Protected: Frequently Asked Questions

[1] How do I post a message to Systers?
[1.1] How do I reply to a message sent to Systers?
[2] How do I unsubscribe from Systers?
[2.1] How do I temporarily turn Systers mail off (”nomail”) or on?
[3] How do I continue getting Systers mail when my email address changes?
[4] When I try to post to Systers, it says I’m not a member. How do I fix that?
[5] What are Systers conversations? How can I use them to see only messages that are of interest to me?
[5.1] How do I change whether I am automatically subscribed to new conversations?
[6] How do I access the Systers archives?
[7] How can I filter Systers mail in my email system?
[8] Systers has been quiet lately. Is it me, or is the system down?
[9] What is Systers etiquette?
[9.1] What is appropriate content for mail sent to the list?
[9.2] I want to ask a question of the list. What should I do before I post?
[9.3] What is appropriate use of information I gain from the list?
[9.4] What are appropriate ways to respond to emails on the list?
[9.5] When I post, how do I take into account that this is an international list?
[10] Where can I send job ads or my resume?

How do I post a message to Systers? To post to Systers, send mail to systers+new at systers dot org. If you get a reply saying Systers does not recognize you as a syster, see When I try to post to Systers, it says I’m not a member. How do I fix that?

How do I reply to a message sent to Systers? You need to decide whether to reply to only the sender or to the sender and the list. If you use your mailer’s reply command, your message will go only to the sender. If you use Reply-all (sometimes called “Wide Reply”), it will go to the list.

You will notice that the reply to the list goes to something like systers+topic at systers dot org. Each conversation in Systers is assigned a topic word, and individual systers can opt in and out of individual conversations. (See What are Systers conversations? for more information.) For that reason, please do NOT use Reply to start a new conversation. Systers who were not interested in the previous conversation will not receive your message, and those who are not interested in your conversation will have to receive all the responses sent to your conversation if they want to continue to receive messages sent about the previous conversation. Please use the conversation system as it was intended.

How do I unsubscribe from Systers? To stop getting messages from Systers, you can either remove yourself entirely or stay part of Systers and turn off message delivery. The details are described below.

Option 1: Use the web to remove yourself from Systers.

1. Log on to Systers at http://www.systers.org/mailman/listinfo/systers#subscribers
   Enter the email address where you receive your Systers mail in the text box at the very bottom of the page.
2. Click on the “Unsubscribe or edit options” button to the right of the text box.
3. On the next page, click the Unsubscribe button. You will be sent a confirmation email to the address where you receive your Systers mail (to prevent someone from unsubscribing you without your knowledge). You are not unsubscribed until you respond to that email. Usually, just replying to the message is enough. Do it quickly — the confirmation code expires in a few days, and you will have to start over again.
4. If you can no longer access the mail sent to the address where you receive Systers mail, enter your password and click Login on this page. On the next page, you will see a section called “Unsubscribing from Systers”. Check the box marked “Yes, I really want to unsubscribe” and then click on the Unsubscribe button. No confirmation will be required.
5. If you can’t remember your password, and you can’t have it sent to you at the address where you receive your Systers mail, send mail to userhelp@systers.org, explaining the situation and telling them your name and the email address where you believe your receive Systers mail. We will manually unsubscribe you.

Option 2 : Change your profile via the web so that mail delivery is disabled. This is a good way to stop mail temporarily, e.g., when you go on vacation.

1. Log on at http://www.systers.org/mailman/listinfo/systers#subscribers
   Enter the email address where you receive your Systers mail in the text box at the very bottom of the page.
2. Click on the “Unsubscribe or edit options” button to the right of the text box.
3. On the next page, enter your password and click Login. If you have forgotten your password, click Remind to have a password reminder sent to you.
4. On the next page, scroll down to the section called Your Subscription Options; the first one should be Mail Delivery. Check the Disabled radio button.
5. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page, and click on the “Submit My Changes” button.
6. Don’t forget to reverse this process when you want to start getting Systers mail again.

How do I temporarily turn Systers mail off ("nomail" or on? Change your profile via the web so that mail delivery is disabled. This is a good way to stop mail temporarily, e.g., when you go on vacation.

1. Log on at http://www.systers.org/mailman/listinfo/systers#subscribers
   Enter the email address where you receive your Systers mail in the text box at the very bottom of the page.
2. Click on the “Unsubscribe or edit options” button to the right of the text box.
3. On the next page, enter your password and click Login. If you have forgotten your password, click Remind to have a password reminder sent to you.
4. On the next page, scroll down to the section called Your Subscription Options; the first one should be Mail Delivery. Check the Disabled radio button.
5. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page, and click on the “Submit My Changes ” button.
6. Don’t forget to reverse this process when you want to start getting Systers mail again.

How do I continue getting Systers mail when my email address changes ?

1. Log on at http://www.systers.org/mailman/listinfo/systers#subscribers
   Enter the email address where you receive your Systers mail in the text box at the very bottom of the page.
2. Click on the “Unsubscribe or edit options” button to the right of the text box.
3. On the next page, enter your password and click Login. If you have forgotten your password, click Remind to have a password reminder sent to the email address where you receive your Systers mail.
4. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page to the “Changing your Systers membership information” section. Enter your new email address in the text box next to “New address” and in the text box next to “Again to confirm”. Then click on the “Change My Address and Name” button.

When I try to post to Systers, it says I’m not a member. How do I fix that? Systers uses your email address to determine whether you are a Systers member. If for some reason it is not recognizing your email address, it is most likely because you are posting from a different address than the email address where you receive your Systers mail.

Option 1: Change your email address to the email address you are sending from

First, make sure that the return address in your email is exactly the same as the email address listed as your primary address in Systers. Sometimes your mail client provides a slightly different outgoing address — e.g. name@cs.uni.edu and name@uni.edu may go to the same place, but Mailman won’t recognize them as the same. You may have to send yourself a message and check the From: line to find out exactly what return address you are sending out. If they disagree, you may want to change your primary address to be your outgoing address (see How do I continue getting Systers mail when my email address changes? for how to do this).

Option 2: Add additional email addresses that Systers will recognize as you.

1. Log on at http://www.systers.org/mailman/listinfo/systers#subscribers
   Enter the email adddress where you receive your Systers mail in the text box at the very bottom of the page.
2. Click on the “Unsubscribe or edit options” button to the right of the text box.
3. On the next page, enter your password and click Login. If you have forgotten your password, click Remind to have a password reminder sent to you.
4. On the next page, scroll down to the section called Your Subscription Options; the third item is “Other incoming email addresses”. Enter the new email addresses (beyond the current address you receive your Systers mail) that Systers should recognize as you. Be careful to make sure you have typed correctly - there is no test here to make sure you have a correct address.
5. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page, and click on the “Submit My Changes ” button.

What are Systers conversations? How can I use them to see only messages that are of interest to me? You start a conversation in Systers by sending mail to systers+new at systers dot org. This tells the system that your message is the beginning of a new conversation. In the Systers system, you can be set up to see all messages in a conversation until you unsubscribe (the default) or to only see the first message in each new conversation until you subscribe to that conversation.

If you are set up to see all messages, when you encounter a conversation that no longer interests you, follow the link at the bottom of the message to be sent to an unsubscribe page. (You may have to enter your password, to ensure that it is you who is unsubscribing). This will unsubscribe you to this conversation only. If additional messages in this conversation were sent before you unsubscribed, you will find them in your inbox, but you will stop receiving future messages from this conversation.

If you are set up to see only the first message of any conversation, when you see a posting that interests you, follow the link at the bottom of the message to subscribe to the conversation. You may miss a few messages if they arrive before you subscribe, but you will see all future messages from this conversation.

How do I change whether I am automatically subscribed to new conversations?

1. Log on at http://www.systers.org/mailman/listinfo/systers#subscribers
   Enter the email address you receive your Systers mail in the text box at the very bottom of the page.
2. Click on the “Unsubscribe or edit options” button to the right of the text box.
3. On the next page, enter your password and click Login. If you have forgotten your password, click Remind to have a password reminder sent to you.
4. On the next page, scroll down to the section called Your Subscription Options; the second item is “Subscribed to new conversations?”. Click Yes to see all messages; click No to only see the first message in each new conversation.
5. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page, and click on the “Submit My Changes ” button.

How do I access the Systers archives? The archives only cover postings since 2003, and are organized by month. They aren’t really searchable; they must be browsed. This makes them of limited value (but we are looking for volunteers to help implement a better archive, based on the Google engine; send mail to systers-keeper at systers dot org to volunteer). That said, they are useful for browsing, and for catching up on recent postings you missed.

1. Log on at http://www.systers.org/mailman/listinfo/systers#subscribers
   Enter the email address you receive your Systers mail in the text box at the very bottom of the page.
2. Click on the “Unsubscribe or edit options” button to the right of the text box.
3. On the next page, enter your password and click Login. If you have forgotten your password, click Remind to have a password reminder sent to you.
4. On the next page, click on the link to Systers Archives (the 4th link from the top).
5. On the resulting page, you will see a table of months. The Thread view is the most useful, as it will show all messages (for that month) in a single conversation together (a conversation may cross month boundaries, so you will need to view both months to see all the messages.), but other views can be useful for special purposes.
6. Click on the View you want, and on the next page, click on the subject line for any message you want to see.

How can I filter Systers mail in my email system? The system prepends [Systers] to the beginning of the subject line of any Systers message. You can use that to filter Systers mail.

Systers has been quiet lately. Is it me, or is the system down? Sometimes the system goes down and those of us who are supposedly in charge don’t notice it. We appreciate it when other systers inform us of the problem. There are several things you can do to check whether Systers is up.

See if you can get to www.systers.org If not, the system is definitely down. Send mail to robin at jeffries dot org, because, most likely systers.org email addresses are also down (you will have to remember this address, since you won’t be able to see this FAQ if the web site is down.)

If you can get to the site, but email to systers.org does not work, there should be something posted on the homepage about the outage and when we expect to be back up. If there is nothing there, most likely we don’t know the system is down. Send mail to robin at jeffries dot org to let us know.

Check the most recent archives (see How do I access the Systers archives?). If there are messages that you haven’t seen, something is wrong with your subscription. Log in to Systers and see if any of your settings seem wrong. Check especially your email address and Mail Delivery options (see How do I unsubscribe from Systers? and How do I continue getting Systers mail when my email address changes? for fixes.) If you can’t find anything wrong, contact us and ask for assistance. We will research the problem.

What is Systers etiquette ? Systers etiquette has evolved over the 18 years the list has been in use, and is loosely enforced by the list maintainer when necessary. A general guideline to follow is to remember, when reading and posting, that the list consists of over 2600 professional women in computer science, who are here for an informative and supportive community.

What is appropriate content for mail sent to the list ? Mail sent to the entire list should relate to women AND computing. Women on the list have access to other resources for technical information, and for information about women in general. Systers is for women in computing to discuss topics that relate to being a woman and being a computing professional. We allow people to ask for help on purely technical topics — so long as the requester reminds respondents to send mail directly to her, not the list — because many women feel uncomfortable asking certain types of questions on lists dominated by men. Commercial messages are never appropriate. This includes offers to sell or give away items that belong to an individual syster or to provide commercial services.

I want to ask a question of the list. what should I do before I post? If your question is a fact-based question — e.g., you want technical information (where do I find courses on Y, or how do I set up an SQL server) or you want other kinds of data (e.g., what’s the cost of living in location A or what does the law say about maternity benefits), please make an effort to look this up on the web before asking the Systers list.

Reserve Systers for situations where we can add value to the answers — to help you choose between two types of courses, or to tell you how to negotiate with your company for more maternity leave.

To help systers find things on the web (which is an art in itself), Lori Park (loripark at eecs dot harvard dot edu), has agreed to help posters who are having trouble finding information on the web. Lori is an expert on the Google search engine. Please send her mail if you are having trouble finding the information you think might be available on the web.

If you end up posting your question, please give us a summary of your search — either the most useful URLs you found, or the fact that there doesn’t seem to be anything available on this topic would be useful for systers who are also interested in the same issues. Then ask a question that goes beyond the facts you garnered from the web.

If your question is one of advice or support — should you finish grad school, how to deal with a difficult colleague — the above does not apply.

What is appropriate use of information I gain from the list? ALL information shared on Systers is to stay within the membership. Unless respondents specifically say that you can distribute the information outside the list, you should not be sharing what you learn through Systers with men or women outside the list. If you wish to share some information, email the syster who sent it to ask her permission. When compiling summaries of responses sent to you privately, remove identifying information unless the syster specifically told you that you may use her name. Similarly, if you are replying publicly to a message sent to you privately, first get permission from the syster who sent the message.

What are appropriate ways to respond to emails on the list ? You may reply to the sender directly if you have advice or comments that are of interest to her personally but not the entire list. You may reply to the list if your remarks are likely to be of interest to a significant subset of the readership of 2500 women at different stages of life and in different sub-fields in computing.

Always keep both personal and public replies polite and respectful. Flames are not tolerated on this list. Please count to fifty before you hit the send key if you are angry at someone’s post. Voice inflection and body language do not exist in e-mail. What you took for a serious comment may have been a joke. Please give the sender the benefit of the doubt. If you are offended, please send an individual note asking the sender what she really meant instead of sending a flame.

If you are sent a flame, please forward the note to Her Systers’ Keeper (systers-keeper at systers dot org) and she will take care of the matter with the offender. If you have a problem with a syster, please do not send your comments to the entire list, so that she is not embarrassed in front of the list. We are a supportive organization and we are not here to tear each other down.

We want to create an atmosphere where women feel free to post their opinions, concerns, problems, and joys to other women in the same situation. Using words like “please” and “thank you” go a long way towards making people feel more comfortable. If you are polite, responders to your posts will more likely be as polite. Also note that some systers are not as fluent in the English language as others, and this may come across as being impolite, or they may misunderstand your posting as impolite. Please, cut your systers some slack.

In general, treat the women on this list as you would want to be treated.

When I post, how do I take into account that this is an international list? If you are a US syster, please remember that there are also Systers from over 50 other countries. They may not know the acronyms or laws that you are quoting, so please spell them out the first time or explain them the first time you use them. When your topic will be of interest only to US systers, please indicate this in the subject line (U.S. ONLY).

Postings that are disrespectful to non-US citizens who are currently or have in the past been working in the US are inappropriate. Discussions of H1-B visas (US visas for foreign nationals with technical skills) are simply forbidden; we have proven that someone will say something offensive every time.

This also applies to Systers from other countries (substituting terminology specific to your language or issues specific to your country), but in practice, that hasn’t been a problem.

Where can I send job ads or my resume? Many systers would like to see more technical women working at their company or would like to help other systers find jobs. Send job ads for your company to systers+jobs at systers dot org. It is always nice to add a personal note if you know the hiring manager or anything about the group that is hiring.

You may also send your resume to the same address, asking other systers to circulate it with groups that might need your skills.

Systers who are not interested in seeing job postings should unsubscribe to the jobs conversation. The instructions are at the bottom of any jobs message. If you later want to re-subscribe, contact us for instructions.