The CyberCity Initiative:
... The CyberCity Mailing List.
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Preface
This page contains a description of the CyberCity Mailing List, its subscription instructions, and some tutorial information for those not familiar with Internet mailing lists.
The mailing list archive is described elsewhere. Significant postings concerning current status and the complete index of CyberCity articles are also highlighted there, as are Selected Current Topic Indexes - to significant topics (such as Information Age - Societal Impacts and Trends, Privacy and Intellectual Property Rights, Communities and Associations of Interest, Telework and Work-At-Home, Use of the Internet in Schools, The Evolution of Libraries as they Enter the Information Age, State/Local On-line Initiatives and others).
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MAILING
CyberCity is an open and free newsletter distributed through e-mail by the City of Grande Prairie to anyone who subscribes. It contains the ideas, proposals and discussion of all who are interested in Grande Prairie's CyberCity Initiative. Subscription information may be found below.
The CyberCity Initiative is an effort to encourage discussion and action by residents and businesses (including users, suppliers and investors) concerning the ways we might best prepare the city and its residents for the "Information Age," and how we might exploit global information exchange for our economic and general benefit. It is also, of course, an attempt to inform our citizens about the sweeping nature of the information revolution, and to help them to realize that this is a survival issue in the 1990's.
Initially, the CyberCity Mailing List will contain the discussion of alternative ways to help Grande Prairians prepare for, learn about and benefit from the "Information Age." As this initiative goes forward, the list will be used to convey information on all aspects of the initiative: proposals, suggestions, alternatives, implementation tips, success stories, etc. Although the list will be of direct interest mainly to Grande Prairians, many people will be interested in the discussion and other developments. Every municipality in the developed world will be facing these issues sooner or later, for example. There will be no geographic limits to the locations of subscribers; and the list will be widely announced to Internet e-mail users globally, especially those in the local government sector.
An archive of past postings is maintained independently. Significant postings concerning current status and the complete index of CyberCity articles are also highlighted there, as are Selected Current Topic Indexes - to significant topics and their postings.
Information about numbers of subscribers, countries where subscribers are located, frequencies of postings, innovations during the first year, frequently-asked questions, infrastructure advances in Grande Prairie during the first year, etc., may be found in the First Anniversary Edition (digest of 25 January 1997), and in the Second Anniversary Edition (digest of 25 January 1998).
This paper is intended to introduce those not familiar with Internet mailing lists to some of the conventions and methods that are used.
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Subscribing to the CyberCity Mailing List:
Before subscribing to this free mailing list or newsletter, please check the archive of past postings for the last month or two, to determine if the character and content of the list is what you are expecting. If you then decide to subscribe, see the procedures below. This avoids the churning of subscriptions merely to ascertain the character and content of the list.
To subscribe to this newsletter (also called a mailing list), you need an e-mail address. Send a single e-mail message to:
- cmeek@city.grande-prairie.ab.ca ... Leave the subject line as it is or blank, and enter the "subscribe" line below into the first line of the body of the e-mail message, substituting your real first name for "Yourfirstname" and your real last name for "Yourlastname."
[[NOTE: If your browser has forms capability, and if you position the "subscribe" line below toward the bottom of your screen (so you can still see it when the e-mail form pops up), and then click on the "direct e-mail" link above, you will be able to just fill in the subscribe message and send it off. If your browser does not have forms capability, just send us the e-mail message separately. ]]
- subscribe CyberCity Yourfirstname Yourlastname
In an automated list, your message goes to a computer which "reads" the message, and in this case, adds you to the list of people who will receive a copy of all the items posted to the list. By subscribing, you also become one of the potential contributors of ideas, suggestions, comments and discussion.
For the moment, we are going to run this mailing list manually. Chet Meek will function as the moderator of the list, and will also add your name to the list of recipients. We will try to follow the usual conventions of fully automated mailing lists so that any transition later to an automated list handler will cause a minimum of inconvenience all around.
To begin with, if you only want to read the items that are submitted (rather than becoming a contributor), then you can skip the rest of this page for now. Just check the fine print at the end (starting with "Mailing List Owner" in Afterword section), and file it away until you have an idea to contribute.
To submit an idea or post a message to the list (after you have subscribed), prepare an e-mail message, revise and edit it until it says what you want to say. Then add a meaningful subject line, and e-mail it to:
- CyberCity@city.grande-prairie.ab.ca
In a fully automated list, your message also goes to a computer. It checks to see if you are a subscriber on the CyberCity mailing list. If you are, it sends a copy of your message to all of the other subscribers. Depending on loads, and other factors, your message is delivered within minutes (or maybe up to an hour or so) to all the subscribers, including you. When you see your own message in your mailbox, it is your confirmation that the message was sent to subscribers.
Most mailing lists also have what is called a "digest" edition. This allows you to receive all the messages posted in some period (perhaps a day or a week) as a single e-mail message. Initially, we will operate this list as a digest for all subscribers. Messages will be sent daily, or less-often, as they are received.
It is very important to keep these two e-mail addresses separate when the list is fully automated. Your subscription request will only be processed by sending it to the first address; and your posting will only be posted to the list by sending it to the second address. If you send your subscription request to the second address by mistake, the request will be seen as a message, and promptly sent to all the subscribers! This is more annoying to subscribers than you might think. Similarly, if you send your posting to the first address by mistake, that computer will not know what you want. Likely, it will send you a help file in response. In any case, it will not post your message to the list. As long as we are running the list manually, we will be more tolerant, of course.
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Posting a Message to the Mailing List:
When sending a message to be posted on the mailing list, please keep in mind the following conventions from Internet mailing lists:
- That you could probably benefit from reading the posts for a while before making a contribution. This allows you to see what is regarded as appropriate, to learn how tolerant the group is, and to gain a glimpse of what you might expect in response to your planned post.
- That in your first posting it would be appropriate to introduce yourself to the other subscribers on the list. Tell us enough about yourself so we can form some opinions about your ideas, the context from which they came, etc.
- That we want to hear everybody's ideas. The sum of all the best ideas will provide us with the best that the "Information Age" has to offer. A significant skill we will all have to develop for the "Information Age" will be to learn to distinguish between the valid ideas and the bogus ideas, and to evaluate the credentials (and credibility) of a variety of information sources.
- That you should state your ideas clearly and concisely; and be sure to include a meaningful and informative subject line. Everybody will be interested to different degrees in messages posted to the list. By including a good subject line, you help others to get the most out of the list.
- That if you disagree with an idea somebody else has posted, make a note of their e-mail address (which will always be posted with their message), and take it up with them. The result of that exchange may be that each of you will make other postings to the list for all the subscribers. But the discussion of your differences will generally not occur on the list. This has been found to be a good way to keep the list helpful and interesting to all subscribers.
- That if you are promoting something (especially something you are selling), be sure it is very low key, and completely free from sales hype. Experienced network users say "tell me; don't sell me." Endorsements and information about products and services are useful; pure sales pitches are often scorned.
- Initially, the list will be moderated very lightly. This means that most contributed ideas will be posted just as they are received. If discussion begins to overlap, or stray from the intended topic, or becomes argumentative (common problems on lists with lots of lively discussion), then we will adopt a more closely moderated forum. In this model, the moderator reviews the postings for relevance and pertinence, posting the items which are on topic, and referring others back to the contributors for suggested revisions. Many contributors prefer an unmoderated forum; but many subscribers prefer a mailing list that stays on topic and on which there is not too much heated discussion (especially repetitive discussion between individuals or carrying individual or personal points of view). It is always a balancing act. The best solution is to contribute posts which all subscribers will want to see just as they are. We will try to keep it that way as long as we can.
- Keep in mind also that your posting becomes a public document in many respects once you send it to a mailing list. There is no effective way to recall a posting once sent. People may quote from it, comment on it, and post it (or fragments of it) on other lists, etc. And it will be preserved in the archive (see below) of all the list's postings. In that context, it is helpful to make a last check that it says what you would want to show up anywhere (with your name on it). That can also be a good time to be sure your subject line is informative and helpful.
- Be sure your name and e-mail address are included with any message sent to the mailing list. This is how other subscribers will know who has sent the message, and with whom to discuss any differences. A signature file is helpful for this purpose (see the item immediately below).
- There are quite a few other provisos which you will want to consider also. These may be found in an extensive discussion of mailing lists (including signature files, privacy cautions, etc.). Via the City's homepage, it is in the HELP section near the bottom, entitled Help with Internet E-mail and Mailing Lists.
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Mailing List Archive and Other Options:
The mailing list will have what is called an "archive" of past postings. This is nothing more than a compilation of all the posts which have been made to the list. The posts will be organized by date, and can be read by new subscribers or others who are interested in what has been discussed. This is another important reason for a good subject line. When looking over the archive, readers will want to see postings in particular subject areas. Good subject lines are essential for that activity. Significant postings concerning current status and the complete index of CyberCity articles are also highlighted in the Archive, as are Selected Current Topic Indexes - to significant topics (such as Information Age - Societal Impacts and Trends, Privacy and Intellectual Property Rights, Communities and Associations of Interest, Telework and Work-At-Home, Use of the Internet in Schools, The Evolution of Libraries as they Enter the Information Age, State/Local On-line Initiatives and others).
A great many other options are available with mailing lists. We will implement the ideas best suited to our circumstances as conditions warrant, as the list grows, and as we see how the debate and discussion unfolds.
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Signing off or Leaving the Mailing List:
To remove your name from the list of subscribers to the mailing list, send a single e-mail message to:
- cmeek@city.grande-prairie.ab.ca ...with subject line either blank or as-is, and with the signoff line below in the first line of the body:
[[NOTE: If you position the "signoff" line below toward the bottom of your screen (so you can still see it when the e-mail form pops up), and then click on the "direct e-mail" link above, you will be able to just fill in the signoff message and send it to us. ]]
Your name will be removed from the subscriber list. You may, of course, re-subscribe at any time. And you may also review the Archive on the City's web site at anytime (either as a subscriber or as a non-subscriber).
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Below we will list the frequently-asked questions concerning the mailing list and their answers.
For the CyberCity Initiative as a whole, we have prepared a further reading page with frequently asked questions and a suggested reading order.
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Afterword
Mailing list owner: City of Grande Prairie
. The City sponsors this list to assist with the circulation of the information and debate concerning the CyberCity Initiative. The opinions expressed herein are the opinions of the contributors, and are not necessarily the opinions of the City. The City does not accept any liability or responsibility for the ideas, opinions, proposals or complaints, or any of the content circulated in this list from any source. Moreover, the city does not accept any liability or responsibility for any outcome, including but not limited to those which may be indirect or consequential, or which result in any fashion from any of this list's content from any source.
List of Subscribers: We will follow the usual Internet mailing list convention in making the list of subscribers to this mailing list available to anyone who is also a subscriber to the list. This allows contributors to be familiar with their audience. The list of subscribers is made available, of course, with the proviso that it will not be used for marketing or any other unrelated or unauthorized purpose.
List Moderator: Chet Meek, E-mail: cmeek@city.grande-prairie.ab.ca ... direct e-mail.
City of Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada .. Voice: 780+538- 0443 .. Fax: 780+539-1056
List address: CyberCity@city.grande-prairie.ab.ca
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