Listserv Management of Mailing Lists

Dartmouth Club Officers Meeting

March 2, 2002

Listserv is a powerful email list management tool that can simplify creation and maintenance of email discussion lists.  It can be used either for one-way distribution of announcements and news or for discussion and exchange of ideas within a group.   Its advanced features include:

• Web interface as well as an email interface for management by list owners
• Web based subscription and removal interface for subscribers
• Automatic deletion of failing email addresses
• Optional searchable web interface to archives of postings
• Subscribers can customize their individual mailing options.
• Limited immunity from abuse by those who send unsolicited email
• A full range of technical features for specialized lists, including rotating moderation of edited lists, distribution in a digested format, hiding the existence of the list from the master list-of-lists

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I create a list on the Dartmouth Listserv?

To create a listserv list, you first need to contact Jan Bent in Alumni Relations.  Let her know the purpose of the list and who will accept responsibility for list management. When you have Jan’s approval, then you contact David Avery, the listserv postmaster, to actually set up the list and configure it as you wish.  Once the list is running and you’re comfortable with the management process, you’re ready to put the list into production.  This could be done in any of four ways:

• If the list is going to be publicly visible and have web archives, then we simply change the status of the list to non-confidential.  You may then announce the list in forums where subscribers are likely to be found, and invite people to subscribe.  The list will be discoverable in search engines such as google and the LSoft list-of-lists.
• If the list is not publicly visible you might privately invite potential subscribers to join by sending then an invitation with the subscription URL or instructions on subscribing by email.
• If the target group of subscribers is well known to you and you know their email addresses, as the list owner you might simply add their addresses to the subscription list.  This works well for small groups with a well-defined focus, such as a reunion organization committee.
• If the desired subscribers are alumni, it is possible to have the list pre-populated with the email addresses of an alumni group.   You will need to contact Nels Armstrong in Alumni Relations to have the address list released and define exactly what you plan to email.  In general, we find that many alumni resent being added to a mail distribution list without their express permission, so avoiding this method is usually best.    It’s better to use a newsletter to invite people to join voluntarily.

What is the list address?

Every listserv list uses two email addresses.  The listserv address listserv@listserv.dartmouth.org is used for administrative tasks such as to subscribe and unsubscribe to a list, while the list address “listname@listserv.dartmouth.org is used to send a message to all the subscribers on the list.  So a typical list address would be 57-business@listserv.dartmouth.org .

Once the list is created, how do I manage it through the web?

The owners of a list have special privileges in management of the list.  Thus listserv needs to positively identify owners so that these privileges can be enabled.  Every list has one or more owners identified by full canonical email address, such as xxxx.T.Block.57@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Mail from this email address will always be treated as coming from an owner.    When you connect to listserv through the web, your origin does not have such an easily identified address To manage through the web, you need to establish a person listserv password tied to your email address.  To do this, send email from the email address you want to use and which is listed as a list owner to listserv@listserv.dartmouth.org with the contents PW ADD “password”.  Now you can connect to the management page for your list and it will prompt you for the owner email address and corresponding password.  The URL for list management takes the form: http://listserv.dartmouth.org/scripts/wa.exe?LMGT1=57-“listname”, for example http://listserv.dartmouth.org/scripts/wa.exe?LMGT1=57-business

How do I add a custom welcome message to my list?

Listserv will send all new subscribers a simple welcome message describing how to post and how to signoff when they first subscribe.  If you would like to modify the stock message, you can edit it through the list management screen: http://listserv.dartmouth.org/scripts/wa.exe?LMGT1=”listname”

Do I want Web Archives?

Listserv does NOT offer a reliable way to have the archives of a list to be available through the web only to subscribers.    Web archives can be read by anyone on the web and the existence of the mailing list will be known to anyone who reads the archives.

However, the web archives offer an easily navigated and easily searched store of past postings if the content of your list can tolerate public presentation.   If archives are not presented on the web, they can still be made available via email request, but the search function is largely lost.  To present archives via the web, a list must declare the archives to be publicly available and must allow the list to be listed in the list-of-lists.

What is the list-of-lists?

The listserv vender Lsoft maintains a master list of public lists at http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html This list is widely used by search engines, so lists that are listed in the list-of-lists will be findable with many search services.   A list can be configured to be either included or omitted from the list-of-lists, but must be included to allow web access to archives.  Web management of the list and web subscription/deletion does not require inclusion in the list-of-lists.

How do I limit the subscriber list?

Subscriptions can be either Public or By_Owner.  In either case a person can either send email to listserv@listserv.dartmouth.org with the contents SUB “list name” “their name” or can go to the web subscription address http://listserv.dartmouth.org/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=”listname”&A=1.    If the list has public subscription, they will receive a request for confirmation by email.  They have three days in which to return this confirming email or their request will be discarded.  If the list subscription is By_Owner,  an attempt to subscribe will cause email to be sent to the owner.  The owner can then reply to this email and his reply will go to the potential subscriber.  Or the owner can forward the listserv-generated request back to listserv and the subscriber will be added.    Of course, a list owner can also arbitrarily add list subscribers, with or without notification of the subscriber.

How to I prevent spam?

 There is no technique other that creating a moderated list in which each posting must be manually approved by an editor which will absolutely prevent unwanted off-topic postings (spam).  However, you can reduce the frequency of spam by omitting the list from the list-of-lists, thus foregoing web archiving, and limiting postings to list subscribers.  The latter will create an administrative burden as many subscribers have multiple mailboxes and many mail providers change the origin address of email without informing their customers.  For a list with a moderate number of subscribers, this is usually manageable.

Who should get replies?

The list can be setup so that replies to postings go either to all the subscribers (back to the list in other words) or to the individual who posted the message.  Each has advantages, but setting reply to the list will occasionally embarrass a subscriber who thinks he is replying to the poster and actually inadvertently replies to the list. 

How do I get help?

The email address postmaster@listserv.dartmouth.org will reach the manager for the listserv system.  Full documentation of listserv is available at: http://www.lsoft.com/products/default.asp?item=listserv

What does the list configuration really look like?

A listserv list actually consists of a text file on the listserv computer.  The top portion of the file defines how the list will operate, while the bottom consists of the list of subscribers and their individual options.    When you contact David Avery to establish a list, he is really setting the list parameters defined in the list header.  One route to defining a list is to visit http://listserv.dartmouth.org/newlist  and copy the list of questions into email to him with your selected answers.  Let’s examine a simple list created for the Class of 1957.  The list header is:

To subscribe to this list, you can send email to listserv@listserv.dartmouth.org  with the contents SUB 57-Business “your name”.  Or you can join the list through the web at http://listserv.dartmouth.org/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=57-business&A=1.  Alternatively, the list owner can add you to the list by sending email to listserv@listserv.dartmouth.org with the contents ADD 57-business “your email address” “your name”, or the owner can add you through the web at http://listserv.dartmouth.org/scripts/wa.exe?LMGT1=57-business An irritating quark of listserv is that it requires two tokens for a name, so to subscribe to the list by email the command for me would be

SUB 57-Business Dave Avery

and not

            SUB 57-Business David

Fortunately, listserv does not enforce that rule when using the web interface, only when subscribing via email.