How
to Subscribe to ELI-Wetlands
The ELI-Wetlands Mailing List
The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit research and education center located in Washington, D.C. See their web page at http://www.eli.org/.
ELI has a Wetlands Program (http://www.eli.org/wetlands.htm) which operates a free electronic mailing list called ELI-Wetlands. Mailing lists function via e-mail. Somewhere there is a computer ("server") which runs a program called "Majordomo." Majordomo maintains a list of subscribers, and each subscriber receives a copy of everything that gets posted. You can reply to a posting (either to the whole subscriber list or just to the original sender), forward a posting to other people (just like you could a normal e-mail message), or post your own announcement/request.
From the ELI Wetlands Program web page (http://www.eli.org/wetlands.htm):
"ELI-Wetlands Listserv
ELI-Wetlands is a ‘listserv,’ which routes incoming e-mail to every list subscriber. By adding your name to the list, you will be joining a community of over 1,000 wetlands experts from federal and state agencies, the regulated community, environmental advocacy organizations, and academia. Topics discussed on ELI-Wetlands include but are not limited to Clean Water Act §404 permitting, mitigation banking, wetlands restoration, and conservation efforts in such regions as the Chesapeake Bay and coastal Louisiana."
Mailing lists are almost totally automated, although there is usually a real person somewhere (the "moderator") that reads all the postings and removes those deemed inappropriate (such as most commercial advertisements).
Subscribe to ELI-Wetlands by sending an e-mail message like this:
To: majordomo@igc.org Subj: <Don’t put anything here—the listserv will ignore it>
In the main body of the message:
subscribe eli-wetlands <your e-mail address>
If you have your e-mail program set up so that a "signature" (such as your mailing address, phone number, etc.) is automatically appended to the end of every message, you should disable that feature for this particular message. The program will not understand that and will probably generate an error message.
If your subscription is successful, you will receive an automated "welcome message" that contains information about the mailing list, like this one.
How to Cancel Your Subscription
Cancel your subscription by sending an e-mail message like this:
To: majordomo@igc.org Subj: <Don’t put anything here—the listserv will ignore it>
In the main body of the message:
unsubscribe eli-wetlands
If you try to unsubscribe and your request is rejected, then send mail again to "majordomo@igc.org" with the following command in the body of your e-mail message:
unsubscribe eli-wetlands <your e-mail address>
Responding to Postings
Responding can be a little tricky, and very embarassing if you’re not careful. In some e-mail programs, simply "Reply"-ing to a message sends your response back to the original sender. However, some e-mail programs will default to "Reply"-ing to all original addressees (i.e., all 1000 subscribers to ELI-Wetlands!). If you want to send a reply only back to the individual that posted the message, make sure the "To:" space in your reply contains only that person’s e-mail address. If you REALLY want the world to see your response, just go ahead and start a new e-mail message, and post it to the entire list (see below).
Posting Messages
Post a message by sending an e-mail message like this:
To: eli-wetlands@igc.org Subj: <keep this short and informative>
One VERY important thing to remember about mailing lists is that there is a difference between the "list server" and the actual mailing list. To do things like subscribe to a list or cancel your subscription, you need to send the appropriate commands to the list server (in this case, majordomo@igc.org). To actually post a message to the list, though, you need to send the message to the list itself (in this case, eli-wetlands@igc.org).
List server software like Majordomo doesn't understand questions about wetland delineation. Likewise, sending an "unsubscribe" command to all 1000 readers of ELI-Wetlands won't cancel your subscription. (It will not only annoy the readers but also generate a lot of useless internet traffic.)