Most teachers who access the Internet through school or commercial companies have electronic mail (e-mail) as part of their service. One of the primary uses of the Internet by educators is for e-mail. In fact, e-mail is one of the most popularly used features of the Internet. This is an impressive fact, especially given the enormous popularity of the World Wide Web and its vast resources.

Perhaps the most popular use of e-mail is for participation in the Internet discussion groups, sometimes called "listserve" discussion groups, or simply "listserves". The Internet discussion group is a powerful resource for educators because it connects with hundreds and thousands of people with similar interests, concerns and experiences. In the process, members of the discussion groups tend to form "electronic communities" which perform valuable and powerful services, affecting both their professional and personal lives.

Each discussion group is "owned," or moderated, by someone responsible for keeping the discussions on track and takes care of the technical and managerial aspects. Moderating an Internet discussion group is a consuming effort. The discussion and the management duties are always there for one to think about, to wonder, and worry about. Since e-mail is being sent at any time of the week, day or night, messages are steadily - at times relentlessly - arriving in your mailbox. It is also a voluntary job that must be woven into and around one's occupation and personal life.

One of the discussion groups that I moderate is LM_NET, for school library media professionals. It began in the summer of 1992 with several dozen addresses pooled together by Michael Eisenberg (co-moderator) and myself. As of December 1995, LM_NET had more than 5,000 subscribed members (with thousands more reading through local or regional "mirror" conferences.)

A discussion group moderator's life is generally consumed with tasks which are not normally noticed or observable by the members. Although the participant might think of the discussion group mainly in terms of the message content or the quality and the number of messages that arrive in their mailbox, the moderator of the group is involved in a wide variety of roles and tasks that assure the smooth operation and success of the discussion.

Subscribers are continually joining or leaving, asking questions, writing about problems and offering their thoughts and observations about the management or functioning of the group. For a variety of reasons, mail to a number of list addresses is returned as "undeliverable". There are occasional changes in list management software or various host computer glitches (fortunately rare.) In addition, there is regular mail to the moderator from non-members asking for information about the group or permission to post commercial messages (generally not permitted.) Most messages all call upon the moderator to respond or act them in some fashion.

There are three main areas of activity that must be attended to: organization, operations and development.

Organization involves creating and maintaining of a friendly and welcoming atmosphere for the members. This might involve designing and updating various procedures, the writing of helpful, welcoming documents for new subscribers, or the creation of useful member etiquette guidelines.

Operations involves the maintaining of the day to day functioning of the flow of messages. This includes assisting members join and quit the group, helping change their settings to nomail/mail/digest, post messages, and deal with problems related to returned mail.

Development involves working with different individuals and groups of members to make the group more effective and successful as it grows in size. For example, LM_NET has several formal and informal committees which carry on different functions relating to hospitality, member information, and planning for the future.

A "typical" online day begins around 6:00 a.m. when I emerge from the shower, and first check my e-mail from my school district account. I subscribe to several discussion groups related to Internet information resources and their management, and receive several electronic publications and information services. I subscribe to LM_NET here in digest format. (This gives me a chance to monitor how the digest version goes out to members.) From here I also moderate CALIBK12, a discussion group for California school librarians. There are usually 60-100 messages each day on this account.

When finished with local matters, I use telnet and log in to my ERIC-IR (ERIC Clearinghouse On Information Resources), the LM_NET sponsoring institution) accounts at Syracuse University. These accounts are provided through the good graces of my co-moderator, Mike Eisenberg, ERIC-IR Director. Two separate e-mail accounts at ERIC-IR are used exclusively for LM_NET matters. In a "general" box I receive individual LM_NET postings and mail related to subscriber questions and problems with the group. The other account is used to receive "bounces", mail sent to participants but returned as "undeliverable" due to a variety of reasons. I correspond from here with co-moderator, Mike Eisenberg, since we seldom meet or talk in person. In fact, we co-moderated the group for almost two years before meeting in person!

After handling the urgent questions or problems (i.e., unable to post, sign off, set to digest or nomail) I take care of any correspondence with my co-moderator and advisory groups and committees. For many of the common questions I have prepared detailed files, which can be read like a macro into a message. Since many of the questions or requests are of several similar types, it is easy for me to quickly personalize the response to the specific situation or subscriber. I also regularly post tips, reminders and notices to the group regarding etiquette or procedures.

The other account, the "Bounce Box", was set up to receive returned ("bounced") mail and other miscellaneous messages addresses to the LM_NET listserver address. Over the past three years I have developed a number of routines that allow me to sort and handle the high volume of mail to this address, which occasionally exceeds a thousand messages per day, and normally reaches several hundred.

Each time a member joins or quits the list, I receive a message to that effect. Ordinarily there are at least a couple dozen of this type. In our busy season during the school year we have grown more than a hundred members per week. This account also is notified when people have certain problems with commands to the host computer, or when they have problems posting (due usually to changes in their own e-mail address by their service provider.) But the bulk of the messages are "bounced", undeliverable mail, which is returned in the form of an "error report" by the mail system. Error messages are received for each message that is sent to a problematic address. With an average of over 70 postings to LM_NET per day, a dozen problem addresses can generate close to a thousand error messages to my mailbox!

Error reports are the messages sent to the list moderator by either the subscriber's or list's machine, informing the moderator that a message was undeliverable for whatever reason. Almost always these error messages involve mail sent to members, but occasionally it will inform us when someone tries to post a "problem" message - a messages that includes letters or characters that cause problems with the listserv software.

Often an error message informs me that "Your message has been enqueued and undeliverable for 3 days. The mail system will continue to try to deliver your message for an additional 10 days." This means that not only will I receive a message from their e-mail system informing me that the mail has not been delivered, but that they will continue to message me to that effect for the next ten days-- despite the fact that I may have already deleted the address!

When mail is bounced back from subscribers more than several times in a row, I usually delete them from the list. For each error message I check our list of LM_NET subscribers to verify the correct address. Then a message must be sent to the list computer to dele the subscriber. There are usually from four to eight to deleted per day, and up to fifteen or twenty on a busy day. Once this occurs, no more mail is sent to them from the list. When a member is deleted, a message is sent informing them that we have had trouble getting mail to them. (Instructions are also included for resubscribing.)

Occasionally I receive an irate letter from a former member, asking why they have been deleted. This is due to the fact they they did not receive our notice, since their mailbox was full, their service provider was down and unreachable, or other problems were occurring. Generally though, people are quite understanding about this, and it is very easy to resubscribe to LM_NET.

Quite regularly I spend time responding to members who are having trouble getting a message posted to the group. The most common problem occurs when the e-mail service provider changes their e-mail address, and builds in a forwarding protocol so that mail is delivered to them at their new address, even though it is being sent to the former address. Since the list software only recognizes the address from which they originally subscribed, they are unable to post to the group from their new address. Generally, I can send slightly modified "form letter" explaining their address had changed, and I make the adjustments on our end to register their new address.

There are usually at least a couple of requests for assistance to unsubscribe. This involves checking our list of subscribers to see that their address matches. Often the person has trouble unsubscribing due to the fact that their address changed after they originally subscribed. If this has occurred, our list management software will not allow them to make any changes to their status, since only a subscriber (or the list moderator) is able to do so.

Time required for me to take care of the morning activities usually runs up to an hour. After the "Bounce Box" is cleared, I am able to log off and have breakfast before going to school, where I perform my duties as a school librarian. If possible, I briefly check my e-mail in the various accounts during lunch or breaks, looking for major problems or pressing questions.

After arriving home from school, I usually check my e-mail accounts before dinner, attending to urgent messages or problems. Again, later in the evening, I check my various mail boxes, clearing up problems that have developed during the day. This can take an hour or two. If there have been problems with disgruntled members, complaints, requests and appeals from vendors wanting to post commercial messages, or follow-up discussions and correspondence with those who did post commercial messages in violation of our guidelines, it will mean a long night on the e-mail.

Evening is also the time when I go out on the World Wide Web, hunting and gathering information resources for my Chico High School library web pages I try to spend at least an hour a day doing this. This is an enjoyable activity for me, and I often work late into the night, sometimes making it difficult to wake up at 5:00 a.m.

Moderating LM_NET is a rewarding job that puts me in touch with many, many wonderful people, making both my professional and personal life very exciting. It is something that I look forward to, and which I am seldom away from for more than a day or two. LM_NET is a part of my life that would be difficult to exchange for anything else!

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Updated on 7-26-99.