I haven't used those lists myself, but my initial reaction is that if they are "free" that means the site is making money other ways - probably thorugh some sort of marketing, which is likely to include email adverstising (spam).

You'll just have to look at their site policies (look at the footer for "privacy policy") to see how they use the information you give them.

The price you pay for these free sites is usually the advertising banners and the onslaught of marketing emails.

Great information JHB. I recently was approached to do one of these lists and recalled seeing some information posted here - so knowing I'm not the only one that is being approached for stuff like this, I dug your post back up.

Quick question - are you aware of an issue like more spam arriving in peoples email, if they agree to be on a group email like for example Yahoo. A friend of mine tells me that this might be an issue, and I bet you have the answer on how to prevent all those people from getting more spam, if they agree to get email communication in the form of email from school and PTA. We want to impove communication, not make enemies.

Thanks

Sorry, cahoes, I guess I got caught up in terminology and didn't answer your question.

An automated email discussion list works like this. Someone uses special software to set up a unqiue list. Let's call ours PTOLIST. People are invited to join, or subscribe, to the list. Depending on how it's done and who's running it - it might be open to anyone who wants to join, or the person might request a subscription and the list owner approves it. (This is all done with fairly simple emails. But the emails are actually software commands that tell the management program what to do.)

You might have 20 people on your list, you might have 2000. If I post a message to PTOLIST, it is automatically redistributed to all the members. They would only see my address as the message originator and the PTOLIST as the sender. So you can have a discussion, but everyone is invisible to everyone else. Yet everyone has access to share information with the whole group.

(Different approach.) If you do decide to send a bulk email, just using your regular email package at home but to a lot of addresses - then you might consider putting all the addresses in the BC (blind copy) field. (Well, you do have to list one name in the TO field.) This way the recipients don't see those dozens or hundreds of email addresses. This is great for announcements, but not really discussions as the people can't email back except to you.

I know there was another posting about this topic and someone used the term "email loop". Perhaps that is a common term in part of the country. Do others of you refer to list servs, internet discussion lists as "email loops"?

I wanted to clarify for people who might be new to the topic since I'm accustomed email loops begin a "bad thing" that HAPPENS on email lists - not a synonym for them. I'm in IT (information technology) and am involved in several lists. To me, a "loop" or an "email loop" is when someone is on an internet discussion list and sets an auto reply (like "I'm out of the office until..) that kicks back to the list which sends it out again to all members, including the one on vacation with the autoresponse. It creates a vicious circle. If the list software can't filter this, everyone on the list can get this message hundreds of times until the email servers are clogged and shut down or a technician jumps in to stop it.

As I say, maybe some other parts of the country use the term differently. I just wanted to warn those new to the idea that they might need to use phrases like "listserv", "internet discussion list", or "email list". Listserv was actually the name of a specific software to create and manage lists, but the name has become somewhat generic like "coke". Majordomo is another list software. But those are both situations where someone would load and configure the software on a server to run an email list, which is probably more complicated than you want to consider.

More user friendly applications that you might explore could be:

Yahoo Groups ( groups.yahoo.com/ )
Take IT Offline ( www.takeitoffline.com/ )
Topica ( www.topica.com/login.html?al=s&lc=1 )


Here's an article that explains a bit about email lists:

www.techsoup.org/articlepage.cfm?ArticleId=147&topicid=5

Good luck to everyone!

[ 10-03-2002: Message edited by: JHB ]</p>

We use Yahoo Groups - and it's free!

When sending out your letter for email addresses, ask if there is someone out there willing to show you or give you some advice on how to set up a bulk email program. You would be surprised how many computer people don't want to volunteer in the school, but would love to help out with their knowledge. But once you get it up and running, there is no end to informing your parents.
You could also go to your local computer store, and find out about buying a program get the cost and bring it back to your PTO meeting.