A primer on e-mail lists and newsgroups relating to matters Ukrainian on the Internet (03/10/96)

A primer on e-mail lists and newsgroups relating to matters Ukrainian on the Internet

by Bohdan Peter Rekshynskyj

There are two major vehicles for common discussion groups on the Internet. They are newsgroups and e-mail lists.

Newsgroups are easier to find since all basic Internet services include access to them. After determining which program to use on your Macintosh or PC platform in order to read these newsgroups, it is easy to search this list under the topic you are interested in. There are two main Ukrainian groups:

alt.current-events.ukraine - This is a low-volume group that is not necessarily carried by all major Internet service providers. It basically is used for current events pertaining to Ukraine.

soc.culture.ukrainian - This is the main group pertaining to matters Ukrainian. Everything is discussed here: politics, social events, Ukrainian diaspora. Unfortunately, due to the unmoderated status of this list, there is a lot of "noise." This means irrelevant or offensive posts (a "post" is a message sent by an individual to a particular newsgroup) by persons indisposed to Ukrainians or their heritage.

E-mail lists are like newsgroups to a certain extent. Here's a basic list of the differences:

They are not carried internationally as a matter of course by your Internet service providers.
You have to explicitly subscribe to them. If you don't, you never will be able to read what is transpiring.
You need to know which lists exist. There is no easy mechanism for this. Hence this article directing you to these lists. (A future page on the Ukraine FAQ Plus Project, which may be accessed using your web browser at this address: http://world.std.com/~sabre/UKRAINE.html, also will tell you where to look)

There are several e-mail lists dedicated to matters Ukrainian. They are:

ukes-news - This is equivalent to alt.current-events.ukraine and then some! Current news pertaining to Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora are listed here. If you had to subscribe to only one e-mail list, this would be it.
To subscribe, send e-mail to the address:
[email protected]
In the subject of your message type "subscribe".

ukes-social - This is our "gossip" list. There is everything here - be it attempts at humor, thoughtful exchanges on the Ukrainian philosopher Skorovoda, silly diatribes by various writers. Sometimes this list generates over 30 e-mails a day. Be patient and contribute, for lists are only as good as the people who participate. It appears, on most lists, that the ratio of participants to lurkers (those who read, but never participate) is around 9 to 1!
To subscribe send e-mail to:
[email protected]
In the subject of your message type "subscribe"

ucpb - this e-mail list basically deals with Canadian-Ukrainian business issues.
To subscribe: send e-mail to:
[email protected]
In the subject of your message type "subscribe".

ukes-flame - "Flame" is a term used on Internet to denote "argument" or deliberate taunts resulting in arguments. This is a no-holds barred e-mail list.
To subscribe: send e-mail to the address:
[email protected]
In the subject of your message type "subscribe".

When you first subscribe to these lists, you will receive a confirmation and sometimes the charter of the list. You'll also receive instructions on how to unsubscribe and how to post. This holds true for most e-mail lists discussed here.

Dr. Andrij Ukrainec (whose e-mail address is [email protected]) is the moderator and owner of the above lists and has graciously spent a lot of his free time in the support of them.

Another list dealing with issues concerning Ukraine is the "Ukraina" list.
This has been around for quite a few years and is relatively low volume.
To subscribe, send e-mail to:
"[email protected]"
Insert the following line in the body (not subject) for your e-mail:
"SUBSCRIBE UKRAINA yourfirstname yourlastname".

The next lists are not exclusively dedicated towards matters Ukrainian, but are interesting if you have the time to read them all.

FSU Media - As the sponsor says: "FSUMedia is about media in the NIS. It's not there for people to ask all sorts of other questions that simply have something vaguely to do with the NIS. When people post non-germane mail, generally revoke their posting privileges fairly quickly."
To subscribe, send to:
[email protected]
Type the command: "subscribe fsumedia yourfirstname yourlastname".

FSU - The charter states: "This English-language list will focus on developments throughout the former Soviet Union. Particular attention will be paid to the common problems faced in the economic and political reform movements in the area. Discussion will also focus on regional issues such as nuclear weapons, regional conflicts and environmental concerns. This list will be broad-based discussion on the post-Soviet period. The discussion group will not be moderated. The list owner reserves the right to approve membership requests to maintain quality discussions with a high signal-to-noise ratio."
Membership requests should be sent to:
[email protected].
To subscribe, your message should have the single line:
"subscribe fsu" with any subject heading.
List Coordination and moderation is through the Center for Strategic and International Studies at [email protected]

OMRI - The charter here reads as: "The OMRI Daily Digest offers the latest news from the former Soviet Union and East-Central and Southeastern Europe. It is published Monday through Friday by the Open Media Research Institute. The OMRI Daily Digest is distributed electronically via the OMRI-L list.
To subscribe, send: "SUBSCRIBE OMRI-L YourFirstName YourLastName" to:
[email protected] (No subject line or other text should be included.)

Jamestown - The Monitor is a publication of the Jamestown Foundation. According to the foundation, it is "a daily briefing on the post-Soviet states." However, I have found that most of the coverage is geared towards Russia and corresponding issues. It seems to me that matters pertaining to Ukraine are an afterthought.
To subscribe send an e-mail message to:
[email protected]
In the body of the message type: "SIGNON JF-Monitor"

E-Europe - This e-mail list is dedicated to "General Discussion about Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States."
To subscribe, send the following text in the body of your e-mail: "E-EUROPE firstname lastname" to the address:
[email protected]

EEUROPE-CHANGES - The sponsor declares "EEUROPE-CHANGES is a discussion list only, no commercial advertisements or product plugging are allowed. Discussion is wide open, no holds barred,controversial topics welcomed, political, economic and social matters discussed, all East-European languages and English are considered legal. List was started due to the fact that large part of e-mail users from Eastern Europe have no access to USENET and its groups with similar topics."
To subscribe to EEUROPE-CHANGES, send command (in the body of text) "SUBSCRIBE EEUROPE-CHANGES" to:
[email protected]

EEUROPE-BUSINESS - Again, the sponsor states "EEUROPE-BUSINESS is very business-minded list, where business offers, leads, requests for goods and services, and advertisements are published (and welcomed), various government and export information, calls for papers, etc. are published - almost no discussion takes place. All postings must be from / have relation to / be of possible interest to people from Eastern Europe. A must for every businessperson contemplating a business with Eastern Europe."
To subscribe to EEUROPE-BUSINESS, send command (in the body of text). "SUBSCRIBE EEUROPE-BUSINESS" to:
[email protected]
In case of any trouble subscribing to the above two groups, send complaints to: [email protected]

SEELANGS - This list discusses Slavic and Eastern European languages. It also covers literature.
To subscribe, send e-mail to:
[email protected]
Insert the message "Subscribe seelangs yourfirstname yourlastname" in the body of your e-mail.

Policy - It is most interesting to see other viewpoints pertaining to Russian "foreign policy" vis-à-vis Ukraine. Here's another list which states that "This English-language Russian foreign policy list will focus on the development of Russian foreign policy in the post-Soviet period. The discussion will concentrate on the development of Russian foreign policy in the near abroad, and on Russian-American relations. The discussion group will not be moderated. The list owner reserves the right to approve membership requests to maintain quality discussions with a high signal-to-noise ratio." Archives for POLICY are also available.
Membership requests should be sent to:
[email protected].
To subscribe, your message should have the single line "SUBSCRIBE POLICY" with any subject heading.
List Coordination and moderation is through the Center for Strategic and International Studies at [email protected]

It is most important to note that in order for you to post, that is, send a message to the e-mail list you have subscribed to, you must read the information returned to you. For example, if you wanted to send some response on a topic to the "ukes-social" list, you would send it to the e-mail address [email protected] - not [email protected]. This is easily done by using the "reply" feature of your e-mail package, such as "Eudora," for example. But this does not work all the time, therefore reading the information returned is essential. (Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions, though)

* * *

If I wanted the latest news on Ukraine, I would first check the Ukraine FAQ Plus Project "Current Events" section for The Ukrainian Weekly (see The Weekly February 18, for more details). I would then subscribe to OMRI to supplement this. Others lists are fine, but it depends what you are looking for and your time constraints. There are oceans of data out there and finding the isles of information is best served by this little map I have written.

In an upcoming article I will cover newsgroups and e-mail lists coming directly from Ukraine.

Bohdan Peter Rekshynskyj is a vice-president at a major New York investment bank and a consultant on matters pertaining to the Internet. He may be contacted at [email protected] or (212) 475-6097.

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