Beginning March 2nd, 2020 the Mailing Lists functionality on RootsWeb will be discontinued. Users will no longer be able to send outgoing emails or accept incoming emails. Additionally, administration tools will no longer be available to list administrators and mailing lists will be put into an archival state.
Administrators may save the emails in their list prior to March 2nd. After that, mailing list archives will remain available and searchable on RootsWeb
Good Evening Everyone,
I thought this might be a good time for a reminder of the differences
between mail lists and message boards and what each does.
MAIL LISTS:
The fact that you can receive this message means that you have chosen to
subscribe to this specific 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, 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:
listname-admin(a)rootsweb.com
Replace the word - listname - with the name of the specific mail list.
For example:
Stovall-admin(a)rootsweb.com
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 main 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 main Ancestry site -
http://www.ancestry.com/.
At the top of the page click on "Ancestry Community"
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 and not all boards
have a corresponding mail list).
When the gateway is open, 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