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FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions about the DIGITALDIVIDE Discussion Group
The DIGITALDIVIDE FAQ is posted at least once a month to the DIGITALDIVIDE discussion group. If you have never read the DIGITALDIVIDE FAQ or if you are planning to post a message for the first time, PLEASE READ CAREFULLY! And because the FAQ contains information regarding list posting policies, I would strongly urge you to save a copy for future reference. The purpose of this FAQ is to answer some of the most common questions regarding this discussion group, and to refer people left with unanswered questions to available sources of additional help. The latest version of the FAQ can also be accessed on the Web:http://www.digitaldivide.net/articles/view.php?ArticleID=54 Submissions, comments, etc, are welcomed, and should be sent to Andy Carvin at andycarvin @ nospam_yahoo.com (with the nospam_please_ removed). COPYRIGHT STATEMENT This FAQ is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ This license states that you are free: You are free: * to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work * to make derivative works * to make commercial use of the work Under the following conditions: Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. Table of Contents 1.1 What is DIGITALDIVIDE? 1.2 What are the posting guidelines for DIGITALDIVIDE? 1.3 Why is the listserv moderated? 1.4 How do I subscribe/post messages to DIGITALDIVIDE? 1.5 Is a daily digest available? 1.6 How do I unsubscribe from DIGITALDIVIDE? 1.7 Is there a DIGITALDIVIDE archive? 1.8 Where do I send administrative questions/complaints/requests? 1.1 What is DIGITALDIVIDE? DIGITALDIVIDE is a moderated discussion group (sometimes called a "listserv," "mailing list" or a "list") coordinated by Andy Carvin. The purpose of DIGITALDIVIDE is to serve as an online community in which people can discuss the wide range of issues related to bridging the digital divide. Community activists, educators, researchers, representatives of commercial and nonprofit enterprises, volunteers, students and concerned citizens are all encouraged to take part in this online discussion. Though the discussion is moderated, anyone may jump in at any time to begin a new topic by posting a message to digitaldivide@digitaldivide.net. There are currently over 3,300 list members from over 80 countries around the world. The DIGITALDIVIDE list is the official email discussion forum of the Digital Divide Network. DDN is a Canadian-based coalition of non-profit organizations and IT companies working together to promote solutions for bridging the digital divide. The network's official website, www.digitaldivide.net is a one-stop online resource to raise awareness about current digital divide issues. Since its launch in December 1999, DDN as provided solutions-oriented coverage of the digital divide and the many practical ways in which communities around the country are addressing it. The network furnishes tools and resources, including the DIGITALDIVIDE list, that individuals and organizations can use as they work to bridge the digital divide in their neighborhoods and communities. 1.2 What are the guidelines for posting on DIGITALDIVIDE? Because DIGITALDIVIDE is a moderated group, all posts that are submitted to the list must be approved by Andy Carvin before they can be distributed to the entire subscribership. All posts must be in plain text (sometimes called ascii text), in order for all members of the list to be able to read them. Never post an attachment or anything coded in HTML, for these messages will seriously mess up digests of the list. If you're going to post to the list, be sure to check that your email software is set up to send messages as plain text or ascii rather than HTML or MIME-encoded. If necessary, make the change in your software's preferences before you post a message. The listserv examines the Digital Divide from a variety of angles, which include (but are not limited to) the following subjects: technology access issues; content creation; online diversity; community building; education, literacy and training; best practices from local, national and international Digital Divide efforts; obstacles to bridging the Digital Divide; new tools for measuring the Divide; public/private and commercial/nonprofit partnerships; and public policy issues In contrast, the following subjects are considered inappropriate and may be rejected for publication: Private posts to individual list members (unless they're a clear benefit to the list as a whole); For-profit advertisements of any type whatsoever; Administrative questions (post these directly to andycarvin @ nospam_please_yahoo.com); Computer virus warnings without adequate verification (see below) Most of the above examples are straightforward, but I'd like to explain the virus warning ban. Every now and then you may receive an email from someone warning you about some new computer virus, encouraging you to spread the word. In 99.9% of all cases, these messages are hoaxes. The virus itself doesn't exist; rather, the hundreds of thousands of emails generated by people spreading the word about it is the actual virus, taking up precious Internet bandwidth. If you are determined to post a warning, though, please check the Virus Warning website at http://www.vmyths.com to confirm or debunk the virus' existence. Sometimes, the occasional off-topic message will be allowed if the subject is clearly of interest to the DIGITALDIVIDE community. But in general, the reason for disallowing these subjects is simply that there are often more appropriate forums for them elsewhere on the Net, and because the vast majority of DIGITALDIVIDE subscribers subscribe to more than one discussion list, they would be bombarded with redundancies. For example, if you have a general question related to education technology, I would highly recommend you post it to the EDTECH list at edtech@h-net.msu.edu. When posting a message to the list, be sure to consider the following: Write clear and meaningful titles. If you're going to post an email to the list, the title of your message should be clear enough to convey the purpose of that message. For example, if I have a question regarding how to start an adult literacy program, I shouldn't title the message as "Question" or "Help." A much clearer title would be something like "Starting an adult literacy program" or "Experience with adult literacy programs?" Or, if you're going to post your first message to the list, you might want to say "Introduction: Bill Gates" (assuming your name was Bill Gates, of course) instead of just saying "Intro" or "Hello." Clear message titles are important because many DIGITALDIVIDE subscribers received hundreds of emails a day, so if you want to be sure your message gets a close look, your title should be clear and should stand out. Try to avoid posting huge messages. You should always say what you want to say, but don't post messages that drag on for pages unless you've got a really good reason for it. Long messages are slower to process and can cause bottlenecks in the listserver. So if you want to announce that you've got a call for registration for a conference, post a summary and let us know how to get a copy of it, instead of posting the entire conference program. Trimming older messages from your new message. Often when there's a discussion on the list, people will post replies to a message and include the older message in their email. This is often a good idea if you want to let people know the context of your reply. However, you should always trim out as much of the older messages as possible - otherwise, your email will be extremely long, which is especially frustrating to people who read the listserv in digest format. Responding to another message: private vs. public posting. Ideally, when a person posts a message to the list, we all like to see responses posted as well, assuming the original poster hasn't requested that the responses be private. When you respond to a message, the mailing list system is set up in such a way that your response will go automatically back to DIGITALDIVIDE and not the original author - please be aware of that when you compose your message. And whenever possible, trim the size of the original message - there's no reason to repost the entire original, since we've all seen it before. Instead, include the highlights and key points to which you're responding. And NEVER respond with an entire daily digest of messages tacked to the bottom of the message - emails that large will never be posted due to size constraints. There's also no need to respond with a post that says "Yes, I agree," or "me too" and nothing else. If you're going to post a message, make sure that message is adding to the conversation. :-) Sign your messages! All posts to DIGITALDIVIDE must be signed with your full name and email address, and preferably your location and what you do. Be sure to say exactly where you are - for example, if I signed my messages Andy Carvin, Principal, Cook Middle School, no one will be able to tell if I'm in Arkansas, Australia or anywhere else. Anonymous postings to listservs in general is considered rather impolite and won't be posted. Besides, it can make it very difficult for people to respond to you privately, since not everyone uses modern email reading software that always identifies the author's name and address (as opposed to the listserv's name and address.) Signing messages is especially important if you're asking a question or are asking people to contact you privately. Posting regular project updates. If you're like me and you like to post updates about your particular website or project on a regular basis, don't bombard us with an overabundance of messages. If your site is dynamic enough to merit a posted update every week or two, then feel free to do it. But if you want to post a message every week just to re-announce your site, even if there aren't substantial changes to the site, please hold off and wait until there's something new to announce. Don't post copyrighted articles without permission. Because this is a public forum accessible to anyone in the world, we would be in violation of copyright laws if any of us (for example) posted complete articles from the NY Times, Washington Post, or Reuters. Most commercial news organizations have strict copyright policies that prevent such posting (though I should point out, Wired News allows full posting of its articles as long as its copyright notice is attached.). If you ever want to bring our attention to a copyright-protected article, either write a summary of it, supply the URL for the original story, or quote a few sentences from it. Never post copyright-protected articles in full. Never post attachments or HTML-encoded messages of any kind! Attachments are problematic because they often slow the listserv's processors to a crawl because of their size -- not to mention the fact that not all list members have email software that will process your attachments. Under no circumstances can attachments be posted to the list. Similarly, messages in HTML cannot be processed by every email reader, so please be sure to always send your messages as "plain text" or "ascii text." This setting can usually be found in your email composer's "options" or "preferences" menu. Don't send autoreply messages to the list! Autoreply messages (like "I am out of the office until November 2....") are the scourge of listservs because if a listserv is unmoderated, list members can be flooded with autoreply messages if the person using it is subscribed to the list. It's also a major hassle to block autoreplies every time someone else posts a message to the list. So if you use an autoreply and it sends messages back to the list, YOU WILL BE REMOVED. So if you must use an autoreply while you're away from your email, either set it up with a filter to avoid replying to messages with the "to:" address as digitaldivide@digitaldivide.net, or unsubscribe from all of your listservs first. 1.3 Why is the listserv moderated? Moderating a listserv isn't a requirement, but it often helps a list function smoothly. In an average week, there are several dozen incidents where people try to post emails that are off-topic, commercial advertisements, personal attacks, or even contain virus attachments. The purpose of moderating isn't to control the discussion - instead, it's to make sure that the discussion can occur without any serious distractions getting in the way. DIGITALDIVIDE's moderator, Andy Carvin, has been using listservs since the late 1980s and has actively moderated lists since 1994. You can learn more about Andy by visiting his blog at www.andycarvin.com. 1.4 How do I subscribe/post messages to DIGITALDIVIDE? There are two options for joining the list: email registration and web registration. Email Registration To subscribe via email, send an email message to digitaldivide-request@digitaldivide.net. In the first line of the body write the following: subscribe Web Registration You can also join the list via the Web. Simply visit http://www.digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide and submit your email address and name in the form fields on the page. Whether you subscribe by email or the website, you’ll then receive an email notification requiring you to reconfirm your subscription. Please follow the directions to make sure you’ve been subscribed to the list. After the server has confirmed your subscription, you’ll receive a welcome message and a password. Please save this password, in case you ever want to change your administrative settings (such as receiving the list in digest format, explained below). Posting Messages When you join DIGITALDIVIDE, please post an introduction of yourself to the group, and feel free to suggest any discussion topics. You don't have to post a message immediately; many people prefer to follow the conversation for a few weeks in order to get a sense of what's a good topic or question to post. List members may post messages at any time by sending an email to: digitaldivide@digitaldivide.net 1.5 Is a daily digest available? Because DIGITALDIVIDE can be a high-volume list at times, you can elect to receive its postings in one large chunk each day. This is the best way to avoid information overload for many people, but it can also slow down one's involvement in the discussion. To receive the digest, send a message to digitaldivide-request@digitaldivide.net and in the body of the message write: set authenticate mypassword set digest plain You'll then receive your list messages in a daily digest instead of individual postings. Be sure to replace the word “mypassword” with your list password. If you’re not sure of your password, send a message to digitaldivide-request@digitaldivide.net and in the body of the message write:
You’ll then receive an email from the server with your password. Be sure to save this for future reference. If you'd ever like to switch back to individual postings, send another message to digitaldivide-request@digitaldivide.net with this command: set authenticate mypassword set digest off and you'll have your settings changed appropriately. Again, please remember to replace “mypassword” with your actual password. 1.6 How do I unsubscribe from DIGITALDIVIDE? To unsubscribe, send a message to digitaldivide-request@digitaldivide.net and in the first line of the message body write:
Or, you can go to http://www.digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide and fill out a request to leave the list. Just be sure to use the email address you subscribed with, and to complete your request by clicking the "leave the list" button. 1.7 Is there a DIGITALDIVIDE archive? You can access an archive of messages from April 2001 until October 2006 here: http://mailman.edc.org/pipermail/digitaldivide/ 1.8 Where do I send administrative questions/complaints/requests? |
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