An electronic mailing list for the use of the entire Minnesota prevention community is now available to you. If you don't know what an electronic mailing list is, hang on; we'll define this tool of the Internet and give some specific information on how you can subscribe to our new list. You will also notice that some sections of this column are highlighted. This is to let you know that we are defining a word, so that you can use these columns as a quick glossary to Internet and technology terms.

Electronic Mailing Lists

A mailing list is a method of using e-mail or electronic mail to communicate with large groups of people. It is sometimes called a listserv because of one type of software for managing such lists. Whereas regular e-mail allows one person to send a message to one other person (or a number of people if you know their e-mail addresses), a mailing list provides one e-mail address that can be used to send your message to everyone else who is on the list, without knowing everyone's address. People get on the list by subscribing, just like subscribing to a magazine or newsletter. The difference is that once you are subscribed, you can contribute to the content of the list.

Most lists are focused on one particular topic area. There are hundreds of lists covering everything from horses to politics to computer software, and the general accepted practice is that list contributions will conform to the topic of the list. If you start sending messages about flood relief to the members of a list on Scottie dogs, they may be sympathetic to your cause but will probably refer you to other venues. There are other accepted (or expected) practices on most mailing lists that include: reading other messages for a while before contributing, not being hostile, quoting portions of messages you are referring to and generally treating others in a respectful way.

One source of confusion for people new to mailing lists is that there are usually two addresses associated with any list. The administrative address and the list address. The administrative address is the address where you send requests to subscribe and unsubscribe to/from a list. The list address is the actual address used to send messages to all of the other subscribers. It is important to keep these addresses clear because another accepted/expected practice on mailing lists is to NOT send your request to unsubscribe to the entire list membership.

Announcing MN-Prev

The Minnesota Star of the North Prevention Coalition along with the Minnesota Prevention Resource Center has created a mailing list called MN-Prev. This list will be an open forum for people in Minnesota to discuss important prevention issues. The staff of both projects will be on the list to direct inquiries if necessary, but in general the list will be for announcing and discussing important events and issues related to the prevention of alcohol, tobacco, drug, violence and other problems.

To subscribe to our list do the following: send an e-mail to autoshare@miph.org with the following text in the body of your message: sub mn-prev Your Name (where Your Name is, type your actual name). You will receive a confirmation message once you are subscribed which you should keep in a safe place. This message will contain instructions for unsubscribing from the list.

Once you are subscribed you can send messages to mn-prev@miph.org that will go to everyone else who is subscribed, and you will start receiving list messages.

That is all there is to it! Remember that the more people that subscribe to the list, the better the flow of ideas and information. Please share this announcement with others who might have an interest in being a part of this discussion and welcome to the list!