USE OF LISTSERVS

Use of Listservs



Use of Listservs

Introduction

After the engineers built the computer networks, users had to build the social networks that made them useful. Listserv, the combined mailing list and file server, was an important tool for those interested in building network-based organizations. It first appeared on Bitnet, an academic network based on IBM computers. The early versions of Listserv became operational in the mid 1980s, and its early archives show how network users learned to use the software and, perhaps more importantly, how to manage network-based organizations.

Part of the reason for the lack of histories of early network users is the ephemeral nature of network correspondence. The notes transmitted by interactive message commands and the communications distributed by chat programs vanished before the computers that ran those programs were disconnected. The archives of early email, should any remain to this day, are stored on rapidly decaying floppy disks and other media that are sliding toward obsolescence. Only with the appearance of Listserv programs—programs that managed email lists and distributed mass mailings—do we find systematic archives of electronic mail and a coherent picture of the early general user. These record archives chronicle the development of the first network communities (Zappen, 2005).

Discussion and Analysis

Faced with the end of the IBM grant in January 1987, the Bitnet executive committee moved to secure the survival of the network by incorporating their organization and by raising funds through membership dues. This move came at the same time that the Bitnet information center, then located at City University of New York, adopted a new combined mailing list manager and file server called Listserv. These two events mark the start of the rapid growth of Bitnet and the appearance of large numbers of network-supported communities. The network expanded rapidly during this period, adding hundreds of new nodes and thousands of new users each month.

During this period, Bitnet began attracting large numbers of general users, individuals not trained in the technical subjects of network programming and management. These new users were often intrigued with the network communities Listserv supported. These users were interested in forming their own organizations, yet they built many of their first network communities directly on the social foundations laid by the Bitnet representatives and technicians. In Goffman's sense, the new users of Bitnet changed the back stage communities constructed by technically trained users into front stages for the general user.

Listserv—the software that supported the proliferation of network-based social organizations—was written by Eric Thomas, a graduate student in Paris. It relied heavily on features of IBM mainframe architecture, including IBM assembler, the Rexx language, and the VM operating system. It first appeared at several Bitnet nodes, and then the Bitnet Information Center adopted it. It combined the function of earlier server programs, was fairly well-documented, and was stable enough to be installed and operated by programmers who were not intimately familiar with the details of its code. It quickly proliferated through the network. In less than three years, 46 sites had adopted ...