Listproc are two
other programs that
administer e-mail discussion
groups. The commands
for subscribing to and
managing your list memberships
are similar to those
of listserv.
