Getting Started with Mailing Lists

Why Use a Mailing List

What Alternatives to Mailing Lists

• Address Book Groups
  • Each sending member must maintain the same address book entries
  • Each sending member must always send from the same e-mail client
  • Very burdensome to maintain with all but the smallest, most static groups
• E-mail alias
  • When list will almost never change
  • Cannot be self-managed
  • Requires Special Permission

How to Request a Mailing List

Send e-mail to assist@olemiss.edu.

Decisions to Make about a Mailing List

• Name of list. (Valid names may be mixture of lower case letters, numbers, and hyphens.)
• Password for administering the list. (We will provide one if you don't have a preference.)
• Open or Closed
  • Open: Anyone may subscribe to (join) the list.
  • Closed: Only you or authorized persons may subscribe others to the list.
• Moderated or Unmoderated
  • Unmoderated: Any member on the list may post freely to the list
  • Moderated: If anyone besides the moderator (you) attempts to post to the list, the e-mail is first "bounced" to you for approval. You may ignore it, or approve it, at which point it goes out to the rest of the list.
    
• Who can send/post to the list?
  • All members (moderated or unmoderated)
  • List owner (you) only (unmoderated)
  • A named subset of list members (you and your designees) (moderated)
  • Anyone who knows the password (unmoderated).
  • If a non-member or non-approved sender attempts to post, their message will be "bounced" to the list owner for approval.
• Initial welcome message to send to those joining the list. (optional)
• Expiration Date for the List (if any)
• Digest?, or Not? (Not, by default. Digests are rare at UM.)
• Reply-To preference: By default, a reply to a listserv message is sent to the entire list. You may opt to have replies go to the sender only.

Administering the List

The list owner may perform functions such as subscribing and unsubscribing users from the list by sending commands in e-mails to md@listserv.olemiss.edu.

Example:
Suppose you are the owner of the "rock-ghosts" mailing list, and that you have chosen "rocky" as your password. If you wanted to subscribe two users, JohnLennon@olemiss.edu , ElvisPresley@hotmail.com, JohnnyRamone@olemiss.edu to the mailing list, you would send the following plaintext e-mail to md@listserv.olemiss.edu:

approve rocky subscribe rock-ghosts JohnLennon@olemiss.edu
approve rocky subscribe rock-ghosts ElvisPresley@hotmail.com
approve rocky subscribe rock-ghosts JohnnyRamone@olemiss.edu

For examples of more commands, see: http://www.olemiss.edu/online/maillists.html

NEW
In Summer 2003, we installed the MajorCool interface to Majordomo. Now, list administrators can login to http://willow.olemiss.edu:8081 with list name and password, and subscribe/unsubscribe/change members by simply editing the list of e-mail addresses. This interface may also be used to add or edit the intro/welcome and info text associated with each list.

Sending Messages

To send a message to a list, address it to listname@listserv.olemiss.edu. For example, to send a message to the rock-ghosts mailing list, you would address it to rock-ghosts@listserv.olemiss.edu.

Approving Messages

If your list is moderated, then member postings will be "bounced" into your in basket for approval. Similarly, if someone who is not a member of your list tries to post a message to it, it will bounce to you for your approval. In either case, if you don't wish to approve the message, then simply ignore or delete it. To approve it, you must forward it back to the list (e.g., to rock-ghosts@listserv.olemiss.edu).
IMPORTANT:You must add one plaintext line to the top of the approved message:

approved: [password]

So, in the case of our mythical rock-ghosts mailing list:

approved: rocky

If you, as the moderator of a moderated list, wish to send a new message to the list, or if your list is configured so only those who know the password may post to it, then these new messages must also start with the line:

approved: [password]

where, again, [password] is replaced with the actual password of the list. Again, the message must be sent in plain text (not rich text or html).

To Report Problems with your List

E-mail assist@olemiss.edu

Common Problems

Undeliverable E-mails:
If an mailing list posting cannot be delivered to one or more subscribers, the sender will receive an e-mail listing the bad e-mail addresses. The sender should unsubscribe these addresses.

Hotmail subscribers seem not to receive postings
Ask them if they have enabled "junk-mail filtering".

For more information:

• Send e-mail to md@listserv.olemiss.edu with one word in the body: "help".
  
• see http://www.olemiss.edu/online/maillists.html
• see http://www.visi.com/~barr/majordomo-faq.html
• see http://www.bris.ac.uk/is/services/computers/nwservices/majordomo/domo-admin.html