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What is ALGAE-L?

ALGAE-L is the largest and the oldest algal listserv in the world and usually has about 2750 members. It was founded in 1996 by Michael Guiry.

ALGAE-L is a bulletin-board-type listerv list to which you can subscribe if you are interested in any aspect of algae (terrestrial, freshwater and marine), or indeed at any statge of your career. You receive postings (messages) sent to the list by other people and you in turn can post messages to the list. The list has been run and moderated by Michael Guiry, National University of Ireland, Galway since 1994 via a server using listserver protocols (listserv.heanet.ie). You do not have to be a member in order to post to the list as it is moderated by somebody (i.e., the messages are queued for approval prior to posting).

Meeting Notifications

We have decided that we will post 5 notices of meetings as followe

  1. Announcement of meeting.
  2. Announcement of early-bird registration.
  3. Announcement of an “extension of early-bird” registration, if necessary.
  4. Announcement of submission of abstracts.
  5. Announcement of final registration date.

Other postings

    • As a matter of courtesy, you should give your full name (not just "Pat" or "Mary"), and, if you are a student, you should say "undergraduate" or "postgraduate" or "PhD student".
    • You should also supply an address, generally an institutional address (e.g. Ryan Institute, NUI Galway"), but if you do not belong to an institution you can use your home address in a general way (e.g., "Fulham, London, England").
    • Do not post New Year greetings, nor Christmas or other festive greetings; remember that the list sends out about 3000 messages each time and not everybody will be pleased with your entusiasm. These will not be approved by the moderator.
    • You should not sent out generic requests, such as "Send me all you know about the use of algae for oil extraction, so that I can make lots and lots of money." A simple search of Google will provide you with such information.
    • Messages with attachments totalling  >2 Mb will be rejected, particularly of large pictures. You can reduce these in size with a picture editor like Picasa, which is free from Google (http://picasa.google.com) for both PC and Mac. (Use “Export Picture to Folder” under “File” and allow it to resize to 800 pixels. This generally gives a picture about 500 kb in size)
    • Do not send pictures of algae or seaweeds for identification: it is generally impossible to identify algae for certain without examination of the actual material. Search the internet via Google for a suitable expert. However, many "experts" are now so busy that it is unlikely that you'll get a response. It's better to buy a Guide (such as "Seaweeds" or this one to freshwater algae and try to identify them yourself. This way you will learn more about the algae and learn to identify them with certainty.
    • Do not send out requests for PDFs or reprints (offprints). Seek the author's e-mail address on Google and write to him or her. If the author is deceased, it is likely that somebody in his or her institution will oblige.
    • Death notices will not be approved for posting without independent verification, generally from an institutional source.
    • Advertisers of phycological posts are particularly welcome and the list can take PDFs or Word attachments of such advertisements to make them more attractive. But, again, please keep them under 1-2 Mb.

We try to speed things up by approving messages from smart phones, but we often cannot tell from the phone what size attachments are. Sometimes, very large ones get through and we apologise for this. Unfortunately, we also get lots of SPAM messages which are mostly filtered out before they get to you, but we occasionally make a mistake, for which we also apologise.

If you have any queries about posting to the list or about a posting, please e-mail Dr Liam Morrison

How to?


Sending a message to the list

To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, just send mail to ALGAE-L@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE. This is called "sending mail to the list", because you send mail to a single address and LISTSERV makes copies for all the people who have subscribed. This address (ALGAE-L@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE) is also called the "list address".

Leaving the list

You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF ALGAE-L" command to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE. To do this: first put LISTSERV@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE in the "To:" field of your mail programme, then in the body of the message type SIGNOFF Algae-L and press send. You must send this from the e-mail from which you subscribed.

Other commands

You can also tell LISTSERV how you want it to confirm the receipt of messages you send to the list. If you do not trust the system, send a "SET ALGAE-L REPRO" command and LISTSERV will send you a copy of your own messages, so that you can see that the message was distributed and did not get damaged on the way. After a while you may find that this is getting annoying, especially if your mail program does not tell you that the message is from you when it informs you that new mail has arrived from ALGAE-L. If you send a "SET ALGAE-L ACK NOREPRO" command, LISTSERV will mail you a short acknowledgement instead, which will look different in your mailbox directory. With most mail programs you will know immediately that this is an acknowledgement you can read later. Finally, you can turn off acknowledgements completely with "SET ALGAE-L NOACK NOREPRO".

 

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