Hello fellow list-members,

Our little e-community now numbers over 80 members!

Some of you may remember the late 80s and early 90s of 'net based archaeological discussion.  Back then, I was one of those people who kept trying to promote text-based discussions and asked people to ground their ideas in examples drawn from published works.  I was also asked to do so a few times, and so, I've been on both sides of that argument.  In most list-service e-groups, I found that it was difficult, and really not much fun, trying to keep people focused and to promote a seminar-like environment.  This, as late as it is, might be a successful attempt.  We are taking baby steps, but I hope to see increased list activity once the reviews begin to roll in.

I am writing to provide a few simple, flexible and basic parameters for our group and to notify you of a few of the features Yahoo has made available to our us.  Our moderators consist of myself, Mark Hall and Mikey Brass.   It is important to understand that the moderator team is not an editorial board.  If editing is needed, your reviews will be sent to volunteer experts I am associated with.  In most cases, however, review will be unnecessary.  This post will serve to clarify the goal of list moderation by introducing the fundamental group's guidelines. 

We now have an agreement with Altamira Press and can help you obtain review copies of recent publications they offer.  Please let me know if you are interested in reviewing an Altamira publication on this list. 

Since managing the Altamira deal has proven much easier than expected, I am now willing to help members obtain review copies of other texts from other publishers.  To qualify for this, you must first contact and introduce yourself, and assure me that you will follow through with a review by a deadline we will agree upon.  Of course, members are encouraged to review books they have purchased as well.  Although booksellers and publishers want reviews of the most recent material, it is worth noting that this list strongly encourages the review of ANY written material pertaining to archaeology, published at any time.   

Purpose of archreview@yahoogroups.com:

I founded this e-group to provide a medium for the exchange of ideas, critique and analysis of published works in archaeology and related fields.  As I am sure most would agree, virtually every field of inquiry is, in some way, related to archaeology, so I will try to provide a little guidance about what I consider to be relevant material.  Since the list is moderated, I will also provide some general comments on what our moderator team is likely to delete from the message cue and what we are likely to pass onto the list. 

We ask that listmembers refrain from posting reviews or comments concerning subjects which do not directly relate to archaeology, UNLESS the purpose of the post is to show and discuss the relevance of the subject to archaeology (we certainly have no objection to ground-breaking ideas!).  The latter type of review is exactly the kind of review we would love to see here!

We also ask that members refrain from sharing personal comments (especially the acrimonious sort) with the entire list by carefully identifying and using original sender addresses for any comments which do not promote focused and reasonable discussion.  Note that there will be some flexibility here.  For example, harmless jokes will generally be welcomed.  Segues and tangents are fun, but we reserve the right to demand that such discussions be conducted using private channels. 

We expect that this e-group will do exactly what it was designed for - providing a less formal and more immediate outlet for reviews and critique of archaeological publications from a wide variety of perspectives and an exchange of ideas centered on these works engendering a broad set of approaches.  To accomplish this, we ask that we each exercise good judgment to prevent topic drift, obscurantism, and (i.e. this message) excessive long-windedness.


Notes on the Yahoogroups Service: 

The most frequently asked question I have had to deal with as
owner/moderator of several e-mail groups over the years is 'how do i change
the e-mail address i use for this group?" Fortunately, the answers are
simple, but you have to make sure that you have a Yahoo membership
associated with the e-mail address you use for the list. To check this,
start with
http://groups.yahoo.com/
If you can't sign in from there, you probably need to set up a new
account. Just follow the simple on-screen instructions to do so.

After you've accomplished the association of your e-mail address with your
Yahoo account, you can modify all of the settings you might want to change
by first signing in using the link above, then clicking on the "edit my
membership" link in the upper right of your browser window. One of the
convenient aspects of this service is that you can actually store multiple
e-mail addresses per Yahoo User ID, so that you can switch e-mail addresses
very easily, discontinue mail, or set mail to 'digest versions' so that you
only receive one digest of all of the messages posted per day.

I encourage you to familiarize yourselves with these and some of the more
powerful tools our list has to offer. These are described and linked
below, briefly:


A great place to start familiarizing yourself with the power of e-group
subscription is
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archreview/
Here, you will find links to every user-modifiable setting and group
feature available.

Here are a few useful examples:
From
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archreview/messages
You can navigate through a complete, unedited, archive of every post which has ever been received by members of the list.

If you would ever like to try real-time secure chat or organize a group meeting, without making a complicated conference call, visit our chat room
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archreview/chat

One of the most powerful features is the group calendar:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archreview/calendar

Do you have a file in a word processing format, or maybe a digital image of
something, maybe even a database or catalog you would like to
share? Upload it to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archreview/files
Here you will also find web versions of our class syllabi

We even have a special place for photos!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archreview/lst

Found a useful link on the web you would like to share with others?
Add it to our group's links at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archreview/links

Data tables can be submitted at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archreview/database

Need a list of all of our group's members? Check out
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archreview/members

Here, you may note that Mikey Brass, Mark Hall and I all have special symbols next to our names. That's because we co-moderate the list and I 'own' it. What this means is that we have administrative access to the server which runs the mailing list on Yahoo.  I  can modify all of the group's settings, including banning undesirables, deleting messages from the archives, sending invitations to other groups and people to join, etc.  All three of our moderator team can approve messages and remove non-compliant members from the e-group.  If you have any questions which are not answered on the Yahoo web site, I am the person to ask.

Thanks!

Matt Tomaso
Director, Feltville Archaeology Project
Principal Investigator and Associate Director, MSU Center for Archaeological Studies
(973)655-7990

http://picard.montclair.edu/archaeology/