The Groton Mailing List

The Groton Email List is used by a group of area residents who trade messages and information about living, working, and playing in Groton, Massachusetts. The list is free and open to all. The list is owned and operated by (Who you can reach at if you have a problem with the list.) Generally a pretty quiet group, we've traded thoughts on everything from recommended plumbers to tax levies and contra dancing. Welcome!

We're moving to a new server, Google Groups that will provide a number of new features, but built on the same group with the same rules. You can join at http://groups.google.com/group/talkaboutgroton/.

What Is A Mailing List?

A mailing list is a service provided by a computer that allows a member of a group to send an electronic mail message to all other members of that group. Of course, anyone can do that if they know all the people they want to address . . . but in this case, a software program on a central semi-public computer keeps track of list members and their electronic addresses. A message to be shared is mailed to the central address. The mailing list server (the central computer) copies the message and mails a copy to each member of the list. When any member of the group sends a message, all members receive it and can reply either to the group or privately, to the sender. Typically, a conversation, or thread, develops as messages flow back and forth among members of the mailing list.

Subscribing and Unsubscribing

There's a special page available to handle subscriptions and unsubscriptions. It's very easy to use, and is located at http://groups.google.com/group/talkaboutgroton?hl=en. If you don't have a Google account, visit https://www.google.com/groups/signin to create a free, secure account. SPAM? It's a fact of life, but member's email addresses are protected as much as they can be when you do anything on the Internet. It's highly unlikely that a SPAMmer will get your address from list email because the addresses are stores in a non-standard format that's difficult for a machine to decipher. Much more secure than a Yahoo group or similar commercial group setups.

Archives

Although the list has been around for a number of years, archives of messages before 2005 are not available. If you are a member, archives of messages are available through your personal account management page.

Rules & Etiquette

Because this is intended to be a fun mailing list where people can freely discuss whatever's on their mind, rules are minimal. In place of rules, try to avoid saying anything on the list that you wouldn't yell at the top of your lungs at a town meeting or in a crowded bar. If you're new to mailing lists, or even if lists are old hat, try to remember that if you're mad about something that someone else posts, not to reply immediately. Sit on the message for a few hours and reread it before you deliver a scorching missive that invites a flame war.

The Rules

• For ease in communicating with others and to keep the list software and the list administrator happy, post messages as plain text. If you post from a WWW browser or Microsoft Exchange, please specify text, NOT HTML or RTF as the message format.
• This is a "restricted" mailing list, which means that only people who are members can post to it. It also means only members can see who is subscribed.
• It a "moderated" list, but this feature of the software is turned off. This means that no one approves messages before they're sent to subscribers, but if something weird (spamming, hate mail, anonymous posts, etc.) happens that requires someone to read messages before they're dispatched, someone will.
• Personal attacks on list members won't be tolerated and will probably result in someone being dropped from the list.
• And finally, the "Brooks Rule:" This is the Groton Mailing List. Please post content that is related to Groton in some way. If you'd like to post queries about the health benefits of natural yogurt or cute anecdotes about Marines' respect for dodgy National Guard pilots, make very sure that they have some Groton content or are directly related in some way to Groton. If you can't do that, please search the Internet for a more appropriate place to share your thoughts.
  

That's it!
Enjoy,

Art

All contents of this WWW page are Copyright (c)1999-2005 by Arthur Campbell. Last revision: 05/05/05.