Manage the subscribers

Membership Management

Click the link “General Options” then “Add this Domain” in the main menu.
In the top, first column. Then change the values as follow:

General list personality (last row)
Setup
Kind of list Mailing-list, Newsletter Private discussion list Public discussion list
Hide the sender of a message, replacing it with the list address (Removes From, Sender and Reply-To fields) YES NO NO
Reply-To: header munging
Setup
Kind of list Mailing-list, Newsletter Private discussion list Public discussion list
Where are replies to list messages directed? Poster is strongly recommended for most mailing lists. This list Poster or This list
Notifications
Setup
Kind of list Mailing-list, Newsletter Private discussion list Public discussion list
Send monthly password reminders? NO YES YES
Send welcome message to newly subscribed members? NO YES YES
Send goodbye message to members when they are unsubscribed? NO YES YES
Should administrator get notices of subscribes and unsubscribes? YES YES YES
Send mail to poster when their posting is held for approval? NO YES YES

As we are in the general options of the mailing-list, let’s set the maximum message size:

Additional settings
Setup
Kind of list Mailing-list, Newsletter Private discussion list Public discussion list
Maximum length in kilobytes (KB) of a message body. Use 0 for no limit. 0

(It’s a mailing-list, so you control who can send a message to the list, so you can put 0 here (no limit))

40

(For this kind of list, it may be important to limit the size of a mail sent to the list, everyone don’t have broadband Internet connection. You can leave the default limit which is 40Kb, or change it afterward)

In the general menu, click the link "Non-digest options" (5th line, 1st column)

The options of this menu are:

  • Shall the message be sent immediately to the subscribers ? If your list is a discussion list, subscribers may choose how they receive the messages : immediately or in batch (batch reception is when you receive the list’s messages once every week or month.)
  • The headers and footers that will automatically be added to any mail sent to the list.

Warning: The default footer contains some information about the list: the list address, the URL of the public page of the list (where you can subscribe, manage your subscription etc.). If your list is a mailing-list, you’d better remove this footer because the information it contains are often irrelevant.

Change the values as follow:

Non-digest options
Setup
Kind of list Diffusion Private list Public list
Can subscribers choose to receive mail immediately, rather than in batched digests? YES YES YES
Header added to mail sent to regular list members Exemple :

Mailing-list only for the subscribes users INFO

Keep it empty if you want it so
Footer added to mail sent to regular list members_ Warning: never put special characters in this text (including quotes) Example :

Mailing-list INFO

To unsubscribe, send a mail to toto@alternc.org.

Leave the content as it is :
_ %(real_name)s mailing list
_ %(real_name)s@%(host_name)s
_ %(web_page_url)slistinfo%(cgiext)s/%(_internal_name)s

In the general menu, click the link "Digest options" (5th line, 1st column)

Only one checkbox should be changed, the first:

Kind of list Diffusion Private list Public list
Can list members choose to receive list traffic bunched in digests? NO YES YES
Which delivery mode is the default for new users? Regular Regular Regular

You can send requests to mailman by mail (password recovery, list of subscribed users ...). Since you are configuring a mailing-list, you should lock this feature:

In the general menu, click the link "auto-responder" (5th line, 2nd column) and change the values as follow:

Kind of list Diffusion
Should Mailman send an auto-response to emails sent to the -request address? If you choose yes, decide whether you want Mailman to discard the original email, or forward it on to the system as a normal mail command. Yes, w/discard
Auto-response text to send to -request emails. Example

The command you asked cannot be execcuted,
To do any change in the list, contact your administrator : toto@alternc.org

Membership Subscription

Afin de respecter la cohérence des choix (liste de diffusion, de discussion privée, de discussion publique) nous devons modifier tout d’abord les options d’abonnement.

In the main menu clic on "Membership Management" (row 4, 1st column ) then on "Mass Subscription" and modifie values as after specifed :

First, we will subscribe a few emails we can read, to check the configuration of the list.

You can subscribe users by two means:

  1. Enter the email you want to subscribe in the text field named "enter one address per line below..." (enter one email per line)
  2. Upload a text file containing one subscriber per line directly. Below the text field, use the button named :

Warning: This file you will use from your computer cannot be an excel or other complex structured file. It must be a .txt file containing just one email per line and no empty line. For example:

Lulu@lulu.fr
Mimi@mimi.net
jojo@jojo.info

Click the "Browse" button to find the file in your local hard drive.
You can add an additionnal text that will be included in the welcome message of your mailing-list for this mass-subscription. That way, you can tell a group of user about this list aim and why you subscribe them for example.

Validate your changes by clicking the following button:

Tests

You can test your list by sending mail from one of the subscribed email address or from the email address of the mailing-list administrator.
You can read the messages from any of the subscribed user email address.
If it’s a mailing-list (a newsletter), you can test the mailman requests sent by mail See this article for more information.

Portfolio

Author Benjamin Sonntag Published :

Translations : English, français