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Barb and I have been looking for the Welcome Letter that new subscribers get when they join the Parkinsn List. ...well we found it. Since the last Listserv upgrade the before mentioned letter has been AWOL. Since we found it, we have updated it and also updated the file returned when the listserv command info parkinsn is given. Now, new subscribers will receive a nice Welcome letter from our List Owner. All of those who have joined in the past two years and have missed it, here it is: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 18:15:19 Your subscription to the PARKINSN list (Parkinson's Information Exchange Network) has been accepted. Welcome! You have joined the PARKINSN mailing list, also known as the Parkinson's Information Exchange Network (PIEnet). Please send a message to the list members (if you want to) introducing yourself, perhaps telling us how you found us, and any Parkinson's-related topics you would like. The address for posting messages to Parkinsn is: [log in to unmask] Let me introduce myself. I am a secretary for four faculty members in the School of Nursing, McMaster University. In September, 1992, I was diagnosed as having Parkinson's ... hence my interest in this list. My purpose in starting the list was the exchange of information about Parkinson's. The list rapidly changed into the largest support group I know. Besides its original purpose, the list has become 'a means of feeling connected' to others... a way of feeling we're not alone... of making the road of living with pd easier to bear. I have always felt that we hear each other better on the list because we can't see each other. Symptoms, age, colour, race, don't interfere. The list knows no countries, has nothing to do with money... there's no "what's in it for me?" But these same qualities mean our words are open to misinterpretation. Since others can't see our wry smile or wink or hear our tone of voice, a goal of keeping it "short & sweet" can result in appearing abrupt. Also, the same word can have different meanings and different shades of meaning to different people in different areas of the world so care must be taken in both your writing and your reading of the messages. Flaming and selling are not allowed. Please send messages in plain text only. Do not make any changes in medication or any treatments without consulting your physician. Be kind. Be honest. Share the time fairly.... if you think you have taken more than your share of the list resources, you just might have. Keep it generally related to Parkinson's. Don't abuse the generosity of the University of Toronto's free gift of the list. Don't include all of the message to which you are replying. Use plain text with no attachments. Wash your hands with soap before you eat. :) In other words, use the same common courtesy that you would elsewhere. We need everyone's voices if we are going to make a difference in the care and treatment of pd and the motivation and funding of research. Speak up. Tell your story. Ask your questions. Answer questions. Debate/argue about the answers. Debate/argue about the goals, administration, day-to-day functioning of the list. Tell a joke... but please don't attempt to silence anyone else's voice. The messages on the Parkinsn list may be personal but they are NOT private... never have been. The illusion of privacy when using e-mail is just that: an illusion. Never, in the history of this planet, has this kind of relationship existed. We meet in a place that has no walls. We talk to our friends whom we have never seen. We care deeply for other members whom we will never physically hug. Folks, we're making it up as we go along, so any rules have to be flexible. Our Parkinsn Guidelines can be viewed at: http://parkinsons-information-exchange-network-online.com/parkinsn.html If you wish to view Parkinsn messages online you may do so at: http://parkinsons-information-exchange-network-online.com/maillist.html I hope you enjoy your involvement with the Parkinsn Information Exchange Network. Barbara Patterson Owner Parkinsn John Cottingham co-owner Parkinsn Please save this message for future reference, especially if this is the first time you are subscribing to an electronic mailing list. If you ever need to leave the list, you will find the necessary instructions below. Perhaps more importantly, saving a copy of this message (and of all future subscription notices from other mailing lists) in a special mail folder will give you instant access to the list of mailing lists that you are subscribed to. This may prove very useful the next time you go on vacation and need to leave the lists temporarily so as not to fill up your mailbox while you are away! You should also save the "welcome messages" from the list owners that you will occasionally receive after subscribing to a new list. To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, just send mail to [log in to unmask] 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 ([log in to unmask]) 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," [log in to unmask] 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 PARKINSN" command to [log in to unmask] 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 PARKINSN 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 PARKINSN. If you send a "SET PARKINSN 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 PARKINSN NOACK NOREPRO". Following instructions from the list owner, your subscription options have been set to "MIME" rather than the usual LISTSERV defaults. For more information about subscription options, send a "QUERY PARKINSN" command to [log in to unmask] Contributions sent to this list are automatically archived. You can get a list of the available archive files by sending an "INDEX PARKINSN" command to [log in to unmask] You can then order these files with a "GET PARKINSN 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 PARKINSN 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 [log in to unmask] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn