Administrative Address

Administrative requests -- a request to be added to the list, dropped from the list, or asking for an index of messages that have been sent to the list -- are sent to the list's administrative address.

There may be a person on the other end of this address, but most often administrative requests are received and interpreted by LISTSERV, Majordomo, or ListProc.

For example, I recently heard about a new list called E-CARM for discussions of electronic commerce. I got the address at Florida State and learned that they used ListProc. So I sent an email -- not to E-CARM but to ListProc:

listproc@lists.fsu.edu

Because my email was going to a machine and not a person, I didn't bother with the howdies and intros. In fact, they would confuse the machine. In the message area I wrote:

subscribe e-carm Douglas Anderson

Almost immediately, I received this return email from ListProc.

Fifteen minutes later, I received another email. Here's the first part; the rest is below. Note that it's coming from Majordomo.

You would not have this kind of contact with a newsgroup; the newsgroup is more likely to have a FAQ that covers the information in the rest of Judie and Rajiv's email.

List Address

The other address is for the mailing list itself. This is the address to which you send messages for dissemination to the entire mailing list. You can, of course, also reply directly to the author of the message.

Some lists are moderated. This means that each message is reviewed by a human to ensure that it is appropriate and in keeping with the purposes of the list before it is redistributed to the list's subscribers. The moderator tends to delete spam before the list members see it.

Some lists are restricted -- subscriptions to the list are not available to the public. For example, some police mailing lists require a badge number and a check with the officer's local supervisor.

Still other lists are completely open: they are unmoderated, open to anyone, and a person does not have to subscribe in order to send messages to the list.

Judie and Rajiv are doing a great service -- unpaid, time-consuming, and generally thankless -- for the community of folks interested in electronic commerce. In addition to the subscribe / unsubcribe info, their welcoming email also included the following on E-CARM's purpose and on netiquette in general.

Note that they are declaring the list unmoderated. I take that to mean that if everyone stays on topic, they'll be happy to let the majordomo software do all the work. If the time comes (as indeed it did often in the two weeks after I subscribed) when they need to intervene a little, they will. Meanwhile, here's what the want new subscribers to know.

Purpose of E-CARM

For hundreds of years, librarians have been responsible for classifying, cataloguing, indexing and retrieving information, but the true value of these tasks didn't become manifest until computers came into widespread use. Likewise, with the advent of the world wide web and e-commerce, the need to actively and aggressively manage a wide spectrum of rights (privacy, access, free-speech, copyright, trademarks / secrets, patents, etc.) -- regardless of whether they are derived from statute, contract, or convention -- is now coming to the fore.

Against this backdrop, it is the aim of E-CARM to serve as a forum where we can discuss issues related, but not limited, to:

* secure transactions
* the use of digital signatures and certificates for signing documents
* competing rights management models
* the challenges posed by the buying and selling of intangible goods
* supporting technologies and approaches for enabling e-commerce,
   e.g. ECMS, watermarking, cryptolopes, smart cards, EDI, etc.
* measurement and accountability
* interoperability
* the development of standards

While the list is open to all interested parties, ideally, we would like to see the bulk of the discussions directed towards managers and administrators who will be responsible for the implementation of new technological approaches into their current business/administrative practices.

In short, E-CARM has been set up in order to provide an opportunity for the exchange of ideas, opinions and information. While we do not permit advertising per se, the list may be used for announcements of events, products / services, publications, proposals, new sites / reports / initiatives, pending legislation, and so on.

Given the fact that the issues raised by this list should be of interest to a global audience, we would like to point out that while English as the language of discussion may predominate, we would encourage anyone who feels more comfortable expressing themselves in their native language to do so and the rest of us will do our best to accommodate you.

Finally, it is our hope that the discussions taking place on E-CARM will not only stimulate ideas for innovative approaches to e-commerce and rights management, but when taken as a whole, they will become an invaluable resource to the pioneers and practitioners who are endeavoring to bring about a paradigm shift that will usher in a new world order.

Email Etiquette

Because this list is NOT moderated, we ask subscribers to follow some general guidelines:

1. Try to keep discussion focused on topics related to e-commerce and rights management issues. When participating in a general discussion, label as the "subject" the topic or message you are responding to, as several strands of discussion may be going on at once.

2. When replying to a message, please provide only a summary of what you are replying to or delete all of the original message except what is pertinent to understanding your response.

3. Pick a good "Subject" header. Replying to a subject that says "Re: Digest No. 51" is easy but makes it hard for others to find out what you are posting about. The result is likely to be that folks will delete your message without reading it.

4. Watch your "cc" and "bcc" headers. Try to erase the duplicates being sent out.

5. If you have a response to a message not likely to be of general interest, address it to that individual, rather than replying to the whole list. Unless you address them differently, all your replies to the list get general distribution. If you sent in a post and you get lots of interesting replies but see that they have not been sent to the list,
summarize them and send them to the list so that all of our subscribers can benefit from them. By the same token, try to avoid burdening the list with excessive me-tooism.

6. Do not send subscription related commands to e-carm@lists.kc-inc.net.   Those messages go to the listserv server at: majordomo@list.kc-inc.net  (I realize that we are repeating ourselves here, but this one can't be emphasized enough!)

7. As much as possible, stick to the topics of the list which have been outlined in the welcome statement.

8. If you are unhappy with the direction of the list, start a thread on a subject that interests you. The list will become what you make of it, nothing more, nothing less.

9. No ads, however product / service announcements of general interest to the list (within reason) will be permitted.

10. Listserv automatically deletes subscribers whose mail bounces for four days. If you stop getting mail, please check and see if you are subscribed.

11. Above all, be nice. We all make mistakes. Courtesy and civility are the hallmark of the Internet. If we remember that, we will all benefit. Based on the experience of veteran lists, it has been suggested that in order to avoid becoming involved in a heated argument, try keep the following rules of good conduct in mind:

	understand the other person before seeking to be understood
	assume the other person is well-intentioned, and seek to make this assumption explicit
	assume that there is a way of framing the issue that makes both of you "right"
	try to build a person-to-person relationship with the other person
	as far as possible, deal with it privately rather than publicly
	don't leave important issues unspoken, even if they are difficult to raise i.e., get it on to the verbal channel, explicitly, and don't leave it to the nonverbals
	if all else fails, slow the process down

Weather report: I didn't make much effort to gussy up this page because I wanted to preserve the flavor of the original e-mails. What part of this page is foggiest? What part is clearest? I hope you subscribe to a list soon.