|
|
Introduction to the CANET e-mail lists --- revised 3/1/96
A.--What is CANET?
B.--How to subscribe, unsubscribe, and post to one of these lists
C.--How to cancel a subscription
D.--Receiving your mail in bundles vs. individual messages
E.--Full List Descriptions and Guidelines
F.--Special Services; Resource Library, Gopher, WWWeb
A--What is CANET?-------------------------------------------------------
The Campus Activists' NETwork (CANET) is an easy-to-use electronic
mail discussion established by the Center for Campus Organizing to
promote communication among campus activists. The Center for Campus
Organizing is a national clearinghouse based in Cambridge, MA, USA,
originally established in 1991 as the University Conversion Project
(UCP). CANET is only a small part of CCO, whose mission is to promote
progressive activism and investigative journalism on college campuses.
CANET was created to allow discussion of different areas of campus
activism without the excess "noise" that is typical of many existing
electronic mailing lists. For this reason, discussions will be
moderated (actually, we use the term "facilitated") where necessary.
The Campus Activists' NETwork is currently divided into 16 areas that
you may subscribe to individually. Some CANET discussions are cosponsored
with other organizations. A list of topics we haven't addressed, because
they are covered better by existing lists, appears below. Circulation
figures are included in parenthesis:
1 ACTION97 -- For planning coordinated actions at dozens of campuses,
and announcing regional conferences and events. (310)
2 CAN-ALERT -- Action Alerts of the Center for Campus Organizing. Not
a discussion list; subscribe for very infrequent, "emergency" alerts.
3 CAN-ALUM -- Alumni Network. For alumni who used to be campus activists,
on supporting campus activism and remaining active after graduation. (NEW!)
4 CAN-AR -- Anti-Racism. For campus activists involved in activities
resisting racism. (120)
5 CAN-BC -- Boston Center. Discussion for coordinating campus activism
in the Boston area. (50)
6 CAN-BUDGET -- Discussion for activists challenging federal and state budget
priorities, and students working on the Petition for New Priorities. (110)
7 CAN-ER -- Educational Rights. For people who are organizing against
tuition increases and efforts to cut funding for higher education. (600)
8 CAN-FAC -- Faculty Activist Network. Sponsored by CCO and Teachers
For a Democratic Culture; responds to attacks on higher education. (260)
9 CAN-LABOR -- Student Labor Activism. Discussion for students who are
interested in labor organizing, on campus or when they graduate. (150)
10 CAN-POVERTY --NEW discussion for student anti-poverty activists.
Cosponsored by Students Together Ending Poverty. (100)
11 CAN-RW -- Right Wing Alert. A discussion about responding to efforts
by well-funded Right Wing groups to dictate politics on campus. (420)
12 CAN-SKIT -- Creative Activism. A place to share ideas for creative
activist tactics, and to draft skits for guerrilla theatre. (NEW!! - 30)
These three discussions ask new subscribers to state their involvement
in campus activism, in order to help keep the discussion relevant.
1 CAN-YFN -- Young Feminist Network. For people who are involved in
feminist campus organizations or who want to start one. (150)
2 CAN-AJ -- Campus Alternative Journalism. Restricted to people who
are creating alternative campus media or who want to do so. (100)
3 CAN-LAW -- Law Student Activists. A network of law students interested
in public interest law, legal cases affecting student activists.
With few exceptions, it is not possible to send mail to any of these
lists unless you subscribe first. Since subscriptions on most of the
lists are processed by a human being, if you subscribe today it may take
a day or two before you receive a message saying you're subscribed!
B--How to subscribe and unsubscribe one of these lists-------------------
You can subscribe yourself to any CANET discussion by sending a message to:
canet@pencil.math.missouri.edu
with a subject of "canet" and a message body with ONLY the following:
sub NAME-OF-LIST Yourfirstname Yourlastname
If your email software is set up to use a signature, turn this off before
sending a message to CANET; i.e. if Emma Goldman wanted to subscribe
to can-er, her email message should ONLY say:
sub can-er Emma Goldman
After a few minutes you should receive an acknowledgement and a request to
introduce yourself to other subscribers of CAN-ER.
--How to cancel a subscription--------------------------------------------
ou can unsubscribe yourself to any discussion by sending an email message
to canet@pencil.math.missouri.edu with a subject of "canet" and body:
unsub NAME-OF-LIST
--Posting messages to CANET---------------------------------------------
Once subscribed to a discussion, you can send a message to all other
subscribers by sending a message to:
@pencil.math.missouri.edu
e.g. if you send a message to:
can-er@pencil.math.missouri.edu
it will go to people who have subscribed to the education rights list.
If may get back a message saying your mail was not delivered to one or
two people it usually means that it WAS sent to everyone else! On
some lists (screened to control volume) there may be a delay.
Note: please include your name and email address at the bottom
of your message so that people can respond to you individually.
D--Receiving your mail as a "digest" or as separate messages---------------
For each CANET discussion, you may set your mail delivery mode to
"digest" so that messages will be accumulated daily and sent to you
in a bundle. For example, if you are on the action96 discussion, you
can turn bundling on by sending the following message to CANET:
set action97 mail digest
For all discussions with over 300 subscribers, you will initially
start receiving mail in digested form, along with instructions on
how to turn digesting off so that you receive each message separately.
set action97 mail ack
Remember: to control your subscription to action96, send messages to
canet@pencil.math.missouri.edu (not action96@pencil.math.missouri.edu).
--Full List Description and Guidelines-----------------------------------
To preserve a low traffic of mail (for those who don't want their
mailbox filling up) each list will enforce restrictions on posting too
many messages or posting messages that are not relevant to a list.
CANET messages should approach an issue from the "angle" of a campus
activist. Messages may be rejected if they are:
a. not relevant to the subject of the list at hand.
b. dated (no longer relevant)
c. shameless self-promotions or fund-raising gimmicks.
d. personal attacks (it is o.k. to criticize someone's ideas, but not call
the person stupid.)
e. too long (anything over 10K should be checked to see if it needs to be
that long; the system automatically rejects messages over 48K)
f. endless back and forth arguments that have grown tired
g. too-frequent postings by the same individual (i.e. more than 7x a week)
unless that person has made an extraordinary contribution
h. local events that are of local interest only
As volume increases, discussion on these lists will be restricted to
an "angle" that pertains to the campus. By this we mean we don't want
to be a repository for all information on the situation in Haiti,
Bosnia, Somalia, etc. because that information is available on other
lists that are not campus-related. But if there were a student action
proposal on the issue of Haiti, that would be extremely appropriate.
Note: if you are concerned about mail volume, and only want to receive
about a message per month, we recommend CAN-ALERT:
CAN-ALERT Important Action Alert of the Center for Campus Organizing
This is a list you are encouraged to subscribe to if you don't
read mail often enough to subscribe to more active lists. All posts
to this list are automatically rejected. The purpose of this
list is to broadcast a message out to several thousand people when an
emergency happens; this means that we will hold down volume on this
list to one to three urgent messages a month. An example would be a
surprise attempt by congress to cut pell grants, for instance.
Note: the list of subscribers is available to other subscribers. To
remove your name from these listings, send the e-mail message:
set NAME-OF-LIST conceal yes
to the email address: CANET@PENCIL.MATH.MISSOURI.EDU
--Special Services: Web Page on Campus Activism ----------------------------
A "Web Page" containing student activism resources is
now available and will be expanded periodically.
To use the Web page, you will need a computer that is connected directly
to the Internet that has "Netscape" or some other web "browser" software.
Then, open a "URL" or "Location" of:
http://envirolink.org/orgs/cco
-- Lists on other topics; Policy on Changes to Canet ----------------------
You may wonder why CANET provides forums on some issues but not others.
The reason is that we don't want to reinvent the wheel. If an effective
campus activist-focused discussion already exists, we'd rather promote it
than compete with it. Here are four discussions we promote:
AMNESTY-D Serves Campus Human Rights Activists (Amnesty Int'l)
SEACNET Campus Environmental Groups (Student Env. Action Coalition)
AFFAM-L Discussion of Struggles to Defend Affirmative Action
QUEERCAMPUS Serves l/g/b/o Campus Communities
Here are instructions on subscribing to these lists:
Name of List Send the "subscribe LISTNAME YOURNAME" message to:
amnesty-d amnestyd-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
seac+announce listproc@ecosys.drdr.virginia.edu
affam-l listserv@cmsa.berkeley.edu
queercampus majordomo@vector.casti.com *
*for queercampus give an e-mail address instead of your name when subscribing
Decisions about the future development of the CANET system will
be made by CCO's Campus Organizing Advisory Board, which is made
up of 25 students, 15 faculty members, and 5 youth activists. If you
have questions or complaints about how CANET operates, please send
them to, via e-mail, to facil@pencil.math.missouri.edu
--For More Information-----------------------------------------------
When you subscribe, you will receive additional instructions about
sending mail, guidelines for discussions, etc. If you want that information
now, send a blank email message to: canet-info@pencil.math.missouri.edu
An archive of past discussions and additional resources for campus organizing
will soon be updated on our web page (see below).
Finally, since computers can only do a small part of what is necessary
to promote activism on campus, we want to let you know how to contact
our office, get literature from our office, and get human advice on your
campus organizing. We now provide:
* Campus Organizing Guide for Peace and Justice Groups (16 pages)
* Mini-Guide to Bringing a Progressive Speaker to Campus (24 pages)
* Mini-Guide to Building a Permanent Multi-Issue Student Coalition (16 pp.)
* Afflict the Comfortable; Comfort the Afflicted: Guide to the
Alternative Campus Press (160 pages)
* Directory of Internships in the Alternative Press (16 pages)
* Guide to Uncovering the Right on Campus, 2nd Ed. (Coming in April!)
Please call Brooke, Mark, Sonya, Ben, Marisa, or Rich from 10am-6pm e.s.t., at:
Center for Campus Organizing, Box 748, Cambridge, MA 02142
617-354-9363 e-mail: cco@igc.apc.org http://envirolink.org/orgs/cco
What is CANET? | Archive Page |
