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[kaysixteen]

Random observations:

1)H-Net has a problem in that some of the people who sub to various H-Nets are less than scholarly, perhaps, in their publications and credentials-- history does bring out the Civil War buffs, pyrimidiots, etc., but, well... who really ought to be able to decide who gets to sub and post to these lists, esp. if they are  underwritten with public funds?

2) I love the H-Net book review list, but, well, despite having a separate email folder for H-Net reviews in my yahoo account, I now have probably 3000+ of these things that I have never read, and I do not save all of them, not by a long shot.  These are reviews I would like to read... maybe some day...

3) I was in grad school in the mid-90s heyday of email lists, and, well... let's just say I posted a lot of things to several professionally-oriented lists that have not helped me in my professional efforts to date.  Be careful what you say-- your grandchildren will be reading it and wondering aloud why you wrote it....

[bacardiandlime]

I think the best academic blogs, with some rare exceptions, tend to be those that have 5-20 authors. 

Are there any you would recommend?

[csguy]

I think that too, but I also think that it's increasingly hard to afford.  It's not so much the hardware as the people to keep it running. 

Cost of doing business.

My university brings in something like half a billion dollars in Federal grants, some fraction of which is overhead.  This is part of what that overhead should pay for.

I already block all gmail from my inbox, and make my students communicate with me using their university accounts.  If my university moves to a snoopy commercial server like the Google I'll simply stop using the internet for university business. - DvF

So what should people use for personal or professional (but not university) email? What should people do who have really crappy university email servers?  Ours had a week long email outage -- that was truly lovely. Not too many people are up to registering their own domain -- at a reputable ISP -- and running their own email service.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

So what should people use for personal or professional (but not university) email? What should people do who have really crappy university email servers? 

We're not talking about personal email, for which one can use anything one wants (but I prefer providers that don't use snooping as an essential part of their revenue stream). For me at least professional=university, and so I use the uni servers for professional business. 

If the latter are crappy, complain about them until they get better.  A decent email server is like a decent library or decent classroom: an institution that can't afford to maintain them should reconsider whether it should remain in business. - DvF

[csguy]

So what should people use for personal or professional (but not university) email? What should people do who have really crappy university email servers? 

We're not talking about personal email, for which one can use anything one wants (but I prefer providers that don't use snooping as an essential part of their revenue stream). For me at least professional=university, and so I use the uni servers for professional business. 

Even for jobhunting?

Of the big three email services (Hotmail, Yahoo!, and Gmail) I receive the least amount of spam via Gmail. This may well simply be because Gmail is newer. But if I were to block Gmail I'd block all three. This would not seem practical as there are times when people outside the academic world contact me, legitimately and professionally, at my university email address. Given the number of universities outsourcing email to Google and Microsoft you might also find your scholarly communications impeded.

If the latter are crappy, complain about them until they get better.  A decent email server is like a decent library or decent classroom: an institution that can't afford to maintain them should reconsider whether it should remain in business. - DvF

Perhaps they shouldn't remain in business but they have managed to keep going. I have found trying to convince administrators that email servers should be reliable is more trouble than it's worth. I don't hassle the administration and they generally return the favor.

I never have used the university's "official" email server outside the university as the department runs its own server which is much more reliable.

[larryc]

I already block all gmail from my inbox

I am writing this from my yacht as we cruise us the inside passage to Alaska, a summer ritual since I hit it big a few years ago. I am with my friend X--he and I purchased and crew the boat with the indirect costs on a huge and infinitely renewable federal grant that we administer. Just tonight I was telling him, as our personal chef took away the dishes and poured us some magnificent 12-year-old port, how he came to be a part of this enterprise. "Forgive me old boy but I wasn't originally going to partner with you at all," I said to X. "I had asked a chap named Daniel Von Flanagan. You've heard of him? Well of course you have! Anyway, I invited Daniel in on the ground floor. Sent him four, five emails. Practically begged him to take the money! But he never responded at all. So I emailed you, and the rest is history!"

Then we drained our glasses and planned our winter cruise in the Red Sea and thanked our luck.

[polly_mer]

I already block all gmail from my inbox

LarryC's kidding aside, I can't imagine blocking gmail from my inbox. I know too many people who use gmail as their professional email because, after the third affiliation in two years, they decided they wanted to stick with a consistent address to make communication easier.

In fact, I can't imagine blocking Yahoo or Hotmail, either, because I often get questions from random people as part of my outreach efforts and those people may or may not currently have an affiliation to provide them with a professional email.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

cguy is correct, there are activities which can be termed "professional" which probably should not be done on university email. Job hunts might qualify, though I think that someone on a short-term contract should be OK using a uni address.  Consulting also migh best be done on private email, and my union wants us to use non-university accounts for communication.

The issue with gmail is that data snooping and archiving is an essential part of its revenue stream.  Their equivocal privacy policies make them inappropriate for any "executive" discussions, and any gmail discussion of a student, even with that student, is possibly a FERPA violation.

Hotmail and Yahoo are far better in this regard, but even better is a paid email account (such as with your ISP) where the provider has a fiduciary responsibillity to you as a their client. - DvF

[csguy]

cguy is correct, there are activities which can be termed "professional" which probably should not be done on university email. Job hunts might qualify, though I think that someone on a short-term contract should be OK using a uni address.  Consulting also migh best be done on private email, and my union wants us to use non-university accounts for communication.

I would not want to use a short term address for jobhunting (I actually use a mail forwarding service from my professional association).

The issue with gmail is that data snooping and archiving is an essential part of its revenue stream.  Their equivocal privacy policies make them inappropriate for any "executive" discussions, and any gmail discussion of a student, even with that student, is possibly a FERPA violation.

I do insist that students use the university address for me. It's also university policy. 

I have no expectation of privacy for standard email. I am fairly sure that a certain US government tla regularly processes all my email (& quite possibly this conversation too). For more general use one might use a service like hushmail http://www.hushmail.com/ but most recipients would find it inconvenient at best.

Hotmail and Yahoo are far better in this regard, but even better is a paid email account (such as with your ISP) where the provider has a fiduciary responsibillity to you as a their client. - DvF

ISP's also tend to lack permanence. I would not want to have to delay switching while I inform all my correspondents I'm changing ISP's. Plus my ISP is a large, evil organization that I place little trust in -- fiduciary responsibility notwithstanding. Offhand I can't think of any providers of paid email accounts except ISP's.

I tend to trust .mil and .gov addresses (because they have guns) but pretty much nobody else who I don't already know.

It is unfortunate that we have never solved the problem of secure, private and authenticated email.

[jerseyjay]

Job hunts might qualify, though I think that someone on a short-term contract should be OK using a uni address. 

As has been pointed out, while I think it is legitimate to use a university account in such a way, I don't think it particularly wise--precisely because it is short-term.

. Over the last decade, I have had probably five or six university email accounts. Various people for various legitimate reasons have been in contact with me over this time. I usually use either my yahoo (or more recently) gmail accounts because I like to have people be able to get a hold of me. Especially if it might lead to a job, but more likely if it regards my (or their) research.

[bacardiandlime]

Further discussion on email addresses is here http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php?topic=53172.0
and here http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php?topic=50797.0
and the consensus there (and on a number of other occasions) is to register your own domain to have a personal, permanent email address.

I am still interested to know about the original issue here, the email lists. Can anyone name any good, multi-participant blogs? I am aware of the Valve (not so academic) and Crooked Timber (which doesn't seem to be as popular as it was). Although their discussions can be interesting, they tend not to carry the other useful attributes of listservs: job listings, book reviews, CFPs. To my mind one of the advantages of H-NET (despite its antiquarian set-up) is that people are posting under their own names.

Can anyone recommend any that have taken the place of H-NET (etc) for them in the humanities?

[polly_mer]

I tend to trust .mil and .gov addresses (because they have guns) but pretty much nobody else who I don't already know.

Having had a .gov address and dealt with the oversight that entails where they often erased my email or blocked legitimate addresses from people with whom I regularly correspond as part of my professional duties because they dared to send me a Word document (the mandated manuscript format), I don't trust them.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

There's not much we can do about Uncle Sam snooping email except trying to return to the subpoena-only policies we used to enjoy.

Having a personal domain is cheap and easy, and it solves the problem of ephemeral email addresses (if that is a problem), but that doesn't solve the problem of hosting.

There are plenty of indie email providers (here's one list), and comparing the terms of service of gmail with, say, slashmail, is an eye-opener. - DvF

[csguy]

Having a personal domain is cheap and easy, and it solves the problem of ephemeral email addresses (if that is a problem), but that doesn't solve the problem of hosting.

There are plenty of indie email providers (here's one list), and comparing the terms of service of gmail with, say, slashmail, is an eye-opener. - DvF

Certainly there are better email providers than the big three. But most of those in the list you referenced I've never heard of so why would I have any confidence in mail sent from them? (I did like meanteachers.com though).

For myself, I use the forwarding service from my professional association and point it wherever I wish. Theoretically that should give correspondents some confidence that they actually are corresponding with me.

[csguy]

I tend to trust .mil and .gov addresses (because they have guns) but pretty much nobody else who I don't already know.

Having had a .gov address and dealt with the oversight that entails where they often erased my email or blocked legitimate addresses from people with whom I regularly correspond as part of my professional duties because they dared to send me a Word document (the mandated manuscript format), I don't trust them.

If I were to get an email from polly_mer@something.gov then I would have some confidence that it actually is from polly_mer@something.gov. Unless it's actually from some Chinese hacker (that is assuming you're not a Chinese hacker in which case it actually would be from you and I'd be wrong in my suspicions).