Yes. First, ALWAYS put your name and e-mail address(es) at the end of every posting. This is an important courtesy to your fellow subscribers, as most mail systems do not identify the writer anywhere in the header.

Also, please include a meaningful subject heading, so that people will know whether your message deals with a topic of interest to them. If you're responding to someone else's message, you'll usually want to put the same heading on the "Re:" line so that other subscribers can follow the "thread."

Please DO NOT leave the entire text of the message you're replying to dangling from the bottom of your posting! This wastes an enormous amount of space, and is considered a thoughtless breach of net etiquette. If your mail system options, like most people's, are set up so that the text of the message replied to (marked with ">"s along the left margin) is automatically included, please take a moment and delete it before you send your own. If you post a message that contains superfluous material, you will most likely receive a rejection notice about it and be asked to edit your post and re-submit it.

Finally, be very careful and cautious in your use of "reply." When you hit the "reply" key or type "reply" in response to a message you see posted to the list, your message will also be posted to the list--that is, all 1000+ subscribers will get a copy. Be sure that this is what you want to do. See section 6, below, for more about using "reply".

2) "WHAT ABOUT CONTENT, PROTOCOL, AND SO ON?"

The guidelines here on VICTORIA are pretty simple, the most important one being this:

We interpret this broadly to include the "long 19th century" (1780s to the end of the Great War), as well as such matters as how best to teach Victorian history or literature or art, how best to plan a research trip in quest of 19th-c. archives, relevant job listings, and so on.

Most other rules of thumb flow from that one. Personal messages or private replies are obviously inappropriate (see section 6, below), as are rude or intemperate comments, postings about contemporary politics, advertisements of any kind, and any pleas or petitions or warnings (e.g., computer virus alarms), no matter how good the cause may seem. Matters of general interest to academics are amply covered on other lists, and don't need to be duplicated on this one: the 19th century, and how we learn and teach and write about it, is our only topic on VICTORIA, and a wonderfully varied one it is.

With so much mail on VICTORIA (see following section) we all owe it to one another to keep our postings as concise and on-topic as we can. If you're not sure about the appropriateness of a posting you're thinking of sending, please get in touch with Patrick Leary, the listowner, at pleary@victorianresearch.org, and he will be glad to advise you.

3) "HELP! HOW DO I HANDLE ALL OF THIS EXTRA E-MAIL?"

Relax. The first thing you'll notice after subscribing to VICTORIA, especially if you are new to listservs, is that you're suddenly getting a lot more e-mail than you may be used to. We're all busy people, and no one wants to read dozens of messages at a time; and, too, many of us have to be careful about filling up our quota of disk space on the system.

Fortunately, most systems make it easy to call up a list of our messages showing the source and the "Re:" line for each. That way, you can save the ones that look interesting to read later, and simply delete the rest. Listserv mail does make you more ruthless about deleting messages after you've read them, so as not to clutter your disk. Some systems also allow you to store different kinds of mail in different folders or subdirectories, so that you can keep your VICTORIA mail separate. If you're unfamiliar with the e-mail commands available on your system, consult your local system-wiz for advice.

You may also want to consider setting your subscription to the DIGESTS option. This option sends all of your VICTORIA mail to you every day or two in one long message file, so that it's kept separate from your other e-mail. The disadvantage of the DIGESTS option is that, because it's all one long e-mail, you can't choose which individual postings to save or delete; the advantage is that there's less clutter in your mailbox. To try out DIGESTS, send the command SET VICTORIA DIGESTS to the listserv address: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU. (See below about what is meant by the "listserv address".) If you later decide you want to go back to regular VICTORIA mail, the command SET VICTORIA MAIL, sent to the same (listserv) address, will do the trick.

4) "WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN iulist@iulist.INDIANA.EDU AND victoria@.INDIANA.EDU? HOW DO I TELL WHICH ADDRESS TO USE?"

VICTORIA@INDIANA.EDU should be used ONLY for messages that you wish to send to all VICTORIA subscribers...all 1000+ of them.

Commands concerning your VICTORIA subscription should be sent to the "list address," which is iulist@iulist.INDIANA.EDU. For example, send commands to the listserv address when you want to do any of the following things:

     Set your subscription to DIGESTS:   SET VICTORIA DIGESTS
     Cancel your subscription:           SIGNOFF (or UNSUB) VICTORIA
     Stop receiving mail temporarily:    SET VICTORIA NOMAIL
     Start receiving mail again:         SET VICTORIA MAIL
     Put the listname on the Re: line    SET VICTORIA SUBJ
     Check your subscription status:     QUERY VICTORIA

You can also make changes to your subscription settings on the Web.

If you have a question about your subscription that you want a human being to read, do not send it to either VICTORIA or IULIST. Instead, send it to the "listowner", Patrick Leary, at pleary@victorianresearch.org.

5) "I'M GOING ON VACATION. CAN I STOP MAIL WHILE I'M AWAY, OR DO I NEED TO UNSUBSCRIBE?"

You can stop mail temporarily by sending the following message to iulist@iulist.INDIANA.EDU:

When you want mail to start arriving again, send the following message to the same address: SET VICTORIA MAIL

If you're going to be away for more than a week or two, it may be best to unsubscribe for the time being and re-subscribe later. To do this, send the command UNSUB VICTORIA to iulist@iulist.indiana.edu; when you get back, subscribe by sending the command SUB VICTORIA, followed by your name, to the same address.

6) "WHEN SHOULD I REPLY PRIVATELY RATHER THAN TO VICTORIA?"

As explained above, VICTORIA is set up so that using "reply" to respond to a query or other posting sends your response to everyone on the list. Frequently, however, you may wish to respond directly to the person who posted the original message; to do this you will want to type in that person's e-mail address on the "To:" line, rather than using "reply". This is particularly appropriate when you are merely asking the original poster for details, for example, or simply wish to thank one person for answering a question.

If you can't "get through" to another listmember--that is, mail sent to them bounces back--check carefully that you typed the address correctly. If need be, contact the listowner to make sure you've got that person's correct address. Under NO circumstances, however, should you send your private message via VICTORIA. This is not only an enormous waste of resources, sending 1500+ copies where one would do, but is a discourtesy toward your online colleagues.

Likewise, truly casual remarks ("Thanks, Joe!"), unhelpfully vague suggestions, witticisms, or complaints shouldalways be sent privately, not to the list as a whole. With so much mail on VICTORIA and with disk-quotas so tight, we all need to be careful not to inadvertently clutter one another's mailboxes with inappropriate postings to the list.

7) "I'VE BEEN AWAY FOR TWO WEEKS. I'D LIKE TO SEE WHAT I'VE MISSED ON VICTORIA DURING THE TIME I'VE BEEN GONE. IS IT POSSIBLE TO ACCESS PREVIOUS MESSAGES?" [also useful for new subscribers]

Sure. All VICTORIA messages going back to 1993 have been automatically archived. There's a Web search engine that does a great job of searching for words and phrases, and is very simple to use. Just point your Web browser to https://list.indiana.edu/sympa and follow the directions. Access to the search facility is also available from the Victoria Research Web at http://victorianresearch.org

8) "HOW CAN I GET A LIST OF ALL THE SUBSCRIBERS ON VICTORIA AND THEIR E-MAIL ADDRESSES?"

For the protection of subscribers, we have been obliged to disable the REVIEW command that once allowed anyone who joined the list to retrieve the roster of VICTORIA members. However, if you need a colleague's address from the roster, the listowner will be happy to look it up for you.

That's really all you need to know (rather more, in fact) to get the most from your VICTORIA subscription. If you have any questions or comments about VICTORIA, now or in the future, please don't hesitate to drop Patrick Leary a note at pleary@victorianresearch.org. Thanks for joining us!