[Last updated on: Sat Aug 15 23:45:04 1998]

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Welcome to the god-shiva mailing list!

If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list, you can
send mail to "majordomo@smoe.org" with the following command in the
body of your email message:

    unsubscribe god-shiva

Here's the general information for the list you've subscribed to, in case
you don't already have it:

Welcome to the God-Shiva Discussion List!  You are now a member of the
unmoderated discussion of anything and everything related to the life,
art, music, and times of Me'Shell NdegeOcello.

POSTING TO THE LIST:
To post a message to the list, send your message to god-shiva@smoe.org.
Your message will then be automatically sent to all people currently
subscribed to the list.

REPLYING TO THE LIST:
One important point to know about replying to messages that you receive
from God-Shiva:  When you hit your reply button (in most cases,
depending on how your software is set up)the message will be addressed
and sent back to the author of the message, NOT to the discussion list.
If you want to reply to the list,  you must manually change the address.

IMPORTANT DISCUSSION LIST INFORMATION:
Some important (and possibly boring) information follows here.  I urge
you to read it in order that you may have a better understanding of the
workings of the list.  In any event, you should file this message away
and refer back to it when needed.

The flow of messages to and from God-Shiva is managed automatically,
without human intervention, by a software system called "majordomo."
This system actually recognizes this list as two lists - GOD-SHIVA and
GOD-SHIVA-DIGEST.  They are identical except for the way in which
the messages are received by the subscriber.  It is important to
understand which list majordomo actually considers you a member of.

You are subscribed to the GOD-SHIVA list.  

In this format, you receive each individual post as soon as they pass
through the majordomo server.  Some find this volume overwhelming.  If
so, you can easily switch to the digest version, which collects about
25 posts, organizes them, and sends them out to you as one email
message.  To switch to the digest format, put these two lines in the body
of a message and send them to majordomo@smoe.org:

unsubscribe god-shiva
subscribe god-shiva-digest

You can remove yourself completely from the GOD-SHIVA list (assuming
anyone would ever want to do that!) by sending this one line in the body
of a message to majordomo@smoe.org:

unsubscribe god-shiva

Please understand the distinction between the two addresses:

god-shiva@smoe.org will send your message to all the members on the
list.

majordomo@smoe.org is a maintenance address, used for subscribing,
unsubscribing, and getting past digests only.

We often see subscription messages appearing on the list - posted for
all to see.  This is simply a result of the wrong address being used.
Avoid the embarrassment!

You may have more than one email address.  If so, you need to remember
an important point.  Your posts will only be accepted by majordomo if you
send them from the address that you subscribed with. Before it sends
messages out to everyone on the list, majordomo compares the author's
address to those that are subscribed.  If it doesn't find it, it
unceremoniously dumps the message into the lap of the list administrator
where it sits until I have time to manually send it back to the list.

LIST ETIQUETTE:

As mentioned, this list is unmoderated - that is, no one approves or denies
each post, they all make it through unrestricted to the list. Because of this,
a few rules of etiquette should be taken into consideration.

1.  When posting, make sure to check your subject line and insure that
it is relevant to the post itself.  We often see "Re: God-Shiva Digest
V2#012" as the subject line or some other vague or outdated description.
There are those on the list who choose to read only those messages
whose subject lines appeal to them.  If your subject line has nothing to do
with your post - you may be causing a lot of unneeded frustration with the
other members.

2.  Along the same lines, we accept and encourage the discussion of
non-Me'Shell specific topics on God-Shiva, because we know that
Me'Shell fans are bound to have interesting things to say about music,
politics, and many other topics.  As a courtesy to those who have time
only to read for news and discussion about Me'Shell, though, please
include the notation NMC (for No Me'Shell Content) in the subject line
of any post that doesn't contain anything about Me'Shell.  You are
also encouraged to use the label SMC (Some Me'Shell Content) for posts
whose Me'Shell content is only tangential.

3.  Quoting is important and encouraged.  If you are responding to a
message from another member, it is essential that you quote the
relevant part of the message so that the rest of the members can
follow the thread.  As you might expect, there are a number of threads
at any given point and, without proper quoting, it is difficult if not
impossible to follow the line of thinking.
    With quoting comes another responsibility, however, and that is to
quote only the relevant portion of the message you are responding to.
Often, we have seen entire digests copied back to the list when the
person could have simply quoted a few lines.  Nothing frustrates list
members more than having to wade through lines and lines of irrelevant
quoted text.

3.  God-Shiva encourages all kinds of discussion.  We are generally a
mature, thoughtful bunch who are mostly supportive of Me'Shell and her
work.  However, that does not mean we are a bunch of starry-eyed
fanatics either.  We tend to be appreciative, critical, and fair - but
always tempered with a deep respect for one of the greatest songwriters
and musicians on the planet.  
    It is quite simple in an email forum to read (or write) a post that
invokes a quick, angry response that is later regretted.  Email is a
unique forum - one in which the intended context or meaning of a post
is easily misinterpreted.  You may be trying to make a joke and on the
other end it is read as being serious.  
    To assist others in understanding your true meaning, you may
consider using "emoticons."  For example, looked at sideways :-) is a
smile,  ;-) is a wink,  :-( is a frown,  and :-D is a laugh.  There are
many others that you will discover along the way.  If you are new to
email discussion lists, this may seem silly at this point.  But, I
guarantee that you will see the value of them once you've been around
awhile! 
 
That's about it.  One of these days this message will include a nice
FAQ list with everything you've ever wanted to know about Me'Shell but
were afraid to ask.  But for now... you'll just have to read the list
mail!

This list was founded on August 15, 1998 and is owned and operated by
Michael Yarbrough, just another Me'Shell fan.  If you have questions,
problems, or concerns please let me know.  I can be reached via email
at mwyarbro@zzapp.org.

Finally, I wish to thank Les Irvin, administrator of the Joni Mitchell
Discussion List, for his advice and encouragement.  Just as Joni's
music has influenced Me'Shell, Joni's discussion list has influenced
God-Shiva.  My thanks to Les.