This is the information page for the SKEPTIC-L mailing list, the Penn State Skeptics Club's Listserv. The current listowner is Adam Levenstein, Skeptics Club Vice President. A Listserv is simply an email account tied to a list of other email addresses. When an email is sent to the Listserv account, the Listserv copies the message and sends it out to everyone on its list. We intend SKEPTIC-L to be a forum for Club announcements, as well as for discussion about skepticism-related topics. All we ask is that you keep your postings polite. Don't purposely try to offend someone. Thanks, and enjoy the list!

Follow the images below to learn how to subscribe, unsubscribe, or post to our list. Use your own names and email addresses of course when doing so.
To post to our list write to SKEPTIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU as illustrated below.

Example of how to subscribe to the SKEPTIC-L Listserv:

Example of how to unsubscribe to the SKEPTIC-L Listserv:

Example of how to post to the SKEPTIC-L mailing list:

That's all there is. Easy, right? Feel free to join our discussions today.

OFFICIAL LISTSERV INSTRUCTIONS AND COMMANDS:

To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, just send mail to SKEPTIC-L@LISTS.PSU.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 (SKEPTIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU) is also called the "list address". 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@LISTS.PSU.EDU. It is very important to understand the difference between the two, but fortunately it is not complicated. The LISTSERV address is like a FAX number that connects you to a machine, whereas the list address is like a normal voice line connecting you to a person. If you make a mistake and dial the FAX number when you wanted to talk to someone on the phone, you will quickly realize that you used the wrong number and call again. No harm will have been done. If on the other hand you accidentally make your FAX call someone's voice line, the person receiving the call will be inconvenienced, especially if your FAX then re-dials every 5 minutes. The fact that most people will eventually connect the FAX machine to the voice line to allow the FAX to go through and make the calls stop does not mean that you should continue to send FAXes to the voice number. People would just get mad at you. It works pretty much the same way with mailing lists, with the difference that you are calling hundreds or thousands of people at the same time, and consequently you can expect a lot of people to get upset if you consistently send commands to the list address.

You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF SKEPTIC-L" command to LISTSERV@LISTS.PSU.EDU. You can also tell LISTSERV how you want it to confirm the receipt of messages you send to the list. If you do not trust the system, send a "SET SKEPTIC-L REPRO" command and 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. After a while you may find that this is getting annoying, especially if your mail program does not tell you that the message is from you when it informs you that new mail has arrived from SKEPTIC-L. If you send a "SET SKEPTIC-L ACK NOREPRO" command, LISTSERV will mail you a short acknowledgement instead, which will look different in your mailbox directory. With most mail programs you will know immediately that this is an acknowledgement you can read later. Finally, you can turn off acknowledgements completely with "SET SKEPTIC-L NOACK NOREPRO".

Following instructions from the list owner, your subscription options have been set to "REPRO" rather than the usual LISTSERV defaults. For more information about subscription options, send a "QUERY SKEPTIC-L" command to LISTSERV@LISTS.PSU.EDU.

Contributions sent to this list are automatically archived. You can get a list of the available archive files by sending an "INDEX SKEPTIC-L" command to LISTSERV@LISTS.PSU.EDU. You can then order these files with a "GET SKEPTIC-L LOGxxxx" command, or using LISTSERV's database search facilities. Send an "INFO DATABASE" command for more information on the latter.

This list is available in digest form. If you wish to receive the digested version of the postings, just issue a SET SKEPTIC-L DIGEST command.

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@LISTS.PSU.EDU.