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Mar
31
Written by:
host
3/31/2009 7:00 AM
 Some time ago in The Daily Voice, I talked about how and why to start your own listserv. Even though IM and Twitter are becoming more popular for short communications, listservs are still one of the best ways to have two-way discussions among a group of people. What are the secrets to a great listserv and being a good moderator? Here are some tips I have learned over time.
- Put together a text file with messages you will send out to individuals regularly, such as a "boilerplate" (i.e. standard) message you can use if someone asks you to subscribe them manually. This will save you time, since you won't have to recreate the messages each time one is needed.
- Get to know the various settings of the listserv. Change the settings so that individuals must be approved to post messages; that way, you can avoid having spammers join the list and sending junk mail to everyone.
- If your listserv begins to have a lot of activity (more than 3-5 messages per day), then occasionally remind subscribers how to receive the "digest" form of the messages, which puts all messages from a day or a week into one message.
- "Salt" the conversation by posting questions for discussion when things get too quiet for a long time. Perhaps 80% of your list (depending on how targeted it is) may be "lurkers" who typically will simply read but not respond to messages. They won't be likely to post questions, so as the moderator you may need to do so with some regularity.
- Keep your messages as brief as possible. Few people will read several long messages a day (and they may not even read any at all.) If posts start to get too long, you may need to suggest that the parties involved in the conversation continue it outside of the list.
- Promote the list very frequently, in multiple ways. If your list is open (available for anyone to join), then make sure people can find out about it on various pages of the website, through church newsletters, via posters with tear-off tabs, and so on. My favorite method is to use self-printed business cards that I can hand out to teachers, church members, etc.
- Perform list maintenance regularly. Delete users who have bouncing emails, and dump messages or threads from the archives which are out of date.
~ Tim Gossett
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