Welcome to the Home Education Mailing List

The folks on home-ed hold diverse views about education, child rearing, politics, religion, and television. The diversity on the home-ed list is one of its major strengths. All viewpoints are welcome on home-ed. When posting, please be aware that others on this list hold beliefs very different from your own. We have a lot to learn from one another. A little tolerance and common courtesy go a long way towards making the home-ed experience pleasant for everyone.

The home-ed list is an open forum for discussion of issues related (either directly or tangentially) to homeschooling. Many of the subscribers are students in the school of life and thus consider everything to be grist for the homeschooling mill.

Many of the subscribers have been on home-ed for years and have formed friendships with others on the list. For many of us, the home-ed list is our major homeschooling support group. So, yes, we do care about new babies and birthdays and career changes and health updates.

The home-ed list is a private, non-commercial forum for homeschoolers. The list administrators pay a private ISP to host home-ed. You will not see any ads tagged onto home-ed messages or included in either digest.

Posting

To send a message to all of the subscribers on home-ed, send email to <home-ed@twobar.com>. The list only accepts posts from addresses subscribed to the home-ed list or one of its digest options. If you wish to post from an address other than your normal subscription address, contact <heather@madrone.com>.

Subscribing

There are three forms of home-ed: the main mailing list, the abridged digest, and the unabridged digest. You only need to subscribe to one form of home-ed to join the list.

To subscribe to home-ed, send email to <home-ed-request@twobar.com> with subscribe in the subject line of the message. You can also subscribe via the home-ed list web page:

http://www.twobar.com/mailman/listinfo/home-ed

To subscribe to the abridged home-ed digest (edited for direct relevance to home education), send email to <home-ed-abridged-request@twobar.com> with subscribe in the subject line of the message. You can also subscribe via the abridged digest web page:

http://www.twobar.com/mailman/listinfo/home-ed-abridged

To subscribe to the unabridged home-ed digest, send email to <home-ed-unabridged-request@twobar.com> with subscribe in the subject line of the message. You can also subscribe via the unabridged digest web page:

http://www.twobar.com/mailman/listinfo/home-ed-unabridged

Unsubscribing

First, figure out what form of home-ed you receive.

If you get your home-ed messages individually, you are on the main home-ed list.

If you get one of the digests, each digest issue tells you whether you are on the abridged or unabridged digest.

Secondly, determine your subscription address. If you're not sure, list all of your email addresses in your unsubsciption request.

To unsubscribe from the main home-ed list, send email to <home-ed-request@twobar.com> with the following command in the body of the message:

unsubscribe

To unsubscribe from the abridged home-ed digest, send email to <home-ed-abridged-request@twobar.com> with the following command in the body of the message:

unsubscribe

To unsubscribe from the unabridged home-ed digest, send email <home-ed-unabridged-request@twobar.com> with the following command in the body of the message:

unsubscribe

Changing Your Subscription

To unsubscribe from one form of home-ed and re-subscribe to another, follow the individual instructions above.

To go on NOMAIL, visit your Mailman subscriber page and change your list options.

Problems?

Send email about home-ed list problems to Bill Claypool <jwc@unify.com>, and Heather Madrone <heather@madrone.com>.

Mailing List Etiquette

(Courtesy of Emaily Post)

As with finger bowls, there are proper ways to use this medium and not-so-proper ways to use this medium. The following are some of the proper ways to use this medium:

Ask yourself whether your post is of general interest to the home-ed community or would be more appropriate on a personal blog or live journal.

This is a written medium. Others will judge you at least partially by your spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Reply in text rather than html. Many readers do not have html-enabled mail readers. If you post from a Web browser (such as Netscape), make sure that your posts are sent in plain text. Articles posted in html will not be included in the home-ed digest no matter how relevant they are.

Keep your line length short. Long lines are difficult to follow.

Include white space between paragraphs.

When you reply to a post, trim the included text to the minimum needed to set the context for your reply.

Send personal replies privately rather than to the list. Avoid sending Me too or thank-you posts to the list unless they include new information on the topic.

If the subject wanders from the original topic, edit the subject line so that it matches the content of your post.

Remain civil at all times.

Confine your criticisms to ideas rather than to individuals.

Remember that the other posters are real, live people with real, live feelings.

Sleep on angry or inflammatory posts.

Take private disagreements to email.

Do not send attachments to the list. The Mailman software strips any attachments out of home-ed posts.

Do not post advertisements to the list. You can include information about your book, business, or web site in your signature (up to 4 lines). You can also respond to list-members' queries with a short note saying that you have what they're looking for.

Don't drink out of the finger bowls.

Too Much Mail? Try the Digest

The home-ed list can fill your mailbox quickly. If you find the flood of messages overwhelming or would prefer to do without the off-topic banter, there are two digest options for the list. The unabridged digest includes everything posted to the list; the abridged digest is edited for direct homeschooling relevance.

The abridged digest includes only that information that the digest editor considers directly relevant to homeschooling. The editorial slant is generally conservative; we feel that the digest subscribers choose the abridged digest because they want to cut down on the flood of home-ed mail. Discussions of public school, and politics do not make the digest cut.

See Home-Ed List Basics above for information on how to subscribe to either digest.

Copyrights

Please note that the authors of the articles posted to home-ed hold the original copyrights on their submissions. Do not reproduce or redistribute home-ed posts without the permission of the authors.

In order to protect your and your children's privacy, we do not keep public archives for the home-ed list. Whatever you post to home-ed is distributed only to current list members.

We will take legal action against anyone who redistributes home-ed posts (including posting them on the web) without the express written permission of the authors.

For More Information

Try the Home-ed home page:

http://www.madrone.com/Home-ed/helist.html

and the Mailman list information pages for the three forms of home-ed:

http://www.twobar.com/mailman/listinfo/home-ed

http://www.twobar.com/mailman/listinfo/home-ed-abridged

http://www.twobar.com/mailman/listinfo/home-ed-unabridged

Comments?

Your list hosts are Heather Madrone and Bill Claypool.

Send comments about the home-ed list to Bill Claypool <jwc@unify.com>, and Heather Madrone <heather@madrone.com>.

Send comments about either digest to Heather Madrone <heather@madrone.com>.

Send comments about this welcome message to Heather Madrone <heather@madrone.com>.

For Bonnie

In memory of Bonnie Bedford, a pioneering homeschooling mother of four and longtime member of the home-ed community. Bonnie was a wise, witty, wonderful woman. A fierce unschooler and attachment parent, Bonnie defended each child's right to a humane and nurturing upbringing.

Bonnie died 11 July 1997 at the age of 44 after an eighteen-month battle with cancer. She left behind four children and her partner Dennis.

Thanks

Thanks to David Mankins, who kept home-ed going for years. David set the list up pretty much the way it runs today.

Welcome

Welcome to home-ed. I hope it's as valuable for you as it has been for me.