The longest-running show in town
The longest-lasting and most active link for the English-speaking RG500 community has been the RG500 mailing list.
Founded by Rob Koopman , after evolving through various schemes since 1993, in 1995 it became a ‘real’ mailing list : rg500@xs4all.nl . Rob says it started with 70 members and it was then hosted by Dan Dinardo as gamma@fastrackriders.com, then the torch passed to Erik Johnson and now it endures as gammalist@edj.net-- huge kudos to Erik who has kept it running out of his own pocket for many years.
Subscribe here to the RG500 mailing list
Unlike many other mailing lists, the RG list has somehow thrived and grown for quite a long period. Like many other mailing lists, it is often NOT something you want to receive on you employer’s computer system. Files of up to 400Kb (total email size) can be uploaded and have been known to contain images of the fairer sex, or who knows what else, within the bounds of what the list will tolerate. Griping at the list, because you received an animated gif of some bouncing breasts in your inbox while at work, will earn you little sympathy. Use your own judgement! Please pipe up and join in, that’s why the list exists! If we limited the discussion to RG500s, we’d run out of things to say in a hurry. So... there’s a lot of variety. There have been some internet groups and BBS for the RG500 but most seem to wither quickly. The mailing list is where it’s at. As Erik said in March 2006:
“You made me curious... this gammalist started in Aug 02. Since then
there have been 36638 messages totalling 552,325,162 bytes of data.
With an average of about 200 subscribers during that period that
amounts to over 110 gigabytes of bandwith through my server! “
So, what’s out there besides the mailing list? Many Gamma-centric BBS have gone by the wayside. Facebook has several active RG500 communities. OTOH the mailing list flows by like water under a bridge; you have no awareness of anything that happened before you sign on. One disadvantage of BBS (Bulletin Board System) or Facebook is that anything you post, sits online with your name attached to it. As such, it is not a great place for off-color chit-chat, especially if you sign with your real name. Think of some future employer googling your name to see what they can find about you... use an alias and stick with it! Obviously the mailing list is not a privacy-guaranteed scenario (see how I archive and re-post tech email) but it’s better in that respect than a BBS.
Speak French? http://forum.rg500.org/
Speak German? German 2-stroke forum is great and you can get a rough translation via babelfish.
Otherwise, just get out there and hit Bing, Google, or whatever and search for RG500 or RG500 Suzuki or whatever you like.
Subscribe here to the RG500 mailing list
More mailing list info:
Some pointers: The mailing list can be a stupendous technical resource and people are pretty good about answering those same questions that come up over and over... and over. RG fans are always happy to add a new owner to the ranks and will usually bend over backwards to help out if they can. The mailing list is also a pretty active chat forum for most anything we feel like discussing, so sometimes there are times when 100+ emails fly in a single day. There are a few tips and techniques that can help you handle this:
Digest mode: will send you a single email each day, which contains a compilation of all that day’s traffic. The benefit is that you get one single email. The drawback is that you lose the ability to sort or view by subject. Digest mode can be enabled by sending an email to Erik, the administrator.
Filter the mail: This is the better option for most. Set up a rule to divert all email from gammalist@edj.net into a dedicated folder for “RG500 mail”. Then it won’t jam up your inbox, you won’t be overwhelmed by a flood of mail, and you can view by thread so you can just delete entire threads that bore you.
Subject lines- some tips: A lot of the listers watch bike races on a delayed broadcast and really do NOT appreciate emails that give away race results. ESPECIALLY if the results are in the subject of the email. Posting an email entitled “Vinales knocks Marquez down!” as soon as it happens is really going to ruin the day for some folks. Please please please, if you want to discuss the latest GP or roadracing results, put “SPOILER” in the subject line. That way, people who want to see it on TV will not accidentally have the results revealed to them when they open your email. And, that way, we can discuss the race to our heart’s content without ruining anyone else’s day.
Want to discuss “Non Gamma Content”? Adding “NGC” to the title seems to have become the standard protocol. That way, you could sort or even auto-delete “NGC” mail if you were so inclined.
RG500 Mailing List