In article <[log in to unmask]>, dated Fri, 6 Nov
1998 at 00:34:48, George Fairbairn <[log in to unmask]> writes
>I am a new member. I am astounded at the sheer volume of the
>correspondence that appears in my inbox each day. It is a fulltime job
>keeping up with it. I have certainly felt tempted to suspend my
>membership just to have a breather. Perhaps others have fel the same
It first has to be said that mailing lists should not be thought of as
personal email. They are distribution lists that do not require you to
respond and in most cases will be a lower priority to personal email. In
this particular context "personal email" includes business email i.e. it
is email that is sent in expectation of some action by either yourself
or a colleague.
If you don't have any mechanism to manage your email such that you can
prioritise the order in which you read and action it you will inevitably
find that your email is managing you. There are for example some mailing
lists which I am subscribed to that I may not read at all if I am busy.
All my mail gets routed into a number of separate mail boxes according
to criteria that I specify. Most of the popular email applications offer
such facilities. If you are restricted to using free web based email
services, you may be able to implement a rudimentary form of management
by obtaining several different email accounts and use one or more of
them for mailing list subscriptions and another for 'personal' email.
However, the only long term solution is a full SMTP and/or pop mail
account with an ISP in conjunction with a good email application.
Mailing lists themselves can evolve into a hierarchy of associated but
separate mailing lists. There is no reason why at some point in time GP-
UK could not split into a number of sub categories of discussion. This
has been done successfully by other mailing lists. However, it is not a
task to be approached lightly and I am only mentioning it because it
*is* an option although one which I don't believe is either necessary or
practical at this particular juncture. The reason it is not practical is
that it is unlikely that mailbase would allow another 'GP-UK' type
mailing list and the hierarchical approach really should be implemented
using the same mailing list server for all the sub-lists.
Chris
--
Chris Salter (Vice Chairman) Lincolnshire Post-Polio Network
Registered Charity No. 1064177
<URL:http://www.zynet.co.uk/ott/polio/lincolnshire/>
Web Site & Vice Chairman Email: [log in to unmask]
Honorary Secretary Email: [log in to unmask]
Member of the British Healthcare Internet Association
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