The Detailed Guide to Using the Listserv for Non-Geeks

What is a Listserv?

A listserv means that a group of people are members, and when an email is composed and sent, it gets received by all members.  The ACT list for professionals, for example, has a couple thousand members worldwide. 

Joining the List

After you have requested to join the list (you must be a current paid ACBS member) and been approved (or responded to an invitation to join), you will receive an email from YahooGroups with a link.

When you click on the link, it will take you to the YahooGroups page.

Yahoo will ask you to create a "yahoo ID" and password. This ID will also be your "username" that will show up when you send an email to the listserv.  I recommend saving this information for future reference (more on that below). 

You can choose, within Yahoo, to set your email preferences to one of the following:

a)  "Individual Emails" which means you will receive every email that was sent to the list in an individual email in your inbox (about 5 emails a day on average),

b) "Daily Digest" which sends you one email with all of the posts from that day,

c) Not to receive emails at all and to visit the website where all the messages are archived to read them when you choose (see below for the web address).

I would recommend saving the Yahoo ID and password somewhere so that you can visit www.groups.yahoo.com, sign in, and change your personal settings on the list (e.g., switching from individual emails to daily digest or vice versa) or to change the email address you wish to have the posts go to from the list.

Using the List

"Posting to the list" means that someone sends an email to the ACT Listserv. When someone posts to the list, everyone on the list receives it, sort of like an old fashioned message board that comes directly to your email box.

To post to the list (sending a mass email to the list), you simply write your message in an ordinary email, but you type: acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy@yahoogroups.com as the recipient (or reply to a previous message).

You can read the messages from your inbox like any other email, and you can reply to them just like any other email. But the reply goes to the whole list, unless you choose to only respond to the individual who wrote the email. Just watch the "to" line of your reply -- if it says the person's individual email address only, that's who it will go to. If you reply to all, it will send to the first email's author as well as the whole list.

Reading Old Posts

Finally, all of the emails sent between list members are archived here:

 http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy/

You can visit this website to see if your message posted, and to read previous posts.