General Information

ARNOVA-L was established in 1991 and has been in continuous service since that time. It is one of the oldest and most successful email discussion lists in the social sciences. Participants come from nearly 40 countries, although the majority is from North America. They represent a broad cross-section of researchers, teachers, students and practitioners interested in nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and philanthropy.

ARNOVA-L discussion has continued 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for more than a decade. The continuing success of the list is due entirely to the enthusiasm and open participation of the subscriber base. Some subscribers have been participating since the list began, while others joined today.

Messages distributed by ARNOVA-L have been automatically archived since January 1997. The archives can be searched at: https://listserv.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iupui.exe?A0=ARNOVA-L

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The Purpose of ARNOVA-L

This list was established as an open international electronic forum for anyone engaged with or interested in nonprofit organizations, voluntary action or philanthropy. The list enables us to facilitate the rapid sharing of concerns, interests, problems and solutions among interested researchers, teachers, practitioners and students.

ARNOVA was one of the first social science research associations to establish an ongoing discussion list, and ARNOVA-L has been an interesting and lively forum throughout its history.

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How To Join ARNOVA-L

Joining ARNOVA-L is fairly simple. It can be done in any of three ways:
The full-control approach:

1)Point any standard web browser to:
https://listserv.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iupui.exe?A0=ARNOVA-L
2) Select "Join or Leave ARNOVA-L"
3) Register your Email Address and Password
4) Follow the directions for complete control over user options.

The minimalist approach:

1) Send a message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
2) On the first line of the message type only:
SUBSCRIBE ARNOVA-L Firstname Lastname

The web approach:

• Go to https://listserv.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iupui.exe?A0=ARNOVA-L
• Establish a Email Address and Password (First time only)
• Select

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Why Can't I Join Anonymously?

ARNOVA-L is affiliated with a membership organization, and many of the participants are known to one another. One of the few requirements of participation on the list is that you register with your real first and last names (No pseudonyms please!). We do not rent, sell or distribute our names list beyond the subscriber base in any fashion, and we will sanction any subscriber who does so.

Anonymous participation is open only to those who wish only to read the archives. Everyone wishing to participate in the discussion must register with his or her name and email address.

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How To Post A Message to ARNOVA-L

Posting a message to the entire ARNOVA-L list is as simple as sending an email message to any person. All that you need to do is address an ordinary email message to arnova-l@listserv.iupui.edu and it will be delivered to everyone currently subscribed to the list and archived in the ARNOVA-L Archives.

Note: Many people today have more than one email address. ARNOVA-L is designed so that only subscribers can send messages to the list. This means that you can only send to the list from the address for which you are registered. Mail sent from 2nd or 3rd or 4th addresses will be returned unsent. Some subscribers have chosen to solve this problem by subscribing to the list from all of their separate email addresses and setting all but one to NOMAIL.

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The List Operator Can Help

Roger A. Lohmann, Ph.D., Professor of Social Work and Chair of the Nonprofit Program of the School of Applied Social Sciences at West Virginia University, created the list for the benefit of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) and the international research, educational and practice community interested in nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and philanthropy.

The List is now owned and operated by ARNOVA from its headquarters in Indianapolis, with technical support and assistance from Indiana University. It is managed and supported by a committee of persons appointed by ARNOVA for these purposes. That committee is led by Putnam Barber, who can be reached at putnam.barber@gmail.com.

If you have problems with the List, or questions about it, please direct those to Putnam Barber at the address just cited.

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Complaining to the Manager

If you have questions about the list, or problems with its operation, direct them to the list operator, Putnam Barber, rather than to the ARNOVA-L list (where they will be distributed to the entire subscribership). Address your questions to: putnam.barber@gmail.com.

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ARNOVA-L is an Unmoderated List

LISTSERV discussion lists can be either of two types: Moderated or unmoderated. ARNOVA-L is an unmoderated list. This means that:

1. No one sees or must approve your message before it goes out to the list.
2. All messages sent to the list by subscribers to ARNOVA-L are automatically posted to all other members of the list;

Please note that this means that if you "Reply" to messages sent out over the list, your reply will immediately go to all members on the list. There is no way to stop or prevent this.

If you intend to send a reply directly to someone who wrote an earlier message to the list, you need to "Send" your answer addressed directly to that individual's username and address. If you just hit reply, your message will be broadcast to the entire list.

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Stopping Your Mail Temporarily

If you are planning to go on an extended vacation, conference trip or sabbatical, please try to make arrangements to handle your e-mail. Several options exist:

• The least acceptable alternative is for you to simply go off and leave your e-mail unattended. Most email addresses have certain default limits on the number of messages that can accumulate in this manner. Once your "mailbox" or queue is full, EVERY MESSAGE attempted to be delivered to you will generate a delivery attempt error message to the list operator. This is a misuse of internet resources and an unnecessary drain on bandwidth. Some days the ARNOVA-L list will generate hundreds of such pointless messages. (10 messages a day to 25 such users = 250 unnecessary delivery attempt messages.)
• Some e-mail clients can be set to automatically collect all of incoming mail and add it to your "inbasket". If you have such a feature, PLEASE USE IT!!!
• Another option is to instruct the ARNOVA-L Listserver to HOLD your mail deliveries for the period you are away.
• Once you have your Email Address and Password, you can do this quickly and easily online at: http://listserv.iupui.edu/archives/arnova-l.html. Click on "Join or Leave ARNOVA-L," and change the appropriate setting to NOMAIL.
• Or, you can also do this with a one-line message to: listserv@listserv.iupui.edu.
• That memo should contain ONLY the following message: SET ARNOVA-L NOMAIL.
• Later, when you are ready to resume regular mail from the list, log on to the web page again or send a memo to the same address: SET ARNOVA-L MAIL.
• (If you are a subscriber to any other LISTSERV lists, this same procedure should work there as well.)
• If all else fails, you may wish to un-subscribe from the list for the period you will be away.

If you are going on sabbatical or will be in residence at another institution for any length of time and want to continue your regular ARNOVA-L connection, there are three basic options:

• Your present location may have a procedure for automatically forwarding all of your incoming e-mail. (This is usually the simplest thing to do.) Talk with your computer center or consultant.
• UNSUBscribe from your old address and SUBSCRIBE from your new address.

If delivery failures are consistently reported back from a particular address, the address may be automatically or manually deleted from the list. The listserv software is set to a default of 100 messages: If 100 successive delivery failures for ARNOVA-L occur without a successful delivery, the subscription will automatically be deleted from the list. If, on the other hand, the message is received that an account no longer exists, the list operator will remove that user name/address from the subscriber list.

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Delivery of Messages

Messages sent to the ARNOVA-L list are delivered to everyone on the list EXCEPT the person sending the message. The reason for this (known as the NOACK default) is that the list assumes that any sender already has a copy of their message and doesn't need two.

A very small number of users are disconcerted by this. First, be aware that if you send a message to the ARNOVA-L list and you don't receive a rejection notice (usually within 5 minutes), you can assume that your message was successfully delivered. LISTSERV software is rock-solid and fully dependable.

If, however, you must have a confirmation, log onto our web page at https://listserv.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iupui.exe?A0=ARNOVA-L and change the appropriate setting for your subscription from NOACK to ACK. Then, every time you send a message, you will get a short two-line reassurance that your message was delivered. (You still won't get a second copy. If you need that, you will have to retrieve it from the archives.)

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Rejected Messages

A number of messages sent to the list each week are rejected by the LISTSERV software and returned to the senders. The single most frequent reason for this arises from attempts to send a message from a non-subscribed email address. Subscribers are responsible for keeping their addresses up-to-date, which can be done easily at our website.

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Changing/Stopping Your Subscription

If your current address changes or becomes invalid, or you wish to stop subscribing to ARNOVA-L, send the one-line message UNSUBSCRIBE ARNOVA-L to listserv@listserv.iupui.edu or submit the change at the web page https://listserv.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iupui.exe?A0=ARNOVA-L.

The #1 User Problem

The single most common problem that ARNOVA-L users have experienced consistently over the entire history of the list is a message to the list being rejected because of an address inconsistency.

In nearly all instances, this is caused by an update in the users email list caused by a change in address schemes at the user's post office (e.g., from <janetuser@po.university.edu> to <janetuser@mail.university.edu>). The internet is a very dynamic place, and these changes can occur below the attention thresholds of many users.

Such address changes are usually accompanied by some type of aliasing, and forwarding arrangements, whereby mail is automatically forwarded from the old address to the new one. In some cases, mail may be forwarded four or five times before reaching its final destinations.

Discussion lists like ARNOVA-L cannot be automatically updated to reflect these changes, so it is up to users to keep their subscriptions up to date. If these changes are not made, when the user tries to send a message to the list from the new address, the LISTSERV software will not recognize them as a legitimate subscriber and will return their message unsent.

In the past, this sometimes presented a double bind for users: You can't send mail to the list from the new address because the list won't recognize you, but you also can't unsubscribe from the old address for the same reason! This meant that most such updates had to be made manually by the list operator.

The new web interface https://listserv.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iupui.exe?A0=ARNOVA-L largely solves that problem. Because a user can access the interface with their Email Address and Password, it is a simple matter of logging on to remove the old address and insert the new one.

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Another User Problem

Some ARNOVA-L subscribers use automatic "I'm out of the office" messages to respond automatically to every incoming email when they are out of the office. In most cases, these messages to the List will bounce back to the operator. However, in a few instances, these messages have gone directly to the entire list.

Rather than providing a continuing source of annoyance to thousands of people, a waste of bandwidth and a source of comment for some lesser number, users whose feedback messages go directly to the list will be suspended until they return and the problem can be corrected.

If you use these feedback messages and your email from ARNOVA-L suddenly stops while you are away, this may be the problem. It can be corrected easily by issuing the SET ARNOVA-L MAIL message to arnova-l@listserv.iupui.edu either via a one-line message to that address or through our web access.

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Receiving ARNOVA-L In Digest Mode

Digest Mode is a name for the method of receiving email from a list in a single daily file (called a digest, but really a full array of all messages sent to the list that day).

If you are using a commercial mailbox service where you pay by the message received, or for convenience or some other reason you want everything to come to you in one message a day, you can tell the ARNOVA-L listserver to deliver ARNOVA mail once a day. To do this, send listserv@listserv.iupui.edu the following message: SET ARNOVA-L DIGEST.
To reverse this setting, send the opposite message: SET ARNOVA-L NODIGEST.

This is also one of the changes you can make online at our website (https://listserv.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iupui.exe?A0=ARNOVA-L).

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ARNOVA-L Archives

Messages distributed by ARNOVA-L have been automatically archived since January 1997. The archives are maintained automatically, updated daily, and include a record of every message sent to the list (including errors, misdirected messages and other cyberspace junk). For many users, they are a valuable resource and used regularly. Below are several different ways to access the archives.

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Retrieving a Month's Messages

If you would like, you can also retrieve an entire month's archived messages by addressing a memo to: listserv@listserv.iupui.edu. On the first line of the memo type: GET ARNOVA-L LOGyymm. The "YY" is the year and "MM" is the month you wish to receive. Thus, GET ARNOVA-L LOG0110 will retrieve the October 2001 file.

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Searching the Archive (The Simplest Way)

The simplest way to search the archive is to use a web browser and enter https://listserv.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iupui.exe?A0=ARNOVA-L. From the main page, select ÒLogin RequiredÓ under ÒARNOVA-L Archives,Ó and then type in your e-mail address and your listserv password. Search and follow the instructions.

Searching the Archive (A Simple Way)
(Note: Capital letters are irrelevant in all search statements discussed here.) A simple way to search the ARNOVA-L archive is to address any e-mail message using the SEARCH statement to listserv@listserv.iupui.edu. Thus, the statement: SEARCH "civil society" in ARNOVA-L should produce an e-mail message to you labeled "Output Report" informing you of the number of "hits" in which the term "civil society" occurs.

You can also easily refine the search a good bit just by using the WHERE, SINCE, IS and CONTAINS statements. The grammar of the SEARCH message using these terms is only slightly warped English, and you can use it to attain fairly powerful results: Thus, the statement: SEARCH 'nonprofit' in ARNOVA-L WHERE sender contains "yourname" can be used to retrieve all of the messages you've sent to the list. (Be sure to put in your real name and not the phrase "yourname" between the quotes!) AND search 'civil society' in ARNOVA-L where sender contains "yourname" would retrieve all the messages you have sent on that topic (or any other you put in quotes after the word SEARCH). Likewise, the wildcard character "*" can also be used (for novice searchers, it means roughly the equivalent of "everything").
For example, SEARCH * in arnova-l since 97/12/01, would return everything sent to the list since December 1, 1997, and SEARCH * in arnova-l would (in theory at least, I haven't tried it and don't plan to!) produce a listing of the subject lines of all memos sent to the list since the archives were created at the beginning of 1994. Search "nonprofit" in ARNOVA-L where sender contains "Susan" would return a list of all of the messages sent to the list by anyone named "Susan." And, search "nonprofit" in ARNOVA-L where sender contains "Susan" since 97/01/01 would return the same list abbreviated to only those messages sent since January 1, 1997.

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Subject Matter Questions

A variety of questions about appropriate subject matter for list discussion may arise.

List participants steer clear of all discussion of political parties and candidates, and personal attacks on anyone (including elected officials) are never welcome and will not be tolerated. Participants on ARNOVA-L come from many countries, many political persuasions across the spectrum and a wide variety of disciplines, professions and fields of practice.

There is a considerable amount of discussion of religious and faith-based topics on the list. These are never discussions of beliefs or ideologies. Discussions tend to focus on organizational, practice and public policy concerns.

Authors are welcome to mention their own or others' written works or media presentations in the context of ongoing discussions. This includes announcements of new books, research and policy reports, and title pages/tables of contents from journals and magazines dealing with issues of interest to the list.

The practice known to Americans as "plugging" products, commercial endorsements, advertisements of all kinds and spamming are strictly forbidden.(Anti-spamming software has been protecting the list for several years now and it seems to work.)

A considerable number of graduate and doctoral students participate in the list, and represent one of its rich resources. Questions regarding paper, thesis and dissertation topics are always welcome. In fact, many theses and dissertations (not to mention professional conference presentations) have gotten their start in past ARNOVA-L discussions. Askers should take care, however, to ask questions meriting serious, thoughtful response. In particular, questions of the "I have to write a 20-page paper on volunteers and it's due tomorrow morning" variety are unwelcome at any time.

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Retrieving Messages With GETPOST

Another reason for using the web interface is that the retrieval of messages is easy and straightforward.

With the SEARCH message procedure, the Output Reports returned from these searches contain instructions on how to retrieve the actual messages identified. The process, in brief, involves use of the GETPOST ARNOVA-L statement followed by one or more reference numbers taken from the Output Report

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IU Support

The facilities and disk space for ARNOVA-L are supported by Indiana University. They provide the computer space and software to support lists. However, none of these units makes any attempt to verify the accuracy of submitted messages or endorse the opinions expressed by authors of messages. The list owner will attempt to monitor this particular list and help keep it focused on problems related to nonprofit organization, voluntary action and philanthropy issues, but authors of ARNOVA-L messages are solely responsible for their own comments.

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Discussion Groups

Over the past decade, email discussion groups have proven to be one of the most popular uses of the internet. The technology is very simple. A file of names and addresses (called, for obvious reasons, a list) is stored by name (e.g., ARNOVA-L) on a computer (called a server) in a file-type recognizable by a particular piece of software (in this case LISTSERV)*. A message addressed to the list name is read by the software, which then uses the list addresses to distribute copies of the message to all names on the list.
The result is little short of amazing. On ARNOVA-L, for example, you can start, join or sit in on a conversation among a thousand friends and colleagues any time of the day or night. This conversation has been going on more or less continuously now for nearly a dozen years.
One of the truly remarkable aspects of list discussions is the relatively large number of participants who participate actively without ever sending a message. Originally labeled "lurkers" in email geek-speech, these readers are the real backbone of a list like ARNOVA-L.

*In this case, LISTSERV is also the name of the server. Hence, the web address (listserv.iupui.edu) and the rather peculiar form of addressing commands to the software: listserv@listserv.iupui.edu

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ARNOVA-L and The Web

Strictly speaking, ARNOVA-L is not web-based. Messages are transmitted from the sender to the LISTSERV software and then on to individual subscribers via the linkage known as The Internet, using standard email protocols like SMTP, MIME, and HTML. And the Archives and Subscriber services are accessed with a conventional web browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.

However, the terms Web and World Wide Web usually refer to online addresses with the familiar 3W's (www.arnova.org), which are indexed on conventional web search engines like Yahoo or Google, etc. With our IP address of listserv.iupui.edu, the ARNOVA-L Archives and Subscriber Services are part of what some people are calling "The Invisible Internet".

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Discussion Threads

Long-time users of ARNOVA-L will have noted a difference in the way the listings in our archives are organized. The listings are now organized by threads; that is, groups of messages that form a single discussion appear together.

This has some implications for anyone contributing to a discussion, or wishing to start a new discussion branching off an existing one. Threads are organized automatically by various pieces of software, including mail clients and the LISTSERV archive feature. It is the subject (or Re:) line that is the key to organizing threads. So if you want to contribute to a particular discussion thread, make sure you use the same -- identical -- subject line as others in that discussion. And if you are discussing a different topic, even in the middle of a thread, use a different subject line.

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Using Both Mailbox Delivery and the Archives

With the advent of thread-based archives, users have the possibility of viewing their ARNOVA-L email either directly in their own mailboxes, or at the ARNOVA-L Archives or at both locations.

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