It has come to the ESA's notice that many of its members are not familiar with e-mail and are not clear what a discussion list is or how it can be of use to them. This sheet, adapted from a Mailbase handout, is intended to explain a bit about e-mail discussion lists generally and the ESA discussion list in particular. Cooperation and discussion have always been vital to successful academic life. Many academics find they are working in a specialised area and that there are few colleagues with whom they can discuss their work in depth. With an e-mail discussion list they can collaborate on projects and publications, announce conferences, arrange meetings and share news and views etc.
Any message sent to the list is redistributed automatically to all members within minutes.
As a member of a discussion list, you can either send a message to all members or reply directly just to the person who put a message on the list. You can make reports, minutes of meetings and other types of documents available for list members to retrieve by electronic mail. It is free at the point of use to those in the higher education community. At present, the ESA maintains a list, called european-sociologist . Communication that is not constrained by limits of geography, time or cost is possible.