Address Book: An area of your email program which allows you to store email addresses so that you don't have to remember and type them in each time you want to send a message. Remember to keep your address book(s) up to date!

Autoresponders (Mailbots): Automated programs which are established to return a prewritten message upon receipt of email. The autoresponder program grabs the return address from the "header" of the messge. Typically these programs will send out the canned message within seconds of receipt. For example, your autorespond program could respond to emails generated by your webcenter with a message such as: "Thank you for your interest in evisionLink.com. Your request for more information will be answered personally by telephone or email within 24 hours."

Chat: Any system that allows any number of logged-in users to have a typed, real-time, online conversation, usually via a network. In chat systems there are usually many channels, in which any number of people may talk, and users may also send private (one-on-one) messages.

Emoticons: Also referred to as smileys, these symbols help convey the tone, or emotion of an online message. Use in moderation! Examples:

>>these need to be inserted by someone with more techie savvy than I … WORD 98 keeps automatically converting 'em all to little dingbats! Odd<<

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. Many websites and discussion/newsgroups maintain FAQ lists. They're a good place to start if you're a newbie to a site or group!

Flaming: Flaming is the practice of attacking people on a personal level. A flame can be an angry or rude email message or newsgroup posting. Be aware that responding to a flame can incite a "flame war." The best thing to do is count to 10 and ignore flames directed at you. To avoid flaming, never say anything about anybody that you cannot back up with facts, and stay away from personal comments.

Forward: An email function that allows you to send a copy of an email you have received to someone else. Usually the original message is presented as a quotation, or each line of the original message is preceeded by a ">" symbol to distinguish it from any new material you may add to the message. Messages that have been forwarded more than once will usually have multiple ">>>" symbols at the beginning of each line. Like making photocopies of photocopies of photocopies, repeated forwarding of email messages is best avoided.

ListServ: An automatic mailing list server. Listserv is also often a username for servers which process email requests to be added or deleted from mailing lists. An example is listserv@ucsd.edu. Some listservs also provide other services such as receiving files from archives or database searches, or providing FAQ lists. Full details of available services can usually be obtained by sending an email with the word HELP in the subject and body to the listserv address.

Mailer Daemon: A UNIX program used in the management of email messages. Not generally encountered by users unless you get a bounced, or "undeliverable" message.

Mailing List: A collection of email addresses of people who have asked to receive regular mail discussions on a particular topic, and for which they can sometimes submit messages for dissemination to the entire group.

Mailing List Manager: An automated program to handle the admininstrative functions of adding/removing subscribers, disseminating the message postings, sending topic-related and help files, etc. Examples include Majordomo, Listserv, ListProc, MailBase, etc.

Mail Server: The computer and computer program located at your Internet service provider which transmits, receives, and stores email messages.

Newsgroup: One of Usenet's huge collection of topic discussion groups. Usenet groups can be "unmoderated" (anyone can post) or "moderated" (submissions are automatically directed to a moderator who edits or filters and then posts the results). Some newsgroups have parallel mailing lists (see above) for people without interactive Internet access.

POP/POP3: Post Office Protocol. A mail protocol used to service intermittent dial-up connections to the Internet. Mail is held until the user accesses the account, at which time the mail is transferred to the user's computer.

Postmaster: The person to contact at a particular server/site to get help or information about that server/site. Also the person to contact to register a complaint about another user's behavior.

Queued Messages: Messages written but not sent are stored (queued) in the Outbox folder of your email program until you are ready to send them.