The Strathspey mailing list is a forum for the discussion of all aspects of Scottish country dancing, e.g., dance descriptions, dancing technique, the history of dances and dancing, learning or teaching how to dance, dance music, … We also welcome descriptions of new dances, announcements of events like courses or balls, or anything related to Scottish country dancing that the subscribers might find interesting.
Please follow these ground rules when participating in Strathspey:
Gross violations of the first three rules may result in posting privileges being withdrawn at the discretion of the list maintainer(s). [So far this has happened twice in over twenty years and nearly 70.000 messages of Strathspey, so rest assured that on the whole the community has a fairly thick hide – but enough is enough. See here for further explanations.] The other rules are enforced automatically by the list software.
You can subscribe to the list by sending a message (any message) to
strathspey+subscribe@strathspey.org
You will receive an automated message from the list management software asking you to ”confirm” your subscription request according to the instructions contained in that message. This makes sure that (a) you can receive mail from Strathspey at your mail address and (b) you really want to subscribe to Strathspey. (Some people consider it a funny little prank to subscribe somebody to 10,000 different mailing lists.)
If you are tired of reading Strathspey or do not want your mailbox to overflow while you are away on holiday for four weeks, you can unsubscribe from the list using the address
strathspey+unsubscribe@strathspey.org
Unsubscription requests do not require confirmation (so far).
The Strathspey list is also available as a “digest”, which is one big message per day (or so) containing everything posted since the last digest. This is convenient if you do not want your mailbox cluttered with a dozen Strathspey messages everytime you check for mail, but makes it a little less convenient to answer to individual messages (but your mail program may help you with that).
Postings to be distributed to all subscribers must be sent to
The mailing list is unmoderated, i.e., everything that is submitted is forwarded directly to the subscribers of the list. You need to be a subscriber to be able to post, meaning that, for every incoming submission the list management software checks whether the “From:” address on that message is contained in the subscriber database. If this is not the case, the message will be sent to the list manager (or some other designated “moderator”) for approval. The list manager will approve messages for distribution if they adhere to the general rules listed above. In particular, unsolicited non-SCD advertising will not be approved. The main reason for all this hassle is to keep the list as “spam-free” as possible.
If you have several e-mail addresses that you want to submit postings to Strathspey from, but only want to receive Strathspey mail at one of them, you can subscribe all the others but set them to “nomail”. Such addresses will be allowed to post but will not receive messages.
An archive of past postings and other material is available via the World-Wide Web; use the URL
http://www.strathspey.org/lists/strathspey@strathspey.org/
The Strathspey List, the Strathspey Server, and its maintainer(s) are in no way officially connected with (other than through individual membership) or endorsed by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. If you do encounter important RSCDS people on the list – which may happen occasionally –, you should always assume that they participate in any discussion as “private citizens” unless they explicitly say otherwise.