Mailing Lists

fasola.org hosts two different mailing lists of shape-note music enthusiasts, numbering over 650 subscribers and including traditional singers and enthusiasts as well as scholars and performing artists. Both are moderated lists, and serve different purposes.

The singings list (click here to subscribe) focuses on traditional fasola singing experiences (and closely related topics). These include such items as announcements of upcoming singings, major events in singers lives (such as deaths, serious illness, and births), introductions of new singers, reports of singing conventions, and of course recipes for dinner on the grounds!

The discussions list (click here to subscribe) focuses on historical and technical aspects of shape-note singing. Examples of topics include tunebook history, shape note pedagogy, musicological analysis, as well as reviews of books, recordings, articles, and conferences.

The two lists are separately moderated—there is no auto-forwarding of off-topic messages from one list to the other. The moderators will generally strive to keep discourse on the lists focused, civil in tone, and within the topical scope of their design.

Unsubscribing from the lists

Once you are subscribed to the lists, you can unsubscribe by following the same links give above.

Note about Google Groups

The fasola email lists are using Google Groups to host the lists. This is confusing to some people who merely want to receive the emails without registering with Google.

Please note that you do not have to register with Google to be a fasola subscriber. When you subscribe to the list, you WILL receive fasola messages even though you are not registered with Google.

Although registration with Google is entirely optional, those who register will have some benefits that unregistered subscribers do not have:

Posting

To post to the lists, send an email message to fasola-singings@googlegroups.com or fasola-discussions@googlegroups.com. Only those subscribed to the list may send messages. Messages you send are first read by the moderator. The moderator reserves the right to reject your message if it is not appropriate for the list or for any other reason. You’ll be notified in the event that a message is rejected.

As with any electronic forum, please consider your message carefully before sending it. It will be read by hundreds of people. Currently the messages are not archived on the web, but they will probably be made available this way in the future.

If you read messages at the Google Groups web interface, you will see advertising on the right side of the screen. Much of this will be targeted toward a religious-music audience. Furthermore, if you register for a Google account, Google will probably track your web activities and tailor the advertising to your interests. Anyone, including fasola subscribers, may purchase advertising that appears in the Google advertising web page space. Remember, fasola.org has no commercial affiliation with Google, and no control over the commercial space at the right of the Google Groups page.

Once you are subscribed, you learn how to post a message online or via e-mail by clicking "Visit this group" above.

Why didn't my message appear?

Fasola messages are read and approved by human moderators, so there is an understandable delay between the time you post your message and the time it appears. This usually takes less than a day, but, depending on the circumstances of the moderator (travel, illness, etc.) it can take longer.

If after several days you don't see your post or if you are seeing other messages appear that were posted earlier than yours, then there may be a problem. You should know that if your post is delayed for some reason and you repost your message, it WILL appear twice on the list.

"You do not have permission to post to group fasola-discussions." Only subscribers may post messages to the fasola lists, and this message means you are not a subscriber. Usually this happens when you post from a different email account than the one you used to subscribe.

Posting to both lists?

Many singers subscribe to both "singings" and "discussions" and wonder about posting to both lists. The moderators, as well as most of the subscribers, prefer that you NOT post the same message to both lists. If you are announcing a singing event and seek the widest distribution, post to the "singings" list.

Replying to a post

The fasola lists are set so that when you reply to a message, your reply goes ONLY to the sender of the message, not to the group. If you want your reply to go to the whole group, use the "Reply-All" button on your mail program. Alternatively, you can of course type (or copy-and-paste) the list address in the "To:" field of the message.

The reason for this is that if the default were reply-to-all, the consequences of a mistake (sending a private message to the whole group) could be dire. With the reply-to-sender default, when you make a mistake you merely have to resend the message to the group.

Subjects of message replies

When you reply to a message, it is sent with the same subject as the original. In addition, in the Google Groups web interface, it appears as a "comment" under the original message. If you mean to change the subject, don't neglect to type a new subject in the "Subject:" field of the message. Otherwise your new subject will not appear in the list on the Google Groups website.

The message archive

The Google Groups web interface features an archive of all the messages posted to the lists. The web addresses for the two lists are http://groups.google.com/group/fasola-singings or http://groups.google.com/group/fasola-discussions.

The fasola-singings list is set to "private," meaning that the archived messages can be seen only those who register with Google groups as fasola-singings subscribers. The fasola-discussions list is set to "public," meaning that the messages can be viewed by anyone and will appear as search results in searches of Google Groups.

The reason for this distinction has much to do with the evolution of the two lists. Fasola-singings is foremost a list for the singing community, where personal experiences and experiences are shared with other singers.

Message formatting guidelines

vcards. Please turn off the option to attach “vcards” or “business cards” to outgoing messages. In Outlook Express, this switch is at: Tools - Stationery - Signature; then uncheck the box marked “Attach card to all outgoing messages.” Vcards are not the same as plain text signature files, which are acceptable as long as they contain only text.

file attachments. Some list members might be tempted to send encoded attachments attachments which they think might be useful or interesting, such as scanned photographs, sound files, or word-processing documents. Long-standing netiquette frowns on the sending of attachments unless you KNOW that your recipient (1) wants the photograph, sound file, or word-processing document, and (2) has the proper software to view it, play it, etc. While these conditions may be met in personal e-mail, it’s rarely true on mailing lists with hundreds of members, using varied platforms and mailers. Please do not attach encoded files to messages. Instead, link to a website where the content may be viewed.

Organizing the messages you receive

After you join the lists, you may wish to tell your e-mail program to filter the messages from the mailing lists into their own separate folder or window. The subject field of fasola messages will begin with "[fasola-singings]" or "[fasola-discussions]," and you may use this as a filtering device.