Mailing lists

Within the University many Departments and groups operate mailing lists for their staff or students, so you are likely to find yourself on several lists. In addition, there are many other mailing lists within the University, in the UK academic community and worldwide, which you may choose to join.

Information Services run a Cambridge mailling list system based on Sympa, a widely-used web-based system. UK-wide academic mailing lists are mainly operated by JISCmail.

Replying to list messages

When you reply to a message which has reached you as a member of a mailing list, it is important to think whether the reply is to go to the person who sent you the message or to the whole list. Look at the header carefully before you send the message; it can be very embarrassing to find that you have sent a private reply to hundreds of people around the world.

Cancelling or suspending list membership

Some mailing lists generate a considerable volume of messages, and if you belong to such lists it is important to cancel or suspend your membership when you are away from your email. When you leave the University you need to cancel all your list memberships and resubscribe with your new address.

• If the list is a Cambridge one, see Information for list members
• If the list is one run through JISCmail (the To: address will be listname@JISCMAIL.AC.UK), you can
  • suspend all lists by sending a message to jiscmail@jiscmail.ac.uk, with the text set * nomail . When you wish to restart the lists, send a message to jiscmail@jiscmail.ac.uk, with the text set * mail.
  • unsubscribe from a list by sending a message to jiscmail@jiscmail.ac.uk with the text leave listname; if you wish to unsubscribe from all lists, the message text should be leave *.

Last updated: January 2022