About TSA-LIST@UMAIL.UMD.EDU

Taiwanese Student Association,

University of Maryland

Posted on Sep. 9, 1997

TSA Mailing List Service

The following is a description of the services currently provided by this mailing list, and the policy regarding to its usage. We urge you to read through these guidelines, and send your comments and suggestions for further improvement to the staff of TSA.

I. Introduction.

This mailing list is a service provided by the Taiwan Study Association (TSA). It is basically an electronic mail (email) broadcast service where one can send mails to every person subscribed to the service. The purpose of this mailing relay is to broadcast the information of TSA activities to its members and to establish the communication between her members. Anyone with an Internet email address can subscribe to the service and send/receive information via emails.

The mailing list is owned by TSA, and is managed by its staff, usually referred as the TSA mailing list managers. TSA does not represent any commercial organization, nor any political party. The mailing group [TSA], mentioned below, is used for official announcements related to this association. All mails forwarded from other mailing groups do not reflect nor contain any segment of the policies of TSA.

II. Mailing Groups.

To meet various interests of our network subscribers, different groups are provided to cover different topics. We call them mailing groups.

Each subscriber can choose to subscribe to one or more mailing groups whose topics are of his/her own interests. You'll receive a mail listing all the currently available mailing groups.

III. How to send a mail to a mailing group?

All users who subscribe to at least one mailing group can send mails to any mailing group. And each mail can only go to one mailing group.

To send a mail to a specific mailing group, just send the mail to tsa-list@umail.umd.edu with a subject complying with the following syntax.

Subject: [intended-group-name] your-subject-starts-here

The server program is case-insensitive, and one could also use just the first FOUR letters of a group name, instead of the full group name.

For example, to post an ad for a speech event, one would send this mail to the [Activities] mailing group with either of the following subject lines.

Subject: [Activities] Speech
Subject: [Acti] Speech

Note that the intended group name must appear in the subject line immediately after the key word "Subject: ". Also note that mails without specifying a valid group name, or failing to put the group names in the right place of its subject line would be rejected and returned back to the sender. As a result, all mails simply generated by the "reply" ("r" or "R") command in mail would be rejected, since "reply" would insert the word "Re:" right after the key word "Subject: ".

You can also retrieve old mails that were posted over the mailing list a while ago. For example, to retrieve all mails posted to [Housing] since May 30, 1997, use the following subject line.

Subject: [?Housing] 5/30/97

Note that the date given in the subject line would be interpreted as "month/date/year." That is, 6/30/99 is interpreted as June 30, 1999.

IV. Subscribing/Unsubscribing.

The mailing list server program also handles subscribing and unsubscribing automatically. To subscribe to some mailing group(s), one simply sends a mail to tsa-list@umail.umd.edu with the following subject line.

Subject: [subscribe] group-names-separated-with-blanks

To unsubscribe from some mailing group(s), one simply sends a mail to tsa-list@umail.umd.edu with the following subject line.

Subject: [cancel] group-names-separated-with-blanks

Notice there is no place here to give your email address. The server program always assumes you request services applied to the account from which you make the request. So people with multiple accounts should send subscribe request from the account that they use the most. Also note that group TSA is mandatory, and any subscription would automatically add you to that group.

Changing one's email address in the mailing list can be done in two steps: first to send a cancel request from your original account and then to send a subscribe request from your new account.

V. Other Administrative Requests.

Other useful commands to help the users with administrative requests are given below. 
Command 		What you get back from the server program.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help			A brief reference to the mailing list services

Groups			A list of all the current mailing groups

Staff   		Your mail would be forwarded to the staff
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To issue a command, just put the command, enclosed in "[ ]", in the mail's subject line, right after the key word "Subject: ". For example,

Subject: [help]

For more information, please send mails to the staff.

VI. Policy statement.

Guidelines for using the TSA mailing list is given below.
  1. Only users who subscribe to at least one mailing group are allowed to send mails to the mailing list.
  2. Do not send offensive or inappropriate materials. In particular, no personal attack/threatening is allowed.
  3. Mails, according to their contents, should be sent to appropriate mailing groups.
  4. Do not repeat the same mail in a short period of time.
  5. Do not send "test mails".
  6. All responses regarding the contents of an individual mail should be sent either to the sender ONLY, or to the "Discussion" mailing group.
  7. Please report problems (e.g. returned mails) to the managers.
TSA, as the provider of the service, reserves the right to remove from the mailing list any subscriber with severe violations of the given guidelines.

For comments and suggestions on the mailing list service, please send mails to the managers or to the mailing group "Staff".

VII. Groups

The following are the current available mailing groups. 
Group Name            Description
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  TSA             TSA announcements, including events held by TSA.
                  Only TSA committee members can send mails to this group,
                  and it is mandatory for all subscribers to subscribe to
                  this group.

  Activities      Event announcements, most likely from other organizations,
                  with (somewhat) specific time/place/things-to-do.

  Housing         For posting housing/rental/sublease information,
                  rooms/housemates/roommates wanted, etc.

  Sales           For posting sales information, e.g. cars, furnitures, etc.

  Jobs            For posting job opportunities and job wanted information.

  Discussions     For posting follow-ups/comments/discussions.
                  No personal attack is allowed. And please do not use any
                  negative words.

  Study           Announcements to members of study group.
                  Discussions on current topic among members.

  Miscellaneous   Other mails that don't fit in any group above, such as
                  recommendations to auto shops, insurance policy, etc.

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VIII. Acknowledgement

TSA is indebted to Chialin Chang, who provides the original mailing list server program.

Comments to TSA.