UUBF-L List Manager's Guide

General Issues

To begin with, what do the managers do? What jobs need to be allocated between us?

1. Promoting and defending the list culture, as described in the main part of this Guide. Pointing people to the front page of the Guide when questions arise about "what's on topic?" Modeling those values when dealing with members who have failed to respect them.
2. Helping people who can't figure out how to manage the medium.
3. Sending reminders to the list.
4. Maintaining and developing the Guide.
5. What else?

Email Reminders

Reminder Messages to send to the List

These messages are integral to the use of the Guide. The UUA wants something like the first one sent regularly to all UUA lists; I think the other two would be a good idea too.

At some point it may be possible to append them to all messages as temporary footers; until then, they can go out as individual messages.

1. "Welcome New Members" [Quarterly?]
2. "The UUBF-L User's Guide" [Quarterly]
3. "The Help Command" [Monthly]
4. "Going Nomail" [1 May, 1 June, 1 July, 1 August, 1 December, 1 March
5. "The UUBF-L Archives" [probably only when someone asks]

1. "Welcome New Members" [Quarterly?].

When new people join the list, the list administratots get notices. Then if the list is in one of its quiet periods, we may worry they'll think there's nothing happening here and unsubscribe. (We also get unsubscribe notices all the time.)

So periodically we'll post a message encouraging new people to

• post a brief introduction describing your relationship to Buddhism and to UUism
• ask any questions or start conversation on any subject in our scope that interests you.

Sometimes the messages are thick and fast here, and sometimes we'll go for weeks with none. If I could figure out a way to keep the conversation going at a nice, even pace I'd be in list-manager heaven. Until then, we still get some pretty interesting talk going.

What would you like to talk about?

2. "The UUBF-L User's Guide" [Quarterly]

This list is for Unitarian Univeralists to explore Buddhism, and how Buddhism and UUism meet. Others are welcome, and all are expected to abide by a code of courtesy and kindness.

For details see the UUBF-L User's Guide at <uua.org/uubf/uubf-l/index> or contact list managers Bill, Catherine, Michelle and Sam at <uubf-l-admin@www.uua.org>

3. "The Help Command" [Monthly]

To get a list of email commands for Mailman, the UUBF-L list server, send a message to <uubf-l-request@www.uua.org> with the word "help" in the subject line, or in the body of the message (omit the quotation marks).

4. "Going Nomail" [1 May, 1 June, 1 July, 1 August, 1 December, 1 March]

Please be a good list citizen in regard to your summer plans.

If your emailbox fills up while you're on vacation, your ISP will reject (bounce) further messages. On the eighth day Mailman gets a bounced message, it will disable delivery of messages to you (set you to "nomail"), and notify Sam and me that it has.

If this happens, you are still a member, but you need to reset your mail delivery option:

• Go to <uua.org/uubf/uubf-l/mechanics.html>
• OR contact me and I will tell you how to do it via email.

Best would be if you disable mail delivery temporarily before you go on vacation. If you don't take care of this yourself, then Sam and I have to remember to notify you that Mailman set you to nomail, because there's no automatic reset.

Especially important: please do not leave mail delivery enabled and set up an automatic reply telling everyone who emails you that you're gone. This creates a loop which can fill up your email box *and* the list's!

Thanks for your consideration and have a great time!

5. "The UUBF-L Archives" [probably only when someone asks]

Our list's archive is here:

<http://www.uua.org/mailman/private/uubf-l/>.

To get in, you will need the password you were given when you joined the list (or what you have changed it to).

If you don't remember that, go to <http://www.uua.org/mailman/listinfo/uubf-l> and at the very bottom of the page, enter the email address which you have subscribed to the UUBF-L from. That will take you to the Member Configuration Page, where you can request a reminder of your password.