Cohousing-L Mailing List: Info about cohousing-l at conferences/gatherings

[Stuart Staniford-Chen (stanifor]

At the Northern California conference yesterday there was a great deal 
of interest in cohousing-l.  I met a lot of folks who are email-enabled 
but had not heard of cohousing-l.  Those of us who were there who are 
active on the list were not at all well prepared to handle this.  I 
ended up making an announcement and giving out my email address to 
anyone who wanted to inquire.  I didn't feel comfortable that I 
remembered the exact subscription syntax for cohousing-l off the top of 
my head and I didn't want to generate a huge bunch of malformed requests 
for Fred to deal with.

I feel pretty stupid for not having anticipated this situation and thus 
gotten prepared for it.  The conference was in the Bay Area for heaven's 
sake - half of the U.S. computer industry is in that region.  My only 
excuse is that I've been working about 16 hours a day all week to finish 
an academic conference paper.  It got mailed out on Friday afternoon, 
and Friday evening I spent dancing and getting drunk with my housemates.  
Saturday morning I unaccountably had a headache :-).

Anyway, I don't think we were in too much better case at the Boulder 
conference - again we were giving out our personal email addresses to 
people so they could contact us about how to get on the list (at least I 
did this and I know Rob Sandelin did too).

My feeling is that, in any kind of cohousing gathering or conference, 
there is likely to be interest in cohousing-l, and those of us active on 
this list should take responsibility for putting information out about 
it.  Specifically I suggest that someone should 

1) Prepare a sheet of information explaining what cohousing-l is like 
and how to subscribe

2) Print a bunch of copies and place them on the information table.

3) Let cohousing-l know what you are doing so that we don't end up doing 
it multiple times for each conference.

4) Make an announcement about it directing people to the sheets of paper 
at some appropriate point in the program.

Here's the text I wish I'd prepared for yesterday - feel free to use it 
in any way convenient for you.

Stuart.
N St Cohousing
stanifor [at] cs.ucdavis.edu

                                Cohousing-l
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^
                                                                
Cohousing-l is an internet email discussion list for talking about any 
and all aspects of Cohousing.  Recent discussion themes have included: 
common house kitchen design, how to get a mortgage, political 
implications of cohousing, energy efficiency in house design, the role 
of community building in cohousing, and many others.  The list is not 
moderated, but the discussions are generally of very high quality.  Many 
people find that they can get their questions answered by folks from 
other groups who have struggled with the same issues.

There are about 350 subscribers at present.  Most are in the U.S., but 
there are also some in other countries including Canada and Australia.  
The list carries quite a lot of traffic - if you join you should expect 
to receive five or ten email messages a day from it.  You may need to be 
selective and only read messages with subjects which particularly 
interest you.  Only people who are subscribed to the list can post 
messages to it.

How to subscribe:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If you already have access to email, send an email to listserv [at] uci.com
with no subject and a line saying 

SUBSCRIBE COHOUSING-L Your full name

in the body of the message.  Obviously, the text "Your full name" should 
be replaced with your actual name (not your email address).  After you 
do this, the list will send you back a message with detailed information 
on how to use it which you should read and keep for future reference.

What if you don't have email access?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If you work at a high-tech company or if you are associated with a 
university, you will almost certainly be able to get an account which 
gives you access through work/school.  Contact the information 
technology department at your particular organization.

The most common route for people who cannot do this is to sign up with a 
commercial on-line service.  Ones which many people use to connect to 
the internet include America On-Line (1-800-827-6364) and Delphi (1-800 
695 4005).  Local internet service providers in your area may provide a 
better deal.  There are also a variety of local programs to provide free 
internet access - some are operated through universities, and some by 
the efforts of electronic activists.  We cannot give general advice 
about these local options - ask computer-savvy friends in your area.  
The ads in Wired magazine (widely available at newstands) may also give 
you useful leads.

If you have not used the internet before, you may well want guidance 
from one of the plethora of books which have recently invaded bookstores 
everywhere.

Other resources for the internet experienced
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The cohousing-l archives can be accessed though the listserv at 
listserv [at] uci.com or via gopher at uci.uci.com .

World wide web pages with a large body of information about cohousing 
are at http://everest.cs.ucdavis.edu/~stanifor/cohousing.html.  These 
can also be accessed by email - send a message to 
coho-request [at] helvellyn.cs.ucdavis.edu with Subject: help.