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MARHST-L

MARHST-L Research Resources

MARHST-L is an INTERNATIONAL electronic discussion group sponsored and administered by the Great Lakes Museum with the assistance of Queen’s University at Kingston.

Subscription is free, and subscribers will automatically receive messages in their computer mailboxes. Messages can be saved, discarded, copied, printed out, or relayed to someone else.

To Subscribe

Send message to: LISTSERV@lists.Queensu.ca
First Line: SUBSCRIBE MARHST-L [Your Name]
You will receive an information message in return.

Purpose

The purpose of MARHST-L is to promote communication among persons with a serious interest in maritime history and maritime museums.

This list has, since 1994, provided a forum for ideas and a place where subscribers may ask for information, post notices of meetings, programs for conferences, announcements of new scholarly projects, and queries about particular problems.

Debate

Debate should and must be temperate and informed.

Moderators MARHST-L

Walter Lewis, co-moderator, MARHST-L, lewisw@hhpl.on.ca
Maurice D. Smith, co-moderator, MARHST-L, barque2@cogeco.ca

The moderators are Walter Lewis, a marine historian and Maurice D. Smith the Curator Emeritus at the Great Lakes Museum. The moderators are “primarily facilitators”, on duty to maintain the flow of information on the list.

Support Acknowledgement

The support of Queen’s University at Kingston, and Canada Steamship Lines is appreciated.

MARHST-L Guidelines for posting

The following are MARHST-L subscriber guidelines:

  1. Subscribers are encouraged to post questions, comments, or their own announcements about maritime history and maritime museums to the list at any time. A short introduction of who you are and what you are working on is an appropriate introduction for your first posting.
  2. Always include a description in the subject header your e-mail program provides. This lets other subscribers scan their mail to see the topics being discussed on the list. Many subscribers do not read postings that do not have a subject listed.
  3. Responses to a posting may be sent to the list or directly to the individual who posted the message. In most cases, the responses will be of interest to other subscribers, and should be sent to the list. Purely personal responses, however, should be sent by regular e-mail to the individual instead of posted to the list.
  4. Please avoid using the list for the “causes” of others. If you are forwarding an announcement, but you are not sure if it is appropriate for the marine content of MARHST-L, please forward it to one of the editors for comment.

To start

When you post to the list

A posting to the list is simply an e-mail message from you to the subscribers. The difference is that more than one person receives your message, without you having to specify each and every recipient. Just compose your posting like you would any e-mail message, and send it to: marhst-l@Lists.queensu.ca.

The listserv redistributes your message to the other subscribers.

Property Rights

Subscribers give MARHST-L the limited right to redistribute their postings on other lists and to have them stored in archive files, logs, and gophers. Authors retain their copyright privileges. Any other reproduction of the text must have either the permission of the author or follow ‘fair use’ practices. If you intend to use posted material as a quote or citation please contact the author of the posting.

Using the List

Moderators

The moderators are Walter Lewis (lewisw@hhpl.on.ca), a marine historian; Maurice D. Smith (barque2@cogeco.com) is the Curator Emeritus at the Great Lakes Museum. The moderators are “primarily facilitators”, on duty as volunteers to maintain the flow of information on the list and to help when needed.

Do people get deleted?

Yes, but usually after more than 108,000 postings, for technical reasons only. Less than five people have been barred for personal rudeness or offensive remarks. Debate should be temperate and informed.

Archives

The link to the archives (above) starting in 1994 can be found on this web site. The archives is a valuable source of information on a wide variety of marine topics. To search the current archives go to

Sponsor

MARHST-L is sponsored by the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston through the courtesy of Queen’s University at Kingston. The Marine Museum web www.marmuseum.ca. Follow the research link to marhst-l.

The list vs the server

There is a critical distinction to keep in mind when dealing with lists: the list (MARHST-L) and the server that distributes it (LISTSERV) are two separate entities, each with a distinct purpose and a distinct address for receiving e-mail. The list is the mechanism for the actual distribution of mail messages to each subscriber. Only those messages (usually referred to as “postings”) intended for redistribution to everyone subscribed to the list should be sent to the list address, which is marhst-l@lists.queensu.ca. Commands, for example, to signoff the list, etc., are sent to the server: listserv@Lists.queensu.ca

Basic List Commands for MARHST-L

To SUBSCRIBE send message to:

LISTSERV@lists.Queensu.ca
First Line:
SUBSCRIBE MARHST-L [Your Name]

To SIGNOFF send message to:

LISTSERV@lists.Queensu.ca
First Line:
SIGNOFF MARHST-L

If you have any problems in doing this:

Email the moderators either directly or via: MARHST-L-Request@lists.Queensu.ca, (this address gets both of us).

Note: Only those properly subscribed (i.e. with an email address which exactly matches that in the MARHST-L database) can post or SIGNOFF or change the character of their subscription.

To change the type of subscription send message to:

LISTSERV@lists.Queensu.ca
First Line (any one of a number, the most popular being):

SET MARHST-L NOMAIL (remain subscribed, but cease to receive messages; designed for holidays etc.)
SET MARHST-L REPRO [get copies of your own postings, (one way to know they’ve been distributed)
SET MARHST-L ACK (a shorter message ACKnowledging distribution; a better way to know)
SET MARHST-L DIGEST (a single message sent at the end of the day ((locally)) with all the day’s messages)

To cancel these settings send:

SET MARHST-L MAIL
SET MARHST-L NOREPRO
SET MARHST-L NOACK
SET MARHST-L NODIGEST respectively

To get a list of subscribers apply to the co moderators.

For the full set of LISTSERV commands send HELP and follow the instructions there.

MARHST-L Netiquette

Attachments

Always a bad idea (*especially* binary ones). Text “attachments” should simply be incorporated into the body of the message.

Quoting

Delete each line to which you are not replying. 40 lines of quote followed by two lines of reply will not be read by over 90% of us. We need to see the substance of your reply in the first 10 lines.

Subject lines

The archives is capable of organizing the “threads” of discussion. For this to succeed it is essential that the subject line be changed (preferably with a (Was Re: old subject). Those of us receiving the digest version are strongly encouraged to send separate messages in reply to each item and to alter the subject line to match the “thread”.

Cultural sensitivity

  • The members of MARHST-L come from around the globe, as do their interests.
  • Remember, some of us (or the nation states in which we live), were on the “other side” in just about any armed conflict you can name.
  • Local abbreviations, are just that – local.
  • Your audience borders on most of the major salt waters, and a range of fresh water.
  • There is just about every variant of sea-going (and undersea-going) experience from, occasional ferry traveler, weekend diver, to people in active service (merchant and naval).
  • While almost all communication is in English, for a significant number of us, this is a second (third, or fourth) language.
  • Finally, we have a variety of experience and options (including none at all), with computer systems and this form of communication.

E-mail standards

Despite what the international media and others have to say about the World Wide Web and rapid technical change, email works on a much older set of standards. For a variety of reasons many of us can only participate ‘because’ of those older standards. Don’t send HTML style mail (the single exception being individual accented and other characters that are a necessary part of communication in a variety of languages).