Email Lists

This document is a guide to email lists hosted by WSO.

A common source of confusion about email lists at Williams is who maintains them. Both WSO and OIT maintain email lists available to faculty, staff, and students. WSO‘s offerings target student groups, but are available to the entire campus community.

WSO‘s email lists have addresses that look like this: email-list@wso.williams.edu. OIT‘s email lists have addresses that look like this: emaillist-l@listserv.williams.edu.

To join, leave, or update your subscription settings for a list, visit http://wso.williams.edu/mailman/listinfo/<list-name>, where <list-name> is the name of the list.

To access settings for a list for which you are an administrator, visit http://wso.williams.edu/mailman/admin/<list-name>, where <list-name> is the name of the list.

With the volume of list requests we receive, we’ve learned a few valuable bits of wisdom concerning email lists which we’ll pass on.

1. Don’t subscribe members with their 93fml address form. Use the First.M.Last@williams.edu address form. This prevents issues with posting to the list. (The Williams email system sends outgoing mail from your account from the First.M.Last@williams.edu address form.)
2. Check the privacy settings on the list archives. Several people have been shocked to realize that their list emails are available to the world. New lists now have private archives by defaults, but existing lists may not.
3. Make sure to add your successor as a list administrator before you leave.
4. Keep track of your admin password. And make sure to inform your successor of the password. It’s a real pain if you don’t.

WSO‘s mission is to creatively support the computing needs of the Williams College community. Consequently, we have little interest in hosting lists that are not in the interest of the College or its students. We will, however, consider lists that could play an important role in the Internet at large.

If you want to establish and maintain a list, please email (lists@wso) with a proposal including the parts listed below. Please note that Williams students, faculty, and staff can also send list proposals to OIT, which maintains lists separate from those of WSO.

Include the following in your proposal.

1. The list administrator’s name and email address (of the form First.M.Last@williams.edu)
2. The purpose of the proposed list
3. Four choices for the name of the list (list-name@wso.williams.edu), in order of preference
4. Any special requirements for the list

We accept list requests from all student groups and student-related activities.

If we do establish the requested list, we make absolutely no promises or warranties about its longevity, security, or reliability. It is the responsibility of the list owner (usually the person requesting the list) to update the list’s settings and add members. WSO can help you learn how to change settings, but we do not manage your list for you.

In the interest of keeping bulk email traffic to a minimum level, we apply strict guidelines to selecting which messages get sent.

If your message is rejected from campus@wso, you might consider submitting your announcement to the Daily Messages instead.

All decisions are made by the list moderator (currently Jessica Chung, jchung@wso). Here is a listing of criteria that will be used to decide if messages should go out:

• Messages must be sent by student groups. While individuals can send messages, this will be heavily discouraged. When you submit your message, please be sure to say what club is sponsoring the event.
• Messages must pertain to Williams events. Examples of things that count as events include concerts, hikes, trips, movies, and public speakers. Examples of things that do not count are job offers, surveys, class offerings, auditions, parties, regular club meetings or events, regular scheduled sports games, election/nomination solicitation or other general solicitations, with CC’s exception as noted below.
• CC may send nomination and vote solicitation emails, subject to the rules that other clubs must abide by, including frequency of emails and no updates/corrections.
• All other types of messages will be rejected. It is recommended that you use other methods of advertisement, such as the Daily Messages and the Daily Advisor. Daily messages can be submitted here.
• One message per event. There will be no updates, corrections, or reminders posted whatsoever at any time for any reason. So be sure to check your spelling and the times and dates you send very carefully.
• One message per group per week maximum. Remember, the fewer you send, the more people will pay attention when they see a message from your group. If you have more than one event to advertise, send out a schedule.
• Messages to williams-students count against our rate limits. The point of our rate limits is to keep all-campus email traffic at a reasonable level. If a message is sent via williams-students@williams.edu, WSO will consider the message to have been sent through campus when considering whether to accept future messages.
• The moderator sends messages whenever the moderator has time. Hence it is strongly recommended that you submit your message 48 hours before your event, to ensure that it is sent out in time and that you are able to appeal if your message is rejected.
• Offensive or inappropriate messages will not be sent. The moderator may also request that you redo your message to obey basic netiquette regarding list postings (i.e. relevant subject lines, no SHOUTING, etc.) See section below for appeals procedure.
• Messages larger than 5kB will not be accepted. Messages must be in plain text, no attachments, no HTML, no pictures.
• Appeals/grievances: If you feel the moderator has not treated you fairly, then reply your message to campus-appeals@wso.williams.edu along with a statement of why you feel your message should be sent. Your message will then be voted on. If the decision is overturned, the moderator will send your message. The committee is the final arbiter of all-campus e-mail messages. All decisions made by the committee are binding, and cannot be appealed.

The list is currently moderated by WSO Staff. If you would like to send a message to the campus, read the policy notes above, and then send the message as you would like it to appear to campus@wso.williams.edu. The message will be processed and sent out once it has been approved.

Please also bear in mind that the moderator is human, and may not be perfect. Some messages are on the borderline, and some may get through and some may not. Your patience is appreciated.

Questions or comments are welcome! Please mail (lists@wso).