FOF-CNY@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU

fofcny — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:37:21 +0000

What Is FOF-CNY?

The Central New York Friends of Folk (FOF-CNY) is an unmoderated listserv-based discussion group devoted to discussions on folk music — both traditional and contemporary. Its email address is FOF-CNY@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU (not case sensitive).

The FOF listserv was set up to aid in discussions pertaining to the promotion of folk music artists, venues, and event calendars. The purpose of this page is solely to act as an aid to subscribing, configuring mail settings, and reviewing other pertinent listserv-related commands for the FOF-CNY discussion group. For more information about folk music in Central New York, visit the main Friends of Folk website at http://www.folkus.org/fof/.

What is a Listserv?

Listservs are a form of Internet mailing list (sometimes called discussion lists). They are exactly that: lists of people who have signed up to receive email related to a given topic.

Just as a person can forward to another user email that he or she receives, a mailing list (list for short), is a special Internet email address that automatically forwards every email message it receives to everybody on the list. People with something to contribute or a question to ask send email to the list, and with hours or minutes, everyone on the list receives a copy of that message.

FOF-CNY (or more properly FOF-CNY@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU) is the address you use to send an email message to everybody who has joined the list.

But how do you join the list?

To join a mailing list, you first have to subscribe. Since the job of processing new subscriptions is handled by a computer, joiners must phrase the request to subscribe in a special word order so that the computer recognizes it as a request to join.

Think of the computer as a subscription agent: you want to join the FOF-CNY mailing list, but you have to subscribe through an agent that adds your email address to the list.

That agent is the listserv (or more properly LISTSERV@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU). Requests to subscribe or unsubscribe are handled by the listserv computer. (See the next section Subscribing to FOF-CNY for more complete directions.)

Subscribing to FOF-CNY

No restrictions are made to limit membership on the FOF-CNY listserv. But before you can send or receive mail, you must first have subscribed to the list. This is done by sending email to:
LISTSERV@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
with a line of text following this format:
subscribe fof-cny Your-Name

For example:
subscribe fof-cny Woody Guthrie

For security reasons, to prevent bogus subscriptions on the list, you will be sent an email to confirm your subscription. A confirmation number will be coded in the “Subject:” field. All you have to do is reply to that email within 48 hours. Include the single line of text: ok

It is not necessary to quote the text of the original message, but leave the “Subject:” field intact.

Sending Mail To FOF-CNY

To send mail to all the other subscribers on the FOF-CNY list, address it to
FOF-CNY@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU (not LISTSERV@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU, ok?).

It is considered good form to include a “Subject:” field since most mail programs display that information if it is available. It is also processed in the digest format.

Please take care in replying to FOF-CNY mail. For some reason, the default “Reply to:” field is “FOF-CNY-REQUEST@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU”. This is simply an alias for the list owner. He will not want to receive your posting and will more than likely discard it. If you want the FOF-CNY listserv to receive it, be sure to reply to the address in the “From:” field, “FOF-CNY@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU”.

Signing Off FOF-CNY

To unsubscribe, send email to:
LISTSERV@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
with a line of text saying
unsubscribe fof-cny

Requests to unsubscribe which are addressed to FOF-CNY@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU, will very likely be missed (the list owner tends to use the digested format and has bad reading habits).

Receiving Mail As A Digest

Subscribers of the FOF-CNY listserv can opt to receive it in the form of a daily digest. To do this, send email to:
LISTSERV@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
with a line of text saying
set fof-cny digest

Set it back to the non-digest mail setting with the command:
set fof-cny mail

Turning Off the Listserv for Vacations

If you go away on a vacation, you may opt to turn your mail off

temporarily rather than unsubscribing. This means you won’t have to go through the extra confirmation step to re-subscribe. To do this, send email to:
LISTSERV@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
with a line of text saying
set fof-cny nomail

You can set your mail back on with either of the following commands:
set fof-cny mail
or
set fof-cny digest

Changing Other Settings

Besides the mail | digest | nomail settings described in earlier sections, the listserv allows you change other settings.

By default, the listserv will not send you a copy of your own email when you post it to FOF-CNY. To “reproduce” a copy for yourself, send email to:
LISTSERV@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
with the command:
set fof-cny repro

Return it to the default setting with the command:
set fof-cny norepro

You can hide your email address and name from other subscribers on the listserv with the command:
set fof-cny conceal

Return it to the default setting with the command:
set fof-cny noconceal

Checking Your Status

The listserv software allows you to see who is subscribed to the fof-cny list and also to check your own settings (i.e., are you set to receive mail, digests, nomail, etc.)

For a list of all the non-concealed subscribers, send email to:
LISTSERV@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
with the command
rev fof-cny

To view your own mail settings, use the command
q fof-cny

You can issue multiple listserv commands in a single email as long as they each appear on separate lines.

If your mailing program appends a signature file onto your email, you might want to get into the habit of concluding lists of commands with a final command:
end
prior to the signature so that the listserv program will ignor it. This is also true for the “subscribe”, “unsubscribe”, and various “set fof-cny” commands described in earlier sections.

Friends of Folk Listserv