Message Handling Skills

Typically, interesting listservs have a large number of subscribers and the number of messages sent each day can be quite high. It is very easy for a newcomer to listservs to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume. There are some common sense stategies that can help you cope with all the messages though.

The first thing to remember is that you don't have to read every thing that you receive from the listserv. Some listservs have a moderator or team of moderators who see all messages before anyone else and deletes mistakes or inappropriate messages. Most do not though, and even with a moderator the topics of listservs are generally broad enough that every discussion that takes place on the list might not be of interest to you. Scanning messages and skipping or deleting uninteresting messages is a common practice among experienced listserv patrons. You should watch for just the quality messages that relate to your own interests. Develop the habit of deleting unrelated messages.

Once you've gotten rid of all the unwanted messages, you can further organize the messages left to help simplify your reading. If you are using Eudora or a similiar mailreader that allows you to create multiple mail folders it is possible to save all messages from a listserv to a single folder to separate them from other messages you receive. Separating messages allows you to prioritize your reading time between messages sent directly to you and from different listservs. If a listserv has a particularly high volume you can even create multiple folders, one for each topic within a listserv, and a tree structure of folders for each listerv.

Finally, you can do your part to help keep the email environment "clean." Since many listserv messages are simple question/answer messages, asking for a private response to these types of messages spares everyone on the listserv a copy of the response messages. If others express interest in the responses or if you feel it would be of value to the list, you can offer to collect, edit, and then repost the best responses back to the listserv. You might add the following note to your original posting: "I'll post a summary of the responses I receive to this listserv at a later date." If you post a response to a question yourself, you should always take a moment and consider whether it would be best to reply privately to the person who asked the question or publicly to the list.

Activity:
1. Explore the listserv listings at http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS and pick a listserv to which you'd like to subscribe. Write down:

A. The topic of the listserv____________________________________
B. The administrative address for subscribing____________________
C. The list address for posting messages____________________
NOTE: B. and C. will always be different addresses!

IMPORTANT: Be sure to write down and save the exact steps and addresses for unsubscribing.

D. Steps to unsubscribe__________________________________________

2. If you are working with a group, forward a public copy of one of the listserv messages to your group to show you've successfully subscribed to a new listserv, and give a one paragraph description of the nature of the list.