Using the LPFGP Discussion System

[John Jorgensen]

LPFGP Members and Friends,

Welcome to the Lutheran Peace Fellowship of the Great Plains Email Discussion List. We launched our website earlier this week at http://www.greatplainspeace.org. Don't forget to stop by and check it out and add it to your 'Favorites' in your browser. You'll notice the articles on the site allow you to leave comments as well as email a copy of the article to a friend.

I also wanted to clarify what a discussion list is and how you go about using it with Google Groups. A discussion list allow us to send email topics to all members who are subscribed (if you wish to unsubscribe or change the way you receive email see Managing Your Account below). A Google Group is an online group created using the Google Groups service. Google Groups not only allows you to manage and archive your emailing list, but also provides a method for true communication and collaboration with group members.

When you send a new email to our group address - greatpla...@googlegroups.com - a new topic will be created using your email 'Subject' line and the text from your email message. If you reply to a current topic via email the reply will be seen by the entire group. This email is an example: If you go to http://groups.google.com/group/greatplainspeace you will find a topic called 'Using the LPFGP Discussion System' with the text of this email. This allows us to follow and reply to discussions either through email or at our Google Groups site.

For more information on how to use our Google Group visit: http://groups.google.com/support/ Be sure to add greatpla...@googlegroups.com to the list of allowed addresses in your Junk Mail or SPAM settings. This will prevent your email provider from blocking our messages.


Managing Your Account:

To change your email delivery option, you must first sign in to the Google Account associated with the email address subscribed to the group. If you haven't already created a Google Account for your address, please visit http://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount and follow the directions on that page. After completing the account creation process, please follow these steps:

1. Visit the Google Groups homepage
2. Click the "Manage my membership" link at the bottom of the "My Groups" section.
3. Choose the email delivery option that you prefer for your group from the drop-down menu and save your changes.

Many Google Groups activities don't require you to have a Google Account, while many others do. For a brief description of which activities require an account and which don't, please see below:

Activities that don't require a Google Account:

• Reading posts in public groups
• Searching for groups, posts, or authors
• Posting to groups via email if they are unrestricted or you're already a member
• Joining a public Google Group via email

Activities that require a Google Account:

• Creating and managing your own Google Group
• Posting to groups via our web interface
• Creating pages and uploading files
• Subscribing to a Usenet newsgroup and receiving posts via email
• Joining a Google Group via our web interface
• Changing your subscription type (No Email, Abridged Email...)
• Reading a restricted group's posts online

If you would like to create a Google Account, please visit the Google Accounts homepage and follow the directions on that page. If you're a previous Google Groups or Gmail user, you can use your existing Google Account to log in to Google Groups. If you have different Google Accounts for different products, you can't use those products at once. If you have a Gmail window open, you'll automatically be logged in using that account when you open a Google Groups window. If you wish to use your other Google Account instead, you'll first need to click the "Sign out" link in the top-right corner.

Hopefully this helps you understand what our Google Group is and how it will benefit our organization. If you still have questions feel free to contact me at bea...@gmail.com.
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John M. Jorgensen
Fargo, ND