PURPOSE AND FEATURES OF GAMBIA-L
 The precursor to Gambia-L was a mailing list started in August 1994,
following the overthrow of the Jawara government.  This list was run
manually by Dr. Katim Touray at University of Wisconsin Madison as a
public service effort to providing it's then handful of subscribers,
with a means to discuss developments in The Gambia, and exchange ideas
about the nation's future. The mailing list was formally named
GAMBIA-L in early 1996.

The rapid growth of the Internet resulted in more Gambians getting
online and consequently an increase in the number of subscribes to the
original mail list.  This, together with a number of factors,
warranted a much more powerful and flexible list management system.
The University of Washington in Seattle provided this facility until
May 1999 when St. Johns University agreed to host it on its Maelstrom
list server. On January 11, 2006 the migrated to ICORS after St John's
University's decision to put Maelstrom out of service.

To attain the excellence we aspire to, GAMBIA-L has always relied upon
the service of its members. The management of the list is shared by a
number of volunteers that will be rotated as and when needed.  New
subscribers are expected to introduce themselves to the Gambia-L, thus
helping people find friends and give others an idea about the
composition of the list.

GAMBIA-L is not a moderated list, and for this reason, all postings
are sent directly to subscribers without intervention or screening.
For this reason, postings are the responsibility of subscribers, and
not list managers or ICORS our host.

Postings on Gambia-L are archived, meaning they are stored on the
computer that runs the program listserver that sends mails to all
subscribers.
Thus, you can obtain any and all postings that have ever been sent to
Gambia-L since it’s launch at the current location through the
Web-interface at:
http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?REPORT&z=3#SUBSSUBSCRIBE
whether you are subscribed to Gambia-l or not.

Subscribing to Gambia-L

Gambia-L is a closed list, meaning that you cannot subscribe yourself
to the list. Thus, someone, (any of the list managers/ owners) has to
subscribe you.
When people send in their requests for subscription, all managers
receive it and the first one to have the chance adds the person. All
managers can also see which manager added a new member. People can
only un-subscribe themselves without the intervention of managers
although managers see who signed off.

GAMBIA-L RULES.

1.  Postings on Gambia-L should not contain extreme insulting or
offensive language; pornographic material; notices of virus hoaxes;
and chain letters.

2.  We're a diverse, worldwide group of several hundred people.  Our
emphasis is on sharing information.  Flaming and personal insults
(including name calling, libelous statements) are out of place here.

3.  List Managers will, without warning, de-list members who
constantly engage in name calling and insults.

4. A List Manager can remove a subscriber for violating any of the
rules after having informed other Managers and waiting for a response
within a period of 24 hours from other managers.

5.  Requests for subscriptions/unsubscriptions should be sent
privately to Gambia-L managers at
[log in to unmask], or through ICORS's web
interface at
http://www.lsoft.com/scripts/wl.exe?SL1=GAMBIA-L&H=LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG

6.  Personal mail should be sent privately, and not to the List .

7. Any subscriber who feels that his/her parent has been abused has to
send evidence to the List management that someone abused his/her
parents before responding in kind on the L because this might result
in the delisting of both the offender and the person offended.

8.  Complaints about conduct of other subscribers must be sent
directly to the Managers and not to the entire List. Management will
then write to the accused subscriber in private with a copy of the
mail to the complainant.

8a.  The accused subscriber must, within 72 hours, respond to the
complaint with an apology and promise not to repeat the offence, or
refute the allegations against him or her.

8b.  In that there is a disagreement about the gravity of the
allegation, Gambia-L List Managers will vote on whether the accused is
guilty or not.

8c.  If the offender is found by the majority of List Managers to be
guilty of the allegations, he or she must apologize to the person
offended by his or her posting within 72 hours.

8d. Failure to respond to an alleged offence or apologize after 3
working days will result in removal from the List.

9. Forwarding responses or emails by someone who was de-listed will
result in the delisting of the person who forwarded the mail,
especially if it is to insult or castigate others.

10. All those who threaten the existence of this List or otherwise
impersonate others by means of "spoofing" e-mail headers including
addresses of other subscribers, will be banned from re-subscribing to
Gambia-L.

11. An expelled subscriber may apply to rejoin the list three months
after his or her expulsion.

12. Applications to rejoin the list must be approved by a simple
majority of the management team.


PARTICIPATING IN DISCUSSIONS

It can be very rewarding to subscribe to a mailing list.  This is even
more so if, like Gambia-L, the list you subscribe to links people of
the same nationality, or interested in the affairs of a nation and
it's peoples.  The constant exchange of ideas, information, greetings,
and yes, harsh words is indicative of how helpful mailing lists can be
to people all over the world.

Along with all these and other benefits come some pitfalls, and
drawbacks that must be borne in mind when you communicate with
Gambia-L subscribers.  The following is aimed at providing you with a
brief introduction to the do's and don'ts of mailing list usage and
should hopefully help you make the best of the list.  Further, it is
hoped that by using Gambia-L more efficiently, you will also be of
even greater value to it's subscribers, and hence The Gambia and her
friends.

At First

There's always a first time!  For this reason, we've all at one time
or the other has felt excited, nervous, and unsure or whatever about
our first message to a mailing list.  Thus, you're not alone in
feeling like a newbie; new computer and Internet users are called.

Your first message to Gambia-L should be your self-introduction.  The
next step after sending in your self-introduction is to do nothing!
Don't send any messages to the list.  This might sound bizarre advice,
but your silence will help you learn about the atmosphere of the list,
how people debate, and what issues are of concern to subscribers.
Just sit back and read postings that come your way.  This act of lying
down low in a mailing list is called lurking.  Once you feel that
you're comfortable with the list, you can start sending postings.

How long should you lurk?  Well, it depends on a number of issues such
as the amount of traffic when you subscribed, whether you've had
experience with other lists, etc.  For example if you subscribe at a
time when there's not much debate going on, it will take you a while
to get a healthy number of messages that can be used to judge the
atmosphere on the list.  On the other hand, if you join in the midst
of a raging controversy, you can bet that the volume of traffic
generated in a day will be enough to tell you what you've gotten into.

Even though it is important to keep quiet for a while, it doesn't mean
that you should not send in replies to questions that are
time-sensitive.  For example, if you just subscribed and someone asks
about something you have knowledge of, please feel free to help and
answer the question.  This is especially true if no other responses
are forthcoming from other list subscribers.  You might very well be
the only person who knows the answer to a question.

Human Issues

Perhaps the most important consideration in your mind is the fact that
even though we are all communicating through the medium of computer
networks, we are all human beings.  This means that we have feelings,
a sense of justice, and a desire to be treated with respect.  For this
reason, please ask yourself the simple question: would I appreciate
someone telling me what I am about to say?
This is especially important when you are inclined to respond to a
posting, or send out one in a fit of rage.  In times like these, we
are especially prone to say things we do not really mean, and live to
regret.  And given that everything sent to Gambia-L is archived, you
really can't take back what you said.

It is important that you work toward mature and responsible postings.
This is for the simple reason that a lot of people on Gambia-L have
nothing to judge you by other than your postings.  What you say
reflects you a lot, and you'd be advised to make sure that it is the
best of you that comes out.  And it's a small world.  You never know
when you're going to run into someone who's been reading your postings
on Gambia-L.

We all like to be humorous and even sarcastic sometimes.  However,
desirable as these traits are, we should be very careful with them in
e-mail because of the potential for being misunderstood.  Unless you
use some well-known jokes or humor, you can be sure that some
subscribers would either not get it, or be out rightly offended.  Even
when you say you're just joking! So what's one to do to avoid being a
bore?  Well, necessity they say is the mother of invention, and so
some conventions styles have been developed to address the need for
conveying emotions and jokes through e-mail.  ASCII art, emoticons
(sometimes called smiles) all offer some means of being funny without
being offensive.

Gambia-L is about sharing.  So it is important that you give back as
much as you can.  It doesn't take much to send a short e-mail message
with the address of a Web site you think might be of use to someone on
the list.  Passing on such information will not only help people, but
will also make you valuable to many people.  And you never know when
they are going to feel obligated to return your kind gesture!

You should also remember to never be personal.  At all costs, avoid
getting dragged (downward) into fruitless arguments and wars of words.
 Such personal verbal fights are called flame wars, and can only
poison the atmosphere of a mailing list.  The best service you can do
to Gambia-L, and indeed The Gambia, is to refrain from flaming.  If
you get attacked anyway, you should respond to that person in private.
 Between the two of you, you can engage in any kind of argument you
want, and for however you want, as long as it is between the two
of you.

Gambia-L is not just about agreeing all the time.  By all means, feel
free to disagree with postings sent to the list.  However, you should
be aware that you are most helpful to the list if your criticism is
constructive and helpful.
Shouting down people, personal attacks, and the like help no one on
the list, including you.  Also, you should cite references to support
any claims you make in your postings.  Or at the minimum, be prepared
to give people who ask evidence to support whatever it is you are
claiming.

E-mail Style Guide

E-mail is a wonderful medium, no doubt, but it also is different from
other forms of communication in many respects.  For this reason, it is
important to be aware of certain issues when you do e-mail.  This
would not only save you trouble, and embarrassment, but it will also
save a lot of people a lot of trouble.

Perhaps the most important habit to develop in using mailing lists is
to be brief.  Gambia-L subscribers receive an average of 10 messages a
day from the list.  Considering that people subscribe to a number of
mailing lists, it is easy to see that many people are barely coping
with a lot of e-mail already.

For this reason, you'd be doing everyone a great favor if you are
brief, and to the point.  People who want more detail about whatever
it is you're talking about can always ask that you send it to them in
private.  Toward this end, it is advisable that you always indicate in
your posting that you can send details to anyone who asks for them, if
that is, you have any more details to give out.

You can also help people a lot by using descriptive titles in your
Subject headings of your e-mail to Gambia-L.  An e-mail with a Subject
titled "Request for help on locating Gamtel's phone number" is much
more informative than one that simply says, "Help!"  The first heading
will help people decide faster than the second whether they can be of
any help or not.
And every second saved is a second that can be spent doing something
else, or helping people!

Gambia-L has a diverse base of subscribers.  This should be an
important consideration as you compose your e-mail to send to the
list.  Thus, you should avoid being too technical, because not
everyone is, or too casual (because not everyone is your
acquaintance), or too for this reason, you should think about your
audience.

You should avoid being redundant, or repetitive.  Because people get a
lot of e-mail, you should not waste their time by repeating what's
already been said.
Although most e-mail packages will append a copy of the mail you are
replying to your reply, you should not include all of it when replying
to a posting. You can summarize what you are following up on, and if
you have to quote the original posting, do not quote everything. To
indicate that you're leaving material out of your quote, uses ellipsis
(...) or *SNIP* as shown in
the following examples below:

a) Full quote
>
> Keep in mind that when referring to a <list>, that list may be of two
> Kinds: local or remote, unless otherwise noted. When referring to a
> local list, your request will be immediately processed; when referring
> to a remote list (a list served by another LISTSERV(tm) which this
> system knows about), your request will be appropriately forwarded.
>

b) Shortened quotes (first, using ellipses, and then using *SNIP*)

>
> Keep in mind that when referring to a <list>, that list may be of two
> kinds:

>
> Keep in mind that when referring to a <list>, that list may be of two
> kinds:   *SNIP*

Note the dramatic reduction in the amount of reading you have to do
when the shortened quotes are used.  Also, because people reading
these shortened quotes already received the original message, they
still can follow your argument with just one sentence long reference
to the posting you are responding to.

Another important issue to be constantly aware of is the fact that
Gambia-L is a public forum.  This means that there's no privacy in the
e-mail you send to the list.  Indeed, everything sent to the list is
archived, meaning that it is stored in a computer at ICORS, and can be
retrieved by anybody with Internet access.  This sounds so obvious
that it seems dumb to talk about it.  However, it is important to
emphasize the point, for the simple reason that some people think that
it is enough to delete an e-mail message to ensure that it's gone
forever.  Nothing is further from the truth.
A simple rule of thumb when using e-mail is that because of the lack
of privacy, you should not write anything you would not want to find
in the newspaper tomorrow.

Do not type your e-mail message all in UPPER CASE LETTERS.  For one
thing, it is much harder to read stuff in ALL CAPS than in regular
mixed-case format.
While you might be tempted to use all caps to emphasize a point, this
is not the way to do it.  You should sparingly use caps for emphasis.
For example, the sentence: "I would like to express my strong
DISAGREEMENT with the fellow" is much better than: "I WOULD LIKE TO
EXPRESS MY STRONG DISAGREEMENT WITH THE FELLOW" Obviously, the point
you are emphasizing is lost in the second format of the same sentence.


Gambia-L Etiquette

There is no point in sending certain messages to the list.  Anything
that should be taken care of by list management should not be sent to
Gambia-L.
They simply would not be able to help.  For example, sending a "Please
unsubscribe me" message to the list would not do you, or any one any
good.
Such issues are best addressed to list management, if you want to save
people trouble, and have your problem dealt with.

Do not send your response to a posting to Gambia-L if it is not going
to benefit others on the list.  In this case, send your response
privately to the person who sent the posting you are replying to.  An
example of this is if one writes to ask if anyone knows of the
whereabouts of a friend he or she would like to contact.  Obviously,
there is no need to send the friends phone number to Gambia-L.

In the same vein, do not send private replies to Gambia-L without the
consent of people who sent them to you.  If some one sends you
information, it is safe to assume that they meant it for your eyes
only, and it would be polite to seek their permission before sending
it to Gambia-L.

Replying to Gambia-L can be a potential source of embarrassment.  The
list is set up such that if you press the reply button of your e-mail
program, it's going to send your reply to Gambia-L.  Thus, make sure
that e-mail you are sending is going to where you think you want them
to before you press that send button.
Otherwise, you'll find all of Gambia-L being privy to what you thought
were strictly between you and the person you wanted to send your
e-mail to.

It is common courtesy and professional to sign your postings.  This is
especially important given that you can use almost anything as your
username and e-mail address, rather than your real name in e-mail
messages.  For
example, if your e-mail address is [log in to unmask] how would anyone
know that your postings are from Lamin Sanneh of Juffureh if you don't
tell them?

Besides your name, your signature can also include other information
such as your address and phone number.  It might even include what's
called ASCII art, an art form that uses characters and numbers to draw
pictures.  Whatever you want to include in your signature, please keep
it short (5 to 6 lines), and do not include any blatant advertising of
commercial products and/or services. It's just plain bad taste.

Try limiting the number of questions you ask in a posting to one or
two.  This is for the simple reason that it's a lot easier to deal
with one issue at a time given the large number of subscribers on
Gambia-L.  The practice of
limiting the number of questions you ask per posting not only saves
you trouble, but also makes it easier for subscribers to follow the
progress of debates on the list.

Still on the issue of asking questions, it is also good citizenship to
summarize responses to a question and send it back to the list.  For
example, if I ask about choosing a school for my child, it would be
great if I summarize
all responses I received to the question and post it on the list.
This will not only provide a neat synopsis of what the responses were,
but it would also foster a spirit of cooperation and collaboration on
the list.  And that's what
it's all about in the first place.

No matter what, DO NOT ever, ever post "Me too" or "I agree" type
messages to the list. If you agree with what someone says, please
reply to him or her in person, and not send out a two-word message to
the list.  This practice is especially annoying if you quote the
original message you are replying to, only to add, "I agree" at the
end of it.  And it's not enough to say, "I disagree" either.  If you
disagree with the contents of a posting, you should elaborate, to keep
the discussion going.

People sometimes ask questions that have been answered before on the
list. This might be because they joined after the question was asked,
or simply forgot.  Such questions should be answered in private, or
left to less busy people to deal with.  Don't worry about the question
going un-answered because the person asking it will repost it in the
event no one answers it.  If the same person asks it a second time
because no one answered it the first time, send the poor fellow a
reply to his or her e-mail address.

Gambia-L is not for chain letters.  Please save us the trouble and
refrain from sending chain letters to the list.  Obviously, you can
send petitions for to raise funds for charitable and philanthropic
causes and the like, given that Gambia-L is for helping Gambian
progress.  If you have chain letters that you think are interesting,
please send them to your friends, and not to Gambia-L.
If you must inform us, you can post a brief description of it and ask
people to request that you send them copies of it privately.

With regards law, never post copyrighted material on Gambia-L, unless
you have permission from the copyright owner to do so.  Although it is
common occurrence to find copyrighted material being distributed at
will on the Internet, Gambia-L cannot afford to openly flout laws that
regulate these issues.  ICORS is hosting us on the understanding that
our list will not be a forum for people to break laws.

If you really want to inform people about material that's copyrighted,
the best thing to do would be to send the Web address of the
publication or information and Gambia-L subscribers can then visit the
Web site on their own to access the information

LIST MANAGEMENT
Volunteers manage gambia-L.  Gambia-L managers are responsible for
subscribing new members, and helping them make the best of the
facilities offered by the list.  They should be contacted if you have
any problems with your subscriptions.  But before you contact them,
please make sure that your problems are not originating from your
e-mail provider but from Gambia-L server.

The following are the current people responsible for the management of Gambia-L.

List Managers:
Abdoulie Jallow (BambaLaye) <[log in to unmask]>
Lamin Darbo <[log in to unmask]>
Ousman Ceesay <[log in to unmask]>
Haruna Darbo <[log in to unmask]>


All the List Managers will receive mails sent to:
[log in to unmask]

Important references:
Gambia-L is run on LISTSERV 1.8d software and the online manuals can
be found at:
http://www.lsoft.com/info/default.asp?item=manuals

An interesting manual for you to read there is General User's Guide to
LISTSERV® 1.8c
http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8d/userindex.html

Thank you for reading.

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To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
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