Here there will be text for a useful and comprehensive welcome message for the Koha mailing list.

I'm just starting the ball rolling, I'm hoping people will edit it and fix it.

Nau Mai, Haere Mai ki te whanau Koha. Hello and Welcome to the Koha Community.

This is just a brief email to help you make the most of the community, and the community make the most of you.

The best thing you can do to start is to introduce yourself. A brief email to this mailing list saying who you are and what you want to do is a great way to do that.

This is the general discussion list for librarians and others interested in the Koha FOSS (free & open-source software) LMS/ILS (library management system/integrated library system) and related activities. It is a companion to other email lists (see <http://lists.koha.org/>) that discuss future development or aspects of the application.

Before posting to the list, it's always good to read/search through the mailing list archive <http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.misc.koha> and the manual and FAQs <http://koha.org/documentation> for answers to your questions.

Please feel free to use this list for announcements, questions and discussions on relevant topics, and please try to keep it positive and polite. Pro-free-software LMS/ILS news is welcome. Debating definitions of “free” is not.

Please send plain text emails and if you opt for the digest, change the subject line when you reply (as described at the top of the digest). In general, try to keep subject lines accurate and try to write the sort of message that you'd be happy if it appeared on the letters page of a national newspaper or magazine. Other useful netiquette guidelines can be found in Internet RFC 1855 <http://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt>.

Emails from non-subscribers (and other emails held for review) will usually be sent to this list in a batch once a day.

Websites and bloggers may find the gmane archive <http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.misc.koha> more useful for linking, because its comment system is open to all.

Some other useful sites to keep an eye on are included below:

- Koha project home page <http://koha.org> - Here you will find links to other Koha websites and announcements of interest to the Koha community.

- Koha Bugs <http://bugs.koha.org> - Here you will find enhancement projects as well as bugs

- Koha Developer Wiki <http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php> - information about the development process and RFCs (Request for Comments)

- Koha Git Repository <http://git.koha.org/> - patches and enhancements to Koha from the community

- Koha Documentation <http://koha.org/documentation>

We look forward to meeting you and working with you.