Group Communication by E-mail: How to do it?

You will find it quite easy to use this facility, especially after you have tried a few times. Just stick to the procedure described below.

In order to send a message, you must know the E-mail address and the Group Designation of the receiving group (your partner) and the topic you want to inform them about. If you do not know them already, you must therefore find the E-mail address and the Group Designation of your partner and you must decide to which of 17 topic categories your message belongs.

You may find the E-mail address and the Group Designation of your partner by searching the Astronomy On-Line Participants Database by means of a simple Search Engine. One is available below on this page. Just give a word or a string of letters and the Search Engine will do the rest. Why don't you try it out by giving (part of) your own Designation or Address?

Now you must decide to which topic category it belongs. There are 17 possibilities, covering most of astronomy and including other relevant subjects (Other Matters). This system is necessary in order to make it possible to use the Mail Archive later on. You will find each of the topic categories on the main Email page, with a brief explanation of what it contains.

You then click on the button in front of the appropriate category and the E-mail dialog window appears on your screen. You start by inserting the Group Designation of the group to whom you want to send the message, followed by the e-mail address, in this form: Group Designation <email address>.

Here is an example: Hipparchus <proto@leon.nrcps.ariadne-t.gr>

You will see that a copy of your message is automatically directed to the Communications Archive. If you want a copy yourself, you must add your own email address here (remember a comma as separator).

Finally, you may insert some information in the Subject line after AOL: and then you send the message by clicking on the Send of your mail program.

Remember that you may also send a message to the Communications Archive itself, that is, to no one in particular. You may use this possibility, for instace, if you want to ask a question and you do not know who may be able to answer it. Then somebody may read it in the Archive and send you an answer.