After you subscribe to a list, you'll begin to receive in your electronic mailbox all messages contributed to the list. The next section of this handout will help you locate interesting lists. Perhaps you've read about an interesting discussion list in a journal and would like to join. Just send your mail message with the subscription command in the body of the message and you'll get back mail from the server acknowledging your being added to the list, and giving you more information about list options, etc. Before posting messages to a list, it's a good idea to follow the discussion for awhile to become familiar with the players and the tenor of the list.
Most lists are setup so that only subscribers can post messages to the discussion.
Problems can also occur if subscription changes are forwarded to the list owner for approval and the list owner is not keeping up with his duties. Refer to section 6 in this handout for sources of more information. When you subscribe to a list, you begin to receive mail that is posted to the list, but you don't get copies of messages that have been sent to the list before your subscription was processed. Most lists, however, have archives of old messages, and you can request these files from the server. You can also search the archives.