Nearly anyone affiliated with the College can obtain a BlitzMail account for an organization with only an advisor's signature and a creative name.
In 211 Collis, students or faculty can fill out a form titled "Application for Student Organization Accounts" to get an account. This ease of this process has lead to a significant number of unlikely, interesting and bizarre accounts for various organizations and purposes.
One of the most interesting account names is "Quickeys," although it may not be as exciting as it sounds to some people.
The account is actually an Internet mailing list, that upon e-mailing replies only with information about a piece of Macintosh automation software called "Quickeys."
Officer Sergeant Patrick O'Neill will respond with information about parking violations if an e-mail message is sent to "Hanover Police Parking Division."
"BlitzMail allows us to easily communicate with students and staff about town parking matters," O'Neill said. The account has only been in existence for about a month, but O'Neill said it makes communication with people much easier.
Associate Director for Consulting and User Education Randall Spydell says BlitzMail accounts for people not associated with the college are rare but not impossible.
"Usually, a president or dean will have to clear it," he said. "It is not easy to obtain an account if you are not affiliated with the College."
The DND Directory, which contains a listing of every person's and organization's BlitzMail account, is full of entries that are no longer used. Soliciting cryptic account names such as "Rock the Curve," "Intersections," "Pathfinder Group," "SIS-Project-Group," "Physical Therapy Network," "Electron Microscope Group," and "DHMC Bargain" all result in no response and no evidence to explain their purpose. Many of these accounts were created years ago and still exist, despite being inactive.
Other intriguing but apparently unmanned accounts include "The Output-Window," which at one point enabled students to e-mail the workers at Kiewit's printer window. "CRSA," or the Coalition for Responsible Student Assembly's account, was created in the early 1990s to make endorsements in Student Assembly elections.
Spydell attributes this to an ancient system used to create accounts for student organizations. "There were processes that we created by the seat of our pants that we are just now putting under review." Now, Computing Services creates accounts that last for one year and then are renewed annually. According to Spydell, this system enables Computing Services to remove inactive accounts more easily.
E-mail "Project Cork Institute" and Jean Kinney will describe an alcohol education program entitled Project Cork, named after philanthropist Joan Kroc.
The puzzling "DCSEN-Committee" account is for the Dartmouth Community Single Employees network, which according to committee member Mary LaMarca, tries to "bring single Dartmouth adults together for social alternatives."
"This network has helped me meet lots of other single people," she said. "Without it, I think I would have had a much harder time feeling like the Upper Valley is my home."
If rugged women are a priority, try e-mailing "Women in the Wilderness," a club within the Dartmouth Outing Club. "Basically we do all types of outdoor activities ... in tents anywhere we can find the woods," their response said.
The "Creative Gaming Club" is amusingly specific about their purpose. After being quizzed via e-mail, they replied, "We play games. All sorts of games. Wargames. Collectible card games. Role-playing games. Strange games that defy categorization. And we have more fun than you do."
The "Student Advocate" has an automatic reply that declares only, "Be assured that we will reply to your message within 24 hours unless we're seriously ill, and that the result will be scandal-free." Because they do not reply in 24 hours, one can only assume that they are indeed ill -- or that Committee Chair Brandon del Pozo graduated in 1996.
The BlitzMail account entitled "Hokupaa" is actually Dartmouth's Hawaii Club. "Hawaii clubs on the East Coast tend to keep in touch for coordination of lu'aus, conferences, and the like," Hawaii Club President Brad Evans '98 said. "Having a Blitz account makes us 'visible' to people off campus as well as on campus...regardless of who the Hokupa'a leadership might be at any given time."
BlitzMail also has about 20 accounts named "Test1" through "Test20." These accounts are used by Computing Services to test various aspects of the BlitzMail system. The "Test4" account interestingly has nicknames "MD," "PhD," and "Esq."
According to Rich Brown, manager of special projects, this prevents people do not get accidentally receive e-mail destined for various doctors and lawyers.
"In the early days, a woman in the Alumni Affairs Office started receiving reports about patients," Brown said. Apparently, the person sending the reports was sending them to a doctor's name with an appended "MD," and the woman had "MD" in her nicknames.
"In order to prevent people from making that mistake, we put those words in 'Test4''s nicknames," Brown said.
