ISH-RFS: The Ishmael List
**** THE ISHMAEL INTERNET MAILING LIST FAQ VERSION 3.0 ***
*** WHAT IS THE ISHMAEL LIST?
It is a forum for the discussion of the ideas and principles of the works of Daniel Quinn, including -Ishmael-, -Providence-, and -The Story of B-. Of course this is just the general framework, the actual content is almost entirely up to the list's members. Possible topics include (but are not limited to): sustainable living, different aspects of 'Mother Culture', activism, other
books, scholarly papers, etc. relevant to the discussion...but you get the idea.
*** HOW DO I SIGN UP?
Send a mail message to ishmael-list-request@monitor.com with the
ONLY word in the body:
SUBSCRIBE
Note that you don't put your name, your e-mail address, a .signature
line, or anything else here. The automatic request handler is rather
picky about these things.
*** HOW DO I GET TAKEN OFF THE LIST?
Send a mail message to ishmael-list-request@monitor.com with the
ONLY word in the body:
UNSUBSCRIBE
The same caveats apply here as with the SUBSCRIBE command.
*** HOW DO I GET THE MOST CURRENT LIST INFO?
Send a mail message to ishmael-list-request@monitor.com with the ONLY word in the body:
INFO
Keeping in mind the rules above.
*** HOW DO I CHANGE MY ADDRESS, REQUEST INFORMATION, ETC?
Direct all inquiries or problems to owner-ishmael-list@monitor.com. This is better than sending messages directly to me for two reasons:
- your message will be tagged with which list you are on, which is
helpful because I run more than one
- you don't have to rememeber my address :-)
PLEASE do not send administrative messages to the main list address, as it clutters up the message flow with useless stuff and wastes net bandwidth copying a subscription request to 150+ people who might be paying for their net access.
*** HOW DO I USE THE LIST?
To send a message to the other members of the list, address it to:
ishmael-list@monitor.com
You will get a copy of your message once the system has dispatched the copies to everyone, which is your confirmation that the post was successful.
*** IS THERE A DIGEST FORMAT AVAILABLE?
Yes. Find subscription information here.
*** ARE THERE ARCHIVES OF OLD MESSAGES?
Not officially.Some people on the list have quite a few old messages stored up, though so you might try asking and perhaps someone will help you out.
*** IS THERE A WEB SITE FOR THE LIST
Not officially, but there is a companion site for -Ishmael- at: http://www.ishmael.com
*** ARE THERE ANY RULES/ETIQUETTE GUIDELINES I SHOULD BE AWARE OF?
Glad you asked :-)
The main rule of thumb on this list is to be polite. Allow others to have their opinions without attacking them. If someone says something that offends you, stop and count to 32 in binary (computer geeks get a bit of an edge here) and then, if you still really -have- to berate the person, at least consider directing your reply to the party in question privately, as it's more than likely that the rest of the list isn't interested. Some corrolaries of this rule:
- Please keep signatures of a reasonable length...the standard for this is four lines, but I don't get too uptight unless it gets really silly.
- If you are replying to a message someone else sent to the list, either send your reply privately to the person who sent the original message OR (this is an exclusive or, for you logicians) send the message to the list as a whole. What you should -not- do is send a message to the person directly and then carbon-copy the rest of the list. The reason for this is simple...the person whose message you are replying to is -already- on the list, so if you also address it to them directly, they're going to get two copies of your mail, which is irritating at best, and can actually cost people money depending on what kind of net access they have. Note that this undesirable behaviour is a "feature" of some mailing systems, but I'm leaving it up to you to learn how your system works and take steps to prevent the problem. This has been the #1 annoying problem for my mailing lists, so I'll probably be mailing you if I notice it happening.
- Please keep quoting of other people's messages to a minimum. The traffic on this list isn't that great that people can't recall what you are referring to most of the time, especially if the messages are very close together. If you need to quote a few lines to make your point clear, that is fine, or if you have a very complex rebuttal to another person's post, quoting their message and then inserting your comments immediately after the pertinent sections is acceptable. What I do -not- want to see is people quoting a 200-line post in its entirety and then saying "Yeah, I agree!" at the end. Again, this behaviour may be automatic for your mailing system, but it is annoying in the context of a discussion list, and it wastes a lot of bandwidth and disk space, so it's up to you to learn your software and make sure it doesn't happen.
- Be advised that your disk quota is your responsibility...if mail starts bouncing off of your account, I have no choice but to take you off of the list temporarily and wait for you to get back to me when the problem is resolved.
- If you cancel your e-mail account or change addresses, PLEASE send an unsubscribe request to this and every other mailing list you are on. Otherwise we don't find out that you're gone until mail starts bouncing back off of your nonexistent account, and this is tedious and messy to take care of.
Now, I probably sound like I'm a bit uptight, but that's actually not the case. I have to address all the possible problems, just to be clear, but very seldom do I have to intervene on the list in any way...the primary goal is to allow people to exchange ideas, opinions, and information -- the rules are only there as guidelines to make sure that function isn't impeded.
Do have fun, that's what all this is really here for!
*** THANKS FOR READING ALL THE WAY TO THE END!
Jason Braddy
Former List Moderator
Stephen R. Figgins
Current List Moderator
owner-ishmael-list@monitor.com
a.k.a.
fig@monitor.com
12/18/97
Conversations Ishmael
Email: ishmael@angelfire.com
