How to use the mailing lists

What a mailing list is

A mailing list is equivalent to sending an email to a bunch of people at once.

The list of people who receive the email is managed by the list owner, who also decides how the list is run, who can join, who can post, and if it is moderated.

Advantages

Privacy - Mailing lists are much more private than newsgroups, your posts are sent to a limited number of members, not to public servers worldwide.

Moderation - Both who may read and who may join is controlled by the list owner. This greatly increase the signal-to-noise ratio over Usenet. Flamewars are less likely and users who post inappropriate posts may be banned.

Disadvantages

Privacy - Any member may end up saving your post and posting it elsewhere; privacy is not guaranteed.

Moderation - There is no guarantee that all members who read are not trolls, spammers or interventionists. Further, if the list is not moderated, posts of those sort may get through, though usually only once as the user will be unsubscribed by the list owner.

How to get a web-based email account for mailing lists

If you don't want all these posts coming to your regular email account, I recommend you sign up for a web-based email account at Hotmail. Keep in mind that this account is *only* accessible via your password, do not lose it or give it to anyone else.

How to sign up

You can sign up for any of the mailing lists described below at Yahoo Groups. (Formerly egroups)

Recommended mailing lists

Mailing list	Description
ash-l	Open mailing list for ASHer's. No moderation, but the list owner will unsubscribe anyone who spams, intervenes or trolls. Come one, come all.
Alt-Suicide-Holiday	Closed mailing list for ASHer's. You must be known to a member of the list in order to be allowed to join or have posted to the newsgroup with the same email address you request admission with. This is expected to be a "safer" mailing list than ash-l, but spammers, interventionists and trolls are not guaranteed to not be members. Unmoderated.
suicidehospice	Semi-open mailing list for suicidal people (not necessarily ASHer's). Posts from new members are moderated by the list owners until the user is well-known. The topic of the list is methods discussion, but much other discussion occurs as well. While the list isn't considered an ASH space per se, the values seem to be much like ASH values and many members are ASHer's.

To add a mailing list to this list, email the webmistress.