Ubuntu Wiki

What Is A Mailing List?

A mailing list is a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is basically just a list of names and addresses, but mailing lists usually comprise of four things: a list of email addresses, the people ("subscribers") receiving mail at those addresses, the publications (e-mail messages) sent to those addresses, and a reflector, which is a single e-mail address that, when designated as the recipient of a message, will send a copy of that message to all of the subscribers.

What Is The "Ubuntu Beginners Team Mailing List?"

The Ubuntu Beginners Team (or BT) Mailing List is just a means of communication for BT members. It should mainly be used to share important ideas or new information, and kept free of riff-raff discussion. It is HIGHLY recommended that if you think you want to join the BT, you subscribe to the mailing list. You don't have to post right away, you can sit and observe at first, but please, don't be afraid to chime in.

How Do I Subscribe?

To Subscribe to the BT Mailing List, all you have to do is sign up at the BT Mailing List Webpage by entering your e-mail, name, and a password. You will then be sent an email requesting confirmation, to prevent others from gratuitously subscribing you.

How Do I Unsubscribe?

To Unsubscribe from the BT Mailing list, you must visit the BT Mailing List Webpage again, and scroll down to the very last textbox. Then enter your e-mail there, and the Mailing List will prompt you by e-mail to unsubscribe.

How Do I Send To The List?

You send an email to the BT Mailing List by sending it to the mailing list address (which is ubuntu-beginners@lists.ubuntu.com). Following which the list server will copy your email and send it to each subscriber on the list.

What is considered proper etiquette when posting to the mailing lists?

• Please wrap lines at 75 characters, since not everyone uses fancy GUI mail reading programs.

• Please respect the fact that bandwidth is not infinite. Not everyone reads email through high-speed connections, so if your posting involves something like the content of config.log or an extensive stack trace, please consider putting that information up on a website somewhere and just provide a URL to it.

• Format your message so that it is legible, and PLEASE DO NOT SHOUT!!!!!. Do not underestimate the effect that a poorly formatted mail message has, and not just on the BT mailing list. Your mail message is all that people see of you, and if it is poorly formatted, badly spelled, full of errors, and/or has lots of exclamation points, it will give people a poor impression of you.
• Please use an appropriate human language for the mailing list.

How Do I Reply To A Post On The List?

Before you reply to a mailing list posting, consider whether or not the reply should be sent to the entire list or just directly to the author. If only the author will be interested in the reply, just send them a private message to their personal Email Address. On the other hand, if your reply contains information of interest to everyone on the list, then you should send it back to the list server for distribution to everyone. To reply to just the last poster, use "Reply". To reply to the entire mailing list, use "Reply All".

On the left is a properly formatted reply that is to be sent to the entire BT Mailing List.

What is considered proper etiquette when replying to a post on the mailing lists?

• Please include relevant text from the original message. Trim it to the minimum, but do not overdo it. It should still be possible for somebody who did not read the original message to understand what you are talking about. (This is especially important for postings of the type "yes, I see this too", where the initial posting was dozens or hundreds of lines.)

• Use some technique to identify which text came from the original message, and which text you add. (A common convention is to prepend ">" to the original message. Leaving white space after the ">" and leaving empty lines between your text and the original text both make the result more readable.)

• Make sure that all replies relating to some topic all have the same subject line (Such as Re: {Subject})
• Please do not top post. By this, we mean that if you are replying to a message, please put your replies after the text that you copy in your reply.
  • A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
  • Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?
  • (This joke is a great example of why top posting is silly.)
• There has been a lot of discussion on using the "Reply" and "Reply to All" buttons. Please remember that you:
  • REPLY if you want to send a private message to the last poster.
  • REPLY TO ALL if you want to reply to the last poster, and have that message appear on the mailing list. (This should send a message TO the last poster, but CC that message to the mailing list)
• Many people use signatures when posting on the Mailing List, when you reply, it's normally conventional for you to remove his signature (and any other parts of the message you find unimportant) and then post your message underneath his quoted message.

I Recieved An Email From An Unfamiliar Address?

Sometimes, Mailing List Subscribers will send you a personal Email from their personal Email address. This is NOT considered part of the mailing list, and you can choose to correspond with them privately by sending to their personal e-mail address. Please be sure that if you are corresponding with a user that you do not CC (Carbon Copy) your Email to the mailing list, as we'll get bothered if we have to read your conversation.

Who's Who?

Usually Email from the BT Mailing List comes from a standard mailing list email address, but you should be able to see who the message is from in the "From" form of your mail client.

On the left is an example of how a message reply should look to you in your inbox.

Thanks :)

Thank you for reading our little guide on Mailing List etiquette, and you've already done the most important step. Reading the wiki!