Last revised 18 April 1995. You are now subscribed to BALLROOM. Please read this welcome message carefully. It supersedes the one you received automatically when you joined the list. You should delete that message, since it is not as complete as this one, and some of it may be obsolete or incorrect--save this message instead. CONTENTS -------- 1. Introduction -- Why you should read and save this message 2. Existence of TWO ballroom lists -- Moderation and Digest options 3. Gateway to Usenet Newsgroup rec.arts.dance 4. How to change your subscription or subscription options 5. Sending messages to the everyone on the list -- DO NOT SEND TO BALLRM-M!! 6. Who can join? Why might you be removed from the list? 7. Submission Guidelines and Policies, Criteria for Moderated List 8. List of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) -- READ THIS! -- How to get it 9. The Dancers' Archives (USEFUL place!) -- This list is archived there too 10. Some other related electronic forums 11. Information on other LISTSERV commands 12. Whom to contact for other questions related to operation of the list 1. Introduction -- Why you should read and save this message ------------------------------------------------------------ BALLROOM is a public electronic mailing list for Discussion of Any Aspect of Ballroom and Swing Dancing. It is sponsored by the MIT Ballroom Dance Club, but is a general discussion list for everyone in the worldwide Ballroom (and related) community. There are actually TWO ballroom lists now: BALLROOM and BALLRM-M, so read the following carefully to ensure that you have picked the right one for yourself! Then SAVE IT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE, even if you are familiar with LISTSERV and/or the BALLROOM list. If you recently subscribed to the BALLROOM list, you received a generic "welcome" message when you subscribed. The message you are reading now supersedes that generic message--you may delete that one, but do save this one! This might look like a waste of disk space now, but in 6 months you will be glad you saved this information when you realize that you cannot remember what are the lists you are subscribed to, or what is the command to leave the list to avoid filling up your mailbox while you are on vacations. In fact, you should create a new mail folder for subscription confirmation messages like this one, and for additional "welcome messages" from the list owners that you are will occasionally receive after subscribing to a new list. 2. Existence of TWO ballroom lists -- Moderation and Digest options ------------------------------------------------------------------- There are two ballroom lists, one unmoderated (BALLROOM) and the other moderated (BALLRM-M) and both are available in an undigested (default) or digested form. You are currently subscribed to BALLROOM and, unless you specifically requested a digest, you are subscribed to the undigested list. It is easy to change to any of the other three methods, so you may want to spend a couple of minutes now and, with the help of the table below, decide which of the four combinations is best for you. For the moderated list, a person screens messages and only forwards to the moderated list the ones he or she feels will be of most interest (generally a small subset of the messages). This is based on some guidelines but also involves subjectivity on the part of the moderator. The digest option to a list concatenates all the messages over a period of time into one message and sends out the consolidated message. The BALLROOM list sends its digest daily (owing to the higher volume of messages) and the BALLRM-M list weekly. At one extreme, the unmoderated undigested list is more "conversational" in nature and at the other extreme the moderated digested list is like a weekly e-mail newsletter for ballroom/swing dancing. Here is a more detailed comparison table to help you choose what might be best for you. (If you really can't decide, one approach that may help you decide, without overwhelming your mailbox, would be to subscribe to BALLROOM digest and BALLRM-M (non-digest) for a while.) UNMODERATED MODERATED CHARACTERISTIC Regular Digest Regular Digest ===================================================================== Pre-screened articles No No Yes Yes Est. # articles/day 10-30 10-30 1-3 1-3 Est. # e-mail msgs 10-30/day 1/day 1-3/day 1/WEEK Quality of articles Variable Variable Higher Higher Suitable for interactive discussions? Yes OK Marginal No Suitable for saving as reference material Marginal Marginal OK Yes Delay in receiving article after they are posted < 6 hrs 1hr-1day 1hr-3days 1day-1week 3. Gateway to Usenet Newsgroup rec.arts.dance --------------------------------------------- For those who have access to Usenet news, you have a fifth option: All the material that appears on the BALLROOM list is also posted via a 2-way gateway to the Netnews newsgroup rec.arts.dance. Any articles mailed to the BALLROOM list will automatically be posted to rec.arts.dance. Note that in the reverse direction ONLY those articles posted to rec.arts.dance that have the word "ballroom" (or the names of selected ballroom dances) in the Subject: or Keywords: field will automatically be mailed to BALLROOM. In addition the moderated digests of BALLRM-M are also posted weekly on rec.arts.dance. If you are a REGULAR reader of rec.arts.dance, this mailing lists will duplicate what you will read there, except it will deposit the information in your mailbox rather than wait for you to get it. If you would rather get the information via rec.arts.dance only, you may signoff this list, as described below. (Some people with Netnews access do choose to be on the mailing list for convenience, since it is specific to ballroom dancing, or because they prefer to get the information by mail, or whatever.) 4. How to change your subscription or subscription options ---------------------------------------------------------- In case you prefer an option other than the one you currently signed up for, here are the instructions for subscribing or changing your subscription options to BALLROOM or BALLRM-M. You should e-mail the command(s) shown below in the BODY of a message to ; multiple commands may appear in the same e-mail message, and are processed sequentially. 1. To subscribe to ballroom (UN-moderated, UN-digested): subscribe ballroom Yourfirstname Yourlastname 2. To change to the (daily) digest option to ballroom, after subscribing: set ballroom digest 3. To subscribe to ballrm-m (moderated, UN-digested): subscribe ballrm-m Yourfirstname Yourlastname 4. To change to the (weekly) digest option to ballrm-m, after subscribing: set ballrm-m digest 5. To change from digest to regular mail, use: set ballroom mail or set ballrm-m mail as appropriate. 6. You can also turn mail off temporarily with: set ballroom nomail or set ballrm-m nomail as appropriate--this may be useful to do if you are going to be away for some time and don't want your mail to pile up. 7. To unsubscribe completely from a list, use: signoff ballroom or signoff ballrm-m Note that the digest/mail/nomail settings are all mutually exclusive, so that exactly one will always be active (default when you subscribe is "mail"). This means that you cannot, for instance, receive both the digested and undigested versions of the SAME list, unless you subscribe twice under two different e- mail addresses. But ballroom and ballrm-m are technically different lists, so you could be on ballroom digest and ballrm-m non-digest, for instance. 5. Sending messages to the everyone on the list -- DO NOT SEND TO BALLRM-M!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, just send mail to BALLROOM@MITVMA.MIT.EDU. This is called "sending mail to the list," because you send mail to a single address and LISTSERV makes copies for all the people who have subscribed. This address (BALLROOM@MITVMA.MIT.EDU) is also called the "list address." It generally takes between a few minutes and a few hours for everyone on the list to receive the message, but some addresses incur delays of a few days, at times. IMPORTANT: Regardless of what the automatically generated "welcome" message may have told you, you must NOT send mail to BALLRM-M@MITVMA.MIT.EDU; if you do, it will just be discarded without any notification. ALL messages should be sent to BALLROOM@MITVMA.MIT.EDU, regardless of whether you are subscribed to BALLROOM or BALLRM-M. The moderator will select from the articles sent to BALLROOM, to forward to BALLRM-M; only he or she will be authorized to send mail to BALLRM-M. Also, you must never try to send any command to that address, as it would be distributed to all the people who have subscribed. All commands must be sent to the "LISTSERV address", LISTSERV@MITVMA.BITNET (or LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU). It is very important to understand the difference between the two, as people on the list get annoyed if you send commands meant for LISTSERV to the entire membership of the list! 6. Who can join? Why might you be removed from the list? --------------------------------------------------------- Anyone can join either list, by sending e-mail to LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU with a SUBSCRIBE command. (You may subscribe a local redistribution list or a gateway to a local newsgroup, as long as whatever you do is local to your site. Please send e- mail, describing what you plan to do, to BALLROOM-Request@MITVMA.MIT.EDU before you do this, so that we may verify that there will be no problems.) Addresses that generate bounced e-mail (i.e., if your e-mail address stops working) will be dropped within 2 days or less; you'll have to resubscribe when the problem is fixed, by sending the message subscribe BALLROOM Your Full Name and, if you had the digest option, set BALLROOM digest to LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU. Although a message is sent to you indicating this, you will probably not receive it (since e-mail to you was bouncing to start with), and the only way you will know is that you will stop receiving e-mail from the list. This is the only reason that anyone has ever been dropped from the list and, since this is a friendly forum, it is hoped that this will always be the only reason. However, to protect the list and its members, it is necessary to state that you may be removed from the list, and/or kept from posting to it, under circumstances including, but not limited to, the following: Extreme or continued violation of the list guidelines and policies, or of Internet usage conventions; violation of the acceptable use policies of the sponsoring institution (MIT); violation of any applicable law, including copyright law; any other action that, in the sole opinion of the list administrator or list owner, may be harmful to the list, its members, or the computer facilities or networks that support it. 7. Submission Guidelines and Policies, Criteria for Moderated List ------------------------------------------------------------------ Even for the unmoderated list, submissions should still follow the following minimal guidelines. A more detailed set of guidelines are being compiled; they will be distributed to list members when they are completed, and will then supersede these guidelines. - Do not submit any copyright-protected works, unless you have written permission from the copyright-owner (and include a statement to that effect). - Articles should be related to Ballroom or Swing or a related dance form in some way. - While people are often interested in events in other parts of the world, do be aware, especially when posting announcements of local events, that this is an international list with a few hundred members from over 30 countries. Announcements of extraordinary events or a comprehensive compilation for a metropolitan area would be the most useful local postings. - Make the "Subject:" field of your message as explicit a 1-line description of the content of your message as you can. - This medium is only a distribution medium. Submitters are responsible for the content and appropriateness of all mailings made to the list. - Use good taste and common sense! This is a common resource for all to enjoy. - Above all, enjoy communicating with fellow ballroom dancers, and feel free to mail an article to the list that follows the above guidelines! For the moderated list, a more stringent set of criteria will be used by the moderator(s) to forward only the most "useful" or "interesting" articles to members of the moderated list BALLRM-M. A loose set of guidelines is under development, but the final decision will be based on the subjective (and possibly inconsistent!) opinion of the moderator(s). 8. List of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) -- READ THIS! -- How to get it -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is a FAQ for the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.dance. A large part of the material in that FAQ is directly pertinent to ballroom dancing and ballroom dancers, and so is effectively a FAQ for this list too. You are strongly encouraged to get and read this FAQ before posting to the list! This FAQ is posted periodically to this list, but you can (and should) get the current version now. It is available by FTP at ftp://ftp.std.com/nonprofits/dance/rec-arts-dance/rad-FAQ-1of2.txt and .../rad-FAQ-2of2.txt, or on the WorldWide Web at http://www.math.ucla.edu/~eijkhout/dance.html. If you don't know what all this means, the easiest way to get it now is to send e-mail to with the following line in the SUBJECT field of your e- mail message get rec-arts-dance/rad-FAQ-1of2.txt and another one for part 2: rad-FAQ-2of2.txt (yes, for this service it DOES matter what's upper case and what's lower case and, unlike commands to LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU which appear in the body, the command for this file server appears in the subject line of the header). The FAQ is maintained by Victor Eijkhout . 9. The Dancers' Archives (USEFUL place!) -- This list is archived there too --------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are no plans to archive the lists at this site. However, this list IS archived at the "Dancer's Archive," which is an FTP site, accessible by anonymous ftp to ftp.std.com, in sub-directories under /ftp/nonprofits/dance. There is a wealth of information there for dancers of many disciplines, including an archive of all articles posted to the BALLROOM mailing list. This is probably the most complete compilation of information for dancers; do browse around in this directory if you have FTP access. The Dancers' Archives are maintained by Eileen Bauer ; she welcomes and ENCOURAGES contributions to the information stored there. If you looked there for something and didn't find it, and go elsewhere to compile your information, please do consider submitting your results for inclusion in the Archives, so that others may benefit from your efforts too! If you don't have FTP access, the Dancers' Archives also provides an e-mail- based file-server. Get the FAQ (for which you can use this very file server as described above), which will give you more information. 10. Some other related electronic forums --------------------------------------- These are springing up so rapidly that it's hard to keep up with them! Victor Eijkhout, the maintainer of the rec.arts.dance FAQ, is doing an admirable job trying, so rather than repeating the information here, I'll repeat instead, "Get the FAQ!" To tempt you a little, though, I'll mention that there are specialized lists for the Argentine Tango, Lindy Hop, Country-Western dancing, and all sorts of WWW-accessible resources .... 11. Information on other LISTSERV commands ------------------------------------------ A previous section of this message already told you how to subscribe, and chance your digest options for the BALLROOM or BALLRM-M lists. Here are a few other useful commands. You may leave the list completely at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF BALLROOM" command to LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU. If you want to suspend mail temporarily (e.g., while you are on vacation), you can send a command "SET BALLROOM NOMAIL" to LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU, and restart mail when you return with the command "SET BALLROOM MAIL". This list has been set up so that LISTSERV will send you a copy of your own messages, so that you can see that the message was distributed and did not get damaged on the way. If you would rather not get copies of your own message, send a "SET BALLROOM NOREPRO" command to LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU. For more information about subscription options, send a "QUERY BALLROOM" command to LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU. More information on LISTSERV commands can be found in the LISTSERV reference card, which you can retrieve by sending an "INFO REFCARD" command to LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU. 12. Whom to contact for other questions related to operation of the list ------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you have further questions or problems with the management of the ballroom lists, you should send e-mail to the administrative contact for the list, BALLROOM-Request@MITVMA.MIT.EDU. Remember that normal operations of subscribing, unsubscribing, changing subscription options, etc., are all handled automatically via e-mail commands (in the BODY of the message) to LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU.