Membership in many lists at U.Va is voluntary. This means that for most lists at U.Va., you cannot be forced to remain a member of the list. However, some classes require list membership. Departments also sometimes require list membership for staff and students affiliated with the department. If your instructor or department requires list membership, you must remain a member of the list until you receive permission from the list administrator to leave the list.

Participation in electronic mail lists is normally intended for people who are members of the list. If you are not a list member, you should avoid sending a message to the list unless the list administrator invites you to send a message to the list.

A listing of public mailing lists at U.Va. is available; however, it may be incomplete as list administrators have the option of not publishing the name of their list. Lists that have a wider-than-U.Va. orientation are professionally-related and information about these lists is disseminated via the professional organizations affiliated with these lists.

Some members of the U.Va. community ask for the names of lists that are associated with one or more departments or other special audiences. As these lists usually exist for purposes of departmental business or for communication among the individuals in the special audience, ITC does not, at the present time, provide the names of departmental lists to members of the U.Va. community.

If you are a member of the U.Va. community who would like to send a message to a departmental list or other special audience list of which you are not a member, you should contact the administrator of the list either by phone or in person to:

1. Tell the list administrator who you are and the topic of the message you want to send to members of the department.
2. Ask if the list administrator objects to your sending this message via their list.
3. If the list administrator has no objections to your sending this message to their list, ask for the list name.
4. Send your message to the list.

If you have received permission to send your message to more than one departmental list, we ask that you enter the mailing list addresses in the Bcc: field of your email message. This approach will avoid having a recipient of the message use "reply-all" to send a message that has not been approved for distribution to all other recipients of your message.

If you are sending to five or more mailing lists, consider sending the message during off hours (before 9:00 AM or after 5:00 PM).

This procedure should be followed for each message you want to send to a list. Do not assume a blanket permission because you have once been offered the privilege of sending a message to a list one time.

Mailing lists at the University of Virginia are created to promote communications that will facilitate the work and mission of the University. Should you receive a message via a mailing list that seems out-of-character for the list purpose, please contact the administrator of the list. At the University of Virginia, you can do this with an email message to listname-owner@Virginia.edu where listname is the name of the Mailman mailing list from which you have received the message. List administrators may contact postmaster@Virginia.edu for assistance in dealing with disruptive messages that are distributed to their lists.

A full explanation of member configuration options is available to assist list members adjust settings to their preference. Some options may not be available as list administrator settings take precedence over list member configuration settings.