Good Evening Everyone, A subscriber on one of the lists I admin asked a question about mail lists and message boards and the difference between them. So I thought that might be a good message for everyone. MAIL LISTS: The fact that you can receive this message means that you have chosen to subscribe to the Mundt mail list. To post to the list you must be a subscriber. Any message you send is automatically sent to every subscriber on the list and in turn, you will receive any message sent to the list by any other subscriber. RootsWeb has just under 30,000 different mail lists for states, counties, regions, surnames, special topics, etc. So you have a lot to choose from....<g> The messages are sent in two ways. Regular subscription which means that you get each message immediately as it is posted. Digest version which means that the messages are batched and sent out periodically. If you are interested in finding out other rootsweb mail lists that might be of interest then go to this URL. http://lists.rootsweb.com/ If you are interested in finding out what lists you subscribe to you can check your subscriptions by going to password central and asking for that list. The URL is: http://passwordcentral.rootsweb.com/ All messages sent to the mail lists are archived. You can look at these archives in two ways. If you think you have missed some postings to any of the mail lists or if you just need to review past postings then check the archives for that mail list. Go to this URL and enter the name of the mail list. You can then look at the messages to the list by month. http://archiver.rootsweb.com/ Access to this site is not restricted to subscribers. This means you can check the archives for other lists as well. You can also search past messages for any mail list by going to this URL: http://searches2.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl First enter the name of the list you want to search. You will then get a screen and can search the messages by year. AND... finally.... if you have any questions concerning any mail list you might be on you can contact the list admin by sending a message to: [email protected] Replace the word - listname - with the name of the specific mail list. For example: [email protected] The message will be forwarded to that admin. MESSAGE BOARDS Message boards differ from mail lists in that you do not have to be a subscriber to that specific board. Nor are new postings automatically sent to your e-mail address. To read any new postings to the message board you must go to that message board site. You must also go to the board site to respond to any posting. Postings are retained for years and can be searched in various ways. You can access the message boards from the mail RootsWeb page. You will find a link there that will lead you to this site. http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=main&r=rw Once there you can search for a specific board. Make sure you take time to read the Message Board Rules and Message Board FAQ. Links to these are at the bottom of the page. Both provide helpful information in use of the message boards. You can also access the same message boards from the mail Ancestry site - http://www.ancestry.com/. At the top of the page click on "Message Boards" You will be taken to this site: http://www.ancestry.com/share/ Once there you can search for a specific board. Both mail lists and message boards have admins. In many cases the same admin has both the list and the board. In other cases, there are two different admins. LINK BETWEEN MESSAGE BOARDS AND MAIL LISTS: Some message boards are linked to their corresponding mail lists via a gateway. (Note: Not all mail lists have a corresponding board) In that case, any posting on the message board is automatically sent to the mail list and received by all subscribers. There are advantages and disadvantages to gatewaying and I won't go into that now but watch your mail list messages for the notation that the message has been forwarded from the board. To respond to that message, you must go to the URL listed in that message. A response sent back to the mail list will not reach the original poster. Note that the gateway does not go both ways. Messages posted on the board are sent to the mail list - messages posted on the mail list are NOT sent to the board. Hope all this helps. If you have any questions give me a yell. Take care - Emma