List Members FAQ

What's crossposting?

(aka I want to tell everyone I've ever known about this really wonderful thing!)

Crossposting is sending the exact same message to a whole bunch of lists, people and/or newsgroups, either all at once using CC or BCC or separately. Some list services have technical barriers to prevent this or to prevent it if you're not a member of all the groups you're crossposting to. And some listowners make it a list rule that you can't crosspost using CC or BCC, that you have to send your message to just that group. It can also be annoying to people who are members of a bunch of the lists you're crossposting to and some people can get real bent out of shape about it, especially if the message is off-topic, not about the particular topic of the list. So think carefully before crossposting, make sure it's technically allowed by the list services, if it's off-topic for any of the groups, check the list rules to see if that's okay and put OT: at the beginning of the subject line. And then don pit helmet and flame retardant suit because *someone* on some list will likely get upset about it.