High Volume, News Groups, and Mail Groups Permission to reproduce granted 11/19/96 From: Don Brutzman Subject: high-volume mailing list techniques To: I3LA Network Design Team Date: Sat, 7 Oct 1995 09:12:38 -0700 (PDT) What I have seen work the best when lots of people are working on a common goal is a mailing list approach, with extras. Newsgroups tend to not be read as frequently and are harder to access for people new to the Internet. Here is how a high-volume mailing list works best: - issue guidance on mailing list posts, purpose of list, put in FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document. - archive all posts for future reference, allowing people to ignore if they choose. These can be searchable via web pages. - have an alternate 'digest' version which only gets sent every so often and collects 10 (or perhaps a week's worth) of messages at a time. This sends you bigger bursts at less frequent intervals. - Do not moderate, i.e. do not filter all messages through a single person. Bad behavior is rarely a problem, timeliness is very important since some educators will use a new list to ask for help or announce meetings. - People troubled by mail list volume are encouraged to use the delete key, the digest version, the archive version, or to get a better connection/mail program. I started using the free mailer 'elm' this year and it makes all the difference. Since I often receive over 100 messages each day, the ability to rapidly react pays big dividends. The alternative is simple - don't participate, or use a newsgroup and occasionally miss messages or get them too late. - Please note that high volume is not the goal here. FAQs, explanatory home pages, and the digest/searchable archive techniques listed above actually help keep volume down. Don Brutzman Naval Postgraduate School, Code UW/Br work 408.656.2149 Monterey California 93943-5000 USA [Root 200] fax 408.656.3679 AUV Underwater Virtual World ftp://taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil/pub/auv/auv_uvw.html A:\Brutzman.doc