When Karen Mesiha was looking to move from Park Slope, Brooklyn to Long Island, she turned to the Internet. She wanted to know more about various communities, school districts, stores and the finer details of each community.

Mesiha was a member, contributor and moderator for Park Slope Parents, a popular list-serve owned by Susan Fox that is geared toward parents in Park Slope. The website, which is still running today, helps people navigate their neighborhoods and allows people the opportunity to share information with neighbors. The topics include, but are not limited to, real estate, parenting issues, local sales and general information and experiences. The Park Slope list-serve grew to 6,000 members. "It is the most invaluable tool that anyone can have," said Mesiha.

When the Mesiha family was thinking about moving to Syosset, Karen searched for a similar website for Syosset and found nothing. She did find Robert Rockelein, president of Residents for a More Beautiful Syosset. "Robert helped me move here," said Mesiha. "He gave me the information I was looking for."

Once she moved to Syosset and was settled into her new community, Mesiha decided to start a Syosset list-serve geared toward parents and designed to be an online community and an invaluable resource for residents of Syosset and neighboring towns. People obtain information by posting messages and sharing opinions and experiences. The site was launched last fall.

"Parents can post messages and information about babysitters to help other people looking," said Mesiha. "I was looking for a shoe repair shop and couldn't find one. I turned to the community through the list-serve to locate one."

Other topics of discussion included on the website are the best area restaurants, infants/toddler/kids issues, children's activities, recommendations of contractors, nannies, babysitters and caregivers, pediatricians, camps, lessons and vacation destinations.

"The parents list seems to fill an information void created by the busy lives that today's parents lead each day," said Rockelein. "Between care giving, employment, home chores and school with seemingly endless involvement, there seems less time for parents to share resources, experiences, and recommendations with their peers using the old fashion ways of telephone or curbside conversation. The questions are informal, and the exchanges are friendly and sincere. Long Island provides a great variety of activities for children, and this group list becomes a shortcut for families on already tight schedules."

The website is available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syossetparents/. Questions can be e-mailed to syossetparents-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Membership in the group is free and Mesiha moderates members and comments.