Changes to STAT-L/sci.stat.consult (May 25, 2005).

This page is moving to a new website.

Many years ago, I volunteered to develop a frequently asked questions (FAQ) list for the email discussion group, STAT-L. This list is hosted at McGill University and run under the capable leadership of Michael Walsh. You can find the FAQ at either

The STAT-L email discussion group was linked to the USENET group, sci.stat.consult, but about ten years ago, this link broke and no one could seem to fix it. The most active contributors were on the USENET side, so the activity on STAT-L dwindled to next to nothing. I just let the FAQ sit on my web site and gather dust.

Some of the activity on STAT_L has returned, and the link to sci.stat.consult has recently (April 2005) been fixed. You can find the complete archives of STAT-L at

Someone wrote in with a very basic question, but one which I never gave a straight answer to in the FAQ. I'll have to fix that.

The question was: how do I send a message to STAT-L? There are several ways you can do this.

  1. Send an email to STAT-L@LISTS.MCGILL.CA. Be sure to include a descriptive subject line. If you leave the subject line blank, many of the readers of STAT-L will ignore your email or will delete it unread.
  2. If you are already subscribed to STAT-L, just take a message the you recently received, hit the REPLY button, and erase the original message and subject line. For most email systems, this will send a message to STAT-L, but be sure that your email system does not end up sending the message instead (or in addition) to the author of the message you replied to. If that doesn't work, try to REPLY TO ALL button and be sure to delete anything other than the STAT-L address.
  3. The archive page mentioned above has a link "Post to the list". Click on this link and follow the directions. You may need to create a password for your account before you do this.

I have a backlog of work right now, but when that is done, I will update the FAQ and send it out again.