An email discussion list or group is a collaborative, electronic communications tool.

It allows any member of your group to send an email to all other members simultaneously.

Email discussion groups:

• Improve internal communications
• Facilitate remote project collaboration
• Foster expertise sharing on a specialized subject
• Enhance discussions
• Provide customer support
• Train students or employees
• Raise awareness of timely issues
• Increase volunteer participation and donations
• And more....

Email discussion groups are used by:

• Nonprofit fundraisers
• Project management teams
• Community groups
• Religious organizations
• Volunteer coordinators
• Committees
• Task groups
• Athletic teams
• Product managers
• Schools and training centers
• Telecommuters
• Virtual work teams
• Support groups
• State, Local, and Federal Government
• Citizens' groups
• Politicians and campaign managers
• Musicians and entertainers
• And others....

A member may unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of any of your discussion list emails.

A digest version is a compiled group of messages sent once a day or once every 20 messages (whichever comes first).

Some discussion group members prefer to receive messages less frequently and may request a digest version.

Yes, if you sign up for our optional message archiving, you will be automatically set up for an RSS feed.

Yes, we scan all emails for viruses before forwarding them.

We automatically filter and block most spam messages before forwarding them.

There are three main differences between private and public discussion groups:

1. Membership
   Only invited or approved members can join a private group. But, anyone can join a public email discussion group.



2. Attachments
   Attachments are never allowed on public lists, but, private lists can allow them if the administrator specifies it when creating the list.



3. Archives
   Archives of public lists may have advertising on them. But, private list archives are ad-free.

Yes, you manage your lists securely through our password protected website and your data is protected by encryption.

We filter and block spam, scan for viruses, and allow you to set permission levels for your moderators.

Double opt-in confirmation requires each member to confirm that they want to be on your list by responding to an email that we send.

We use it because it ensures that everyone on your list wants to participate and minimizes the chance of someone being added to it in error.

We scan and eliminate duplicate sign ups from your list for you.

No, for "one-way" communication such as email newsletters, we suggest you use our other email solution, MailerMailer.

RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) allows a member to get your group messages in a single application (or aggregator) in a "news feed" format.

You are automatically set up for an RSS feed when you choose to archive your email discussion list.

DiscussThis costs $10 per block of 50 members with a $20 minimum per account monthly. Searchable Archiving is optional and is $5 additional. Custom domain names are also optional and cost $50 for a one-time set up fee.

Example with email addresses only:

joe@mail.example.com
susan_johns@domain.com

Example with email addresses and members names:

joe@mail.example.com{tab}Joe Walsh
susan_johns@domain.com{tab}Susan H. Johns

If you forgot your Login ID or Password, just click the orange Remind me link next to the login box on our homepage.

Then enter your email address under Don't remember your Login ID or Password? and click Send Password. We will send you the information.

Email providers like AOL, Yahoo!, Hotmail, and others are constantly changing their methods to classify email. Our system delivers email to all accounts the same way, and the vast majority get it in their main inbox. Some email providers filter messages based on content, subject line, or will allow future messages to get through.

We strongly recommend that you do the following to avoid accidentally filtering our future messages:

1. Click Mail in the toolbar at the top of your AOL window
2. Select Block Unwanted Mail
3. Click Custom Sender List
4. Select Allow only the senders and domains listed below
5. Enter this domain: in.m1e.net
6. Click Save

--> Do not forget to click the link in the confirmation message. Otherwise, you will not receive any of our future emails.

Hotmail Users:

If you do not receive the confirmation message within a few minutes of signing up, please check your Junk E-mail folder just in case the confirmation email got delivered there instead of your inbox. If so, select the confirmation message and click Not Junk, which will allow future messages to get through.

We strongly recommend that you do the following to avoid accidentally filtering our future messages:

1. Click Mail, then Options (next to the Help link)
2. Click Junk E-Mail Protection
3. Click Safe List
4. Enter this domain: in.m1e.net
5. Click Add

--> Do not forget to click the link in the confirmation message. Otherwise, you will not receive any of our future emails.

Yahoo Users:

If you do not receive the confirmation message within a few minutes of signing up, please check your Bulk Mail folder just in case the confirmation email got delivered there instead of your inbox. If so, select the confirmation message and click Not Spam, which will allow future messages to get through.

--> Do not forget to click the link in the confirmation message. Otherwise, you will not receive any of our future emails.

Gmail Users:

If you do not receive the confirmation message within a few minutes of signing up, please check your Spam folder just in case the confirmation email got delivered there instead of your inbox. If so, select the confirmation message and click Not Spam, which will allow future messages to get through.

--> Do not forget to click the link in the confirmation message. Otherwise, you will not receive any of our future emails.

Outlook 2003 Users:

1. Select Actions from the top menu bar, then select Junk E-mail followed by Junk E-mail Options.
2. Select Safe Senders, then Add.
3. Type m1e.net and click OK.
4. Type sender's 'from' address and click OK.
5. Click OK.

--> Do not forget to click the link in the confirmation message. Otherwise, you will not receive any of our future emails.

Everyone else:

If you do not receive the confirmation message within a few minutes of signing up, please check your Spam or Bulk E-Mail folder just in case the confirmation email got delivered there instead of your inbox. If so, select the confirmation message and mark it Not Spam, which should allow future messages to get through.

--> Do not forget to click the link in the confirmation message. Otherwise, you will not receive any of our future emails.

RSS (really simple syndication) allows publishers to syndicate their content for direct, on-demand, access by subscribers. Content creators put their news or information into a feed, and consumers "subscribe" to the feeds, reading them when they choose.

Unfortunately, we do not have any questions in our Knowledge Base that match your specific query. You can try searching again using a more general description; browse through our current Knowledge Base questions; or contact us.

No, unfortunately, you can't change your login ID. But, you can retrieve it by clicking on the orange "Remind me" next to the login button on our homepage.

Just enter your email address into the box under "Don't remember your Login ID or Password?" Our system will email it to you.

You can also log in with your email address and password.

No, adult content violates our Acceptable Use Policy. Even if all of your discussion group members have specifically subscribed to get your mailings, you still may not use our system for this purpose.

No, since all of our information is online, we do not send brochures. However, please feel free to print it out if you like.

Our free service allows you to try DiscussThis for 14 days. We will send you reminders to upgrade before the two weeks are up. Click the Upgrade button located in the upper right hand corner to continue using our system.

Yes, you may upload up to 100 members with your free trial account.

Like Hotmail, Yahoo, and other companies which offer a free version of their service, we also use similar procedures to delete dormant or inactive accounts.

When an account is removed due to no reply to our system's account activation email message or if it is not used in several months, we do not have a way to retrieve the same account number. However, you can sign up again and create a new account using a different email address.

Free trial accounts are valid for 14 days to allow you to test drive DiscussThis to see if it's right for you. After your free trial period, we invite you to upgrade your account to continue using our service. If you do not upgrade your account within five days it is purged from our system.

A setting in your computer could be causing the problem. Here are some possible remedies:

• If you are using Internet Explorer, try using a different browser like Netscape to see if it works.
  
  
• You can also try deleting the temporary files and cookies in IE:
  
  Click Tools --> Internet Options --> Delete Files --> Delete Cookies
  
  
• Check to see if your colleagues can login on the same computer network that you are on.
  
  
• Contact us and let us know what error message you are getting.

There are a couple of options to check:

1. Verify that the date and time are set correctly in your system preferences
   
   
2. Make sure your IE browser is set to accept cookies
   
   
What could be happening is this: when you login, our system sets a session cookie which is valid for 24-hours. If the system date/time is not set correctly or if your system is erasing the cookie (or not accepting it), it will revert back to the login screen.

Another option to try:

Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced Select Connections and then select Show Server Messages

If this did not fix the issue, check to see if you encounter the same issue with another browser, like Netscape, or if you have any firewall settings that might be causing access issues for secured sites like DiscussThis.

Our system only sends one copy of the message to each recipient. If the recipient's server is experiencing any delivery issues, which could be that it is not responding quickly enough to our system's delivery attempt, we retry delivering the message later. Note: If we did not do this, it would take an extremely long time to deliver messages because we would be waiting on slow servers to respond.

Unless a recipient's system reports back with a bounce message or an acknowledgement of delivery (which are part of standard Internet protocols), any email system, including ours, would interpret the lack of response as an intermittent delivery failure and retry delivery. If the recipient's server has such an issue or is in any way misconfigured, it is possible that the recipient may see multiple copies of a message.

We recommend that you ask your recipient to check their email server setup to see if there are any such issues.

Your free 14-day trial allows you to test out our service by creating one discussion group with up to 100 members.

When you upgrade your account, you may:

• Create multiple lists with as many members as you need
• Sign up for optional message archiving
• Use your own domain name

When you upgrade your account, you may:

• Create multiple lists with as many members as you need
• Sign up for optional message archiving
• Use your own domain name

DiscussThis was designed to be a cost-effective discussion group hosting service for non-profits, government agencies, educational institutions and businesses alike. In fact, a very large portion of our customers are actually non-profits. The rates shown in our Pricing page reflect the discounted prices we are able to provide to all of our customers, so we do not have an additional discount for non-profits.

We invite you to try DiscussThis out for free. If you are looking for a very intuitive and easy-to-use discussion group hosting service, DiscussThis is one of the best on the market.

In order to add files to a list for members to view, first, select the list that you would like to add the files to. In the "Manage List" section, select "List Settings" and scroll to the bottom of the page. Next, click on the "Add files to list" link. From there you can browse for the file to add and continue. Note: max file size: 10Mb

We have several checks for autoresponder replies, such as "out of office" notices, in place and we do block quite a few from being posted to the group. But since there are so many types of autoresponders, catching all of the variations requires identifying each one and putting in a special case into our system to filter it. This is part of a gradual and ongoing process since we do not want to inadvertently filter out a legitimate email.

The difference between using DiscussThis vs. a forum on your site, that depends largely on your audience. Many people still prefer to use email as their primary mode of communication so they are informed of new discussions immediately (or nightly via our "digest" mode).

You can also use DiscussThis as the forum itself - our archive option creates a complete searchable archive of all discussions which you can link to from your site. You can make this a publicly available archive (for public lists, meaning anyone can join your list) or a private password-protected archive (for private lists, meaning you decide who can get on your list and view the archives).