BACK TO MAIN SUPPORT INDEX
How To Install Mailing List:
- From the Control Panel, select Email
then the Mailing lists option. The
Mailing List Manager displays.
- Go down to Add mailing list,
and enter a name for your mailing list and enter a
password. The click the ADD button, a message
appears indicating your mailing list was setup.
- Click on the Mailing lists
option again and you will see you new list with the
option to delete it and administer it.
How To Manage a Mailing List:
This document assumes that you are the owner (alternately
referred to as the list manager, administrator, or
moderator). When the list was created and you were assigned
ownership of the list you should have received an
automatically-generated message letting you know what your
administrative password is, as well as directing you to the
URLs needed to manage the list through your browser. This
document will further assume that you have your list's
manager's password, that you know the URL for the management
settings, and that you have a table-capable browser (Mailman
does not use any Java or JavaScript).
When you access your management settings using your list
management page you will be prompted for the password. Once
you authenticate to the server you will be shown the General
Options page for you list and will also see a listing of the
other categories of settings that are available. For all of
these categories you will be able to make changes using your
browser, but the changes will not go into effect until you
go to the bottom of the screen and click the "Submit Your
Changes" button. Changes will then be immediately put into
effect -- nothing needs to be changed or restarted on the
list server itself.
The remainder of this document will talk about each of
the settings as they appear in the configuration categories
for your list. Note that each list server is configured with
different default settings, so this document does not assume
that any particular setting will be the default when you
look at your own list.
After you are authenticated by the server, you will be
taken into Mailman's General Options screen. Note that at
the top of each of Mailman's configuration screens you will
see links to each of the configuration categories. This
document will cover all of the settings in each of the
configuration categories.
General
Options
Mailman's general options allow you to specify most of
the ways that your mail list will interact with the web
server and how it will present itself to the users. The
text in the "setting" should match the settings that you see
in v2 of Mailman. The description content provides a brief
description of each setting as well as guidelines for use
when appropriate.
Setting
|
Description
|
| The public name of this list (make
case-changes only). |
This is the name by which the list
will be referred to in all automatically generated
messages as well as on the listing of lists available on
the server. Note that this name must match the name of
the list as it was created -- you may only change the
case of the name in this field. |
| The list admin's email address -
having multiple admins/addresses (on separate lines) is
ok. |
This field should contain the e-mail
address of the list administrator. The list
administrator will receive all administrative messages
generated by the server as well as any requests that
require approval (postings to moderated lists or
requests to subscribe to non-open lists).
Note: the persons listed as
administrators do not automatically receive copies of
list traffic. If they want to participate in the list
they must also add their address as a subscriber. |
| A terse phrase identifying this list. |
This phrase will appear in two
places: on the general listinfo page showing all of the
lists hosted on the server, and in the header of all
messages sent through the list itself. This value is
best kept short. |
| An introductory description - a few
paragraphs - about the list. It will be included, as
html, at the top of the listinfo page. Carriage returns
will end a paragraph. |
This information will be included at
the top of the listinfo page for this list. In cases
where the listinfo page is used to entice people to join
the list you would want to use this setting to provide a
detailed description of the purpose and nature of the
list. |
| Prefix for subject line of list
postings. |
This value will be added to the
beginning of the subject line of all list traffic in
order to help members identify/filter list traffic. By
default the value is the name of the list enclosed in
[square brackets]. You may modify this value to
something other than the name of the list. |
| List-specific text prepended to
new-subscriber welcome message. |
When new users join your list, or
when they are added by the list manager, they receive a
note welcoming them to the list and telling them about
their password and list-related URLs. Text contained in
this box will be prepended to the generic technical
information so that you can let them know about specific
procedures or protocols related to their participation
in the list. |
| Text sent to people leaving the list.
If empty, no special text will be added to the
unsubscribe message. |
This is your last chance to get a
word in when people leave your list.
Note: in v2 of Mailman there is no
way to prevent persons from leaving a list. If you are
running a list where participation is mandatory (such as
a course or a list of system users) you may want to
include something in this area to let them know that
they should not be leaving the list. |
| Where are replies to list messages
directed? Poster is strongly recommended for most
mailing lists. |
When poster is selected, the reply-to
line will be written by Mailman so that persons hitting
reply in their mail program will send their response
back to the individual who posted the note. When this
value is set to "this list" the reply-to line will be
rewritten so that persons hitting reply in their mail
program will send their response back to the list
itself. When this value is set to "explicit address"
the Reply-To header will use the value that is provided
in the field below.
While the program suggests that this
be set to poster, you should consider the purpose of the
list in selecting this value. Lists that intend to focus
on discussion are best set to "list" to encourage
conversation. Lists used for announcements are best set
to poster to prevent unwanted traffic and the
inadvertent broadcast of replies. |
| Explicit Reply-To: header. |
If the reply-to header is set to
"explicit address above," the value in this field will
be used in all outgoing list messages. |
| (Administrivia filter) Check postings
and intercept ones that seem to be administrative
requests? |
If you activate this feature Mailman
will check traffic for administrative requests that have
inadvertently been sent to the list. This will prevent
the classic case of a user sending a note to the entire
list membership saying "unsubscribe." |
| Send password reminders to, eg,
"-owner" address instead of directly to user. |
This is a setting that Mailman refers
to internally as the "umbrella list" setting. If your
list does not actually consist of people but instead of
lists (so that messages cascade from this "umbrella"
down into the constituent lists) then you want this
setting to be yes. This means that the password and
subscription information will not be sent to all of the
members of the constituent list, but instead to the list
owner alone. |
| Suffix for use when this list is an
umbrella for other lists, according to setting of
previous "umbrella_list" setting. |
When using your list as an umbrella
list as mentioned above, this setting is what will be
used to specify who the owners of the constituent lists
are. While -owner is not universal, it will cover the
conventions used by most of the mail list managers that
are used today (and will work with Mailman lists). |
| Send monthly password reminders or
no? Overrides the previous option. |
When set to yes, list members will
receive an automatically generated monthly posting
reminding them of their password as well as the URLs to
access their list configuration options. This will save
you're a lot of time as administrator as it will let
users solve a lot of their own problems. |
| Send welcome message when people
subscribe? |
When set to yes people who join the
list or who are added by the list administrator will
receive an automatically generated welcome message with
information including the list address, their password,
and the URLs needed to access their list preferences. |
| Should administrator get immediate
notice of new requests, as well as daily notices about
collected ones? |
This setting dictates the frequency
with which the list administrator is told of pending
administrative requests: either notes awaiting moderator
approval or subscription request for controlled lists.
By default the server will send a daily reminder of the
pending requests. If the list owner would like more
immediate notification then they should check "yes" here
for immediate notice of each request.
The notification that you receive will
include a URL that will take you to the pending
administrative requests page detailed near the end of
this document. |
| Should administrator get notices of
subscribes/unsubscribes? |
Because list membership is checked
easily through the web, the list manager may not feel
that it is necessary to know of all of the comings and
goings of list members (especially on large lists with a
lot of turnover). Saying yes here will tell Mailman to
send a short note to the list manager for each person
that is added or removed from the list.
Note: Mailman does not currently let
the list manager block persons from leaving the list. If
you are running a list for something like a course or
committee, where participation is mandatory, make sure
to have this set this to "yes" so you will be informed
of unauthorized departures.
Note: If you are migrating large lists
over to Mailman, or if you are creating new lists using
the mass subscribe feature, you may want to deactivate
this initially so that the manager is not flooded with
innumerable subscribe notices. |
| Send mail to poster when their
posting is held for approval? |
Setting this option to yes will send
a short "we have your message and it is awaiting
approval" note to persons whose postings are being held
for approval. This is a useful "courtesy" and will help
people on moderated lists from wondering why their note
never showed up. This message will also be sent to
non-members who attempt to post to lists that allow
posting for members only. |
| Maximum length in Kb of a message
body. Use 0 for no limit. |
This setting will allow you to
specify the maximum size of messages allowed to be
passed through the list to the subscribers. This is an
important security measure as it allows you to block a
malicious poster from bombing everyone's list with a
large file and it prevents your server from being tied
up delivering inappropriately large messages.
If you do not wish to have a limit on
the size of message, set this value to 0. |
| Host name this list prefers. |
For multi-home hosts (systems that
have different aliases) this would be the value that
Mailman uses to identify itself. You should not attempt
to modify this value without consulting your system
administrator or Mailman may cease to work. |
| Base URL for Mailman web interface. |
This is the base portion of the
Mailman URL that will be prepended to all of the
pointers to specific web features. You should not
attempt to modify this value without consulting your
system administrator or Mailman may cease to work. |
The membership management section allows you to do two
things: add/remove users from your list, or adjust custom
user settings.
Adding and Removing Members
The addition and removal of members is done thought the
membership management screen. When you access this screen
you will be shown a table listing all of your subscribers as
well as their current member settings. Through this screen
Mailman allows the list manager to remove an individual from
their mail list, but the method is not entirely intuitive.
Find the line with the e-mail address of the individual
that you would like to remove.
- The check mark in the first column by the user
address, labeled "subscr" indicates that user is
subscribed to your list. Uncheck the box by the address
that you would like to remove.
- Click the "Submit your changes" button at the bottom
of the screen to put the changes into effect.
Mailman allows a list manager to add people for their
mail list through this screen, but the method is not
intuitively named.
- Scroll down to the area labeled "Mass Subscribe
Users."
- Type the e-mail address of the individual that you
would like to add into the text box. If you would like to
add more than one person then each address should be
entered on a separate line.
- If you would like to send a welcome message to the new
members then make sure that the "yes" button is checked.
This will send the new members their passwords and list
configuration instructions.
- Click the "Submit your changes" button at the bottom
of the screen to put the changes into effect.
Note: You will almost always want to send new subscribers
the welcome message so that they have their password and the
information necessary to customize their configuration.
Note: Network etiquette generally frowns on opt-out lists
apart from their common use within an organization for
official communications and notices -- adding unsuspecting
persons to a list and then telling them that they can leave
if they want. Do not use Mailman for unconscionable
activities such as sending Spam.
Subscriber Options
In the main table each participants address is shown
along with the current options for that user's list
settings. As list administrator you have the capability to
modify any of the options for each of your subscribers.
Modifications are made by checking or unchecking the boxes
for each feature on the row corresponding to the
subscriber's settings that you wish to change. After making
the modifications you need to click the "Submit Your
Changes" button at the bottom of the screen to put them into
effect. Note that because these settings are user
configurable not all users may have the same settings when
you look at this page. Do not be alarmed, it simply means
that they have taken the time to modify their settings.
Setting
|
Values
|
| subscr |
This setting indicates whether or not
the member is subscribed. If you uncheck this box and
then submit the changes on this page the user will be
removed from the list. |
| hide |
As a privacy feature, Mailman allows
subscribers to make themselves invisible to others as
part of the web-based e-mail subscriber list. A check
here indicates that the person will not appear to others
as a member of the list. This setting does not affect
the ability of the list manager to see the subscriber on
the list management page. |
| nomail |
Users may disable mail delivery if,
for example, they are going to be away from their mail
but do not want to unsubscribe.
Mailman's bounce feature may also set
a user to nomail status if mail to their address
experiences delivery problems. See the section on
bounce handling for more information. |
| ack |
Members may request that Mailman send
a short acknowledgement when a they post a message to
the list. Members find this useful for moderated lists
so that they know that their posting was delivered to
the moderator successfully. |
| not metoo |
In the event that members find their
own posts annoying, they can tell Mailman not to include
them in the delivery of their own postings to the list. |
| digest |
If the digest feature has been
activated for the list, members may choose to receive
list traffic bundled as a single large message as
opposed to receiving individual messages. This setting
indicates whether the member will receive individual
posts or the digest. |
| plain |
When a user opts for digest delivery,
this setting indicates whether the digest will be
delivered as plain text or in MIME format. Most users of
modern, GUI-based mail clients can handle MIME traffic
with no problems. Persons using character-based mail
clients should opt for plain-text digests. |
Mailman was created with the privacy shortcomings of
other lists in mind. There are a number of
manager-configurable settings that can help in preventing
spam, subscription abuse, and widespread disclosure of list
traffic to non-subscribers.
Subscribing
Description
|
Value
|
| Advertise this list when people ask
what lists are on this machine? |
In general, persons in the outside
world can see a list of available Mailman lists by
visiting http://name.of.host/mailman/listinfo
By setting this value to "no," this
list will not be included in the directory of available
lists. |
| What steps are required for
subscription? |
Confirm: when a subscription request
is made a message will be sent back to the address being
added. The new member will have to reply to the message
(without having to modify anything) for their
subscription to become active. This prevents someone
from maliciously adding people against their will.
Require Approval: when a subscription
request is made a note will be sent to the list
administrator letting them know that a person is
petitioning to join. The list administrator will be
given a URL to follow that will then show them the
request and allow them to approve or deny it via the
web.
Confirm+Approval: includes both of the
above. |
Membership exposure
Description
|
Value
|
| Who can view subscription list? |
This setting dictates access to the
subscription list via the web.
Anyone: this allows anyone in the
world to browse by and take a look at who the members of
your list are. Never ever use this setting unless you
are trying to say "I have contempt for all of my list
members and hope that they get spammed out of their
minds."
List members: this is the traditional
setting for most lists, allowing participants to see who
the other people on the list are but blocking view to
the general public. This settings can be overridden by
individual users who have set the "hide" option for
their account.
List admin only: only the
administrator can see the list members. |
| Show member addrs so they're not
directly recognizable as email addrs? |
This is a nice feature that
discourages theft of lists: the membership list does not
show actually addresses but instead shows participants
as "username at foo.com". This should block most
harvesters if they manage to get through to the listing. |
General posting filters
Mailman allows you a good deal of control over who may
and may not post to the list. Because there is a bit of good
old-fashioned logic involved some people may be confused by
these settings. Please see the chart following the
descriptions of the settings for an illustration of how
these settings work in concert.
Description
|
Value
|
| Must posts be approved by an
administrator? |
This settings defines the list as
"moderated" or "unmoderated" in most people's minds. If
set to yes, postings are held and the administrator is
notified of their existence. They may then approve or
reject postings via the web interface. If set to "no,"
postings to the list are immediately delivered to list
membership. |
| Restrict posting privilege to list
members? (member_posting_only) |
Under nearly all circumstances this
should be set to "yes." This restriction will cause
Mailman to hold for administrative review all posts to
the list that do not originate from a list member.
Setting this to yes prevents you from being spammed by
people who manage to get a hold of your list address.
Note: there is a use to setting this
to no, see the chart below. |
| Addresses of members accepted for
posting to this list without implicit approval
requirement. |
This settings can be used to
designate posting privileges to persons who are not
subscribers to the list. It may also be used to specify
persons who are exclusively allowed to post. Please see
the chart below for explanation. |
Posting privileges explained
The posting privileges settings outlined above actually
interact with one another. This chart will help to explain
their use so that you can optimally configure your posting
privileges. Each box shows who may post for each of the
configurations.
| Who is
allowed to post? |
Posting restricted to
list members? |
| Yes |
No |
| Are there implicitly
approved people? |
Yes |
List members and individuals
listed. |
Only listed persons may post. |
|
No |
List members only. |
Anyone in the universe. |
Spam-specific posting filters
Value
|
Description
|
| Must posts have list named in
destination (to, cc) field (or be among the acceptable
alias names, specified below)? |
This prevents the list from being
used as part of a BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) spam. |
| Alias names (regexps) which qualify
as explicit to or cc destination names for this list. |
Helps Mailman make allowances for
mail systems that do not substitute the address for
alias or for mail servers where list address receives
mail from an alias with a different name. |
| Ceiling on acceptable number of
recipients for a posting. |
Prevents the list from being used as
part of a mass recipient spam. Also discourages use of
list as recipient of office jokecast notes and bogus
solicitations. |
| Addresses whose postings are always
held for approval. |
Allows manager to designate special
special individuals whose postings are always held for
approval while when postings are otherwise allowed
through. |
| Hold posts with header value matching
a specified regexp. |
Allows you to filter out known
addresses or domains that function primarily as spam
providers. |
| Hide the sender of a message,
replacing it with the list address (Removes From, Sender
and Reply-To fields) |
This tells Mailman to rewrite the
header so that traffic appears to be coming from the
list itself instead of the original poster. Provides
some added privacy for posters, but may be annoying to
some list members as mailbox headers show only the list
name instead of the actual poster. |
These are options that affect the normal mail traffic
that is delivered immediately and individually to list
members.
Setting
|
Description
|
| Can subscribers choose to receive
mail immediately, rather than in batched digests? |
While this seems a bit silly, it is
really asking about what options are available to list
members. If you say no, then subscription to the list
will be available only as a digest. |
| Header added to mail sent to regular
list members. |
Allows you to add a uniform header to
all notes passing through the list. |
| Footer added to mail sent to regular
list members. |
Allows you to add a uniform footer to
all notes passing through the list. The default footer
shows the list name, the list address, and the URL that
persons can go to in order to access the list
information and change their settings.
Note: including this footer
information will cut down on the number of times list
users will have to contact the list administrator asking
for things such as their configuration access
information and the like. |
These options affect the way that the list will process
messages that are to be delivered to subscribers in the form
of a digest. Unlike other mail list managers, the digest
feature of Mailman is built into the package and it easy to
activate and configure.
Setting
|
Description
|
| Can list members choose to receive
list traffic bunched in digests? |
This setting allows you to specify
whether or not users can opt to receive mail traffic to
the list in the form of a digest.
Note: There are some instances, such
as a list for emergency announcements, where you want
mail to be delivered immediately in all cases and where
you would want to disable the digest feature. |
| Which delivery mode is the default
for new users? |
This setting specifies whether new
users added by the list manager default to regular or
digest delivery. Users adding themselves to the list via
the listinfo page are given the option to choose for
themselves: the options selected here is what will be
chosen for them as a default. |
| When receiving digests, which format
is default. |
Regular will cause Mailman to send
plain text digests. When MIME is selected, the digest
message will be sent as a multipart MIME message as
appropriate for the content that the message contains. |
| How big in Kb should a digest be
before it gets sent out? |
Mailman will collect list traffic
until this threshold is reached, then it will deliver
the digest to users. This setting is useful in
preventing digests from containing so many messages that
the reader becomes disoriented. |
| Should a digest be dispatched daily
when the size threshold isn't reached? |
When installed, Mailman is set to run
a daily maintenance script. If you check yes for this
option Mailman will send a digest at the specified time
even though the size threshold has not been reached.
This is a good idea for low traffic lists that may take
some time in reaching the threshold.
Note: By default, the daily dispatch
time is noon (server time). If you want to be sure of
the time that your daily dispatch goes out ask the
system administrator of your system. |
| Header added to every digest. |
Allows you to add a uniform header to
all digests passing through the list. |
| Footer added to every digest. |
Allows you to add a uniform footer to
all digests passing through the list. The default footer
shows the list name, the list address, and the URL that
persons can go to in order to access the list
information and change their settings.
Note: including this footer
information will cut down on the number of times list
users will have to contact the list administrator asking
for things such as their configuration access
information and the like. |
Unlike many other mail list managers, Mailman includes
built-in bounce handlers to help the list manager deal with
address that have delivery problems. If you run large lists
with dynamic membership then these settings may save you a
lot of time in helping to weed out addresses that go bad.
Value
|
Description
|
| Try to figure out error messages
automatically? |
Tells Mailman whether or not to
bother you with bounce messages. Mailman does a pretty
good job of figuring out error messages generated with
RFC-compliant mail agents. On large lists with a large
number of subscribers coming and going, this feature
will save you a lot of reading from MAILER-DAEMON. |
| Minimum number of days an address has
been non-fatally bad before we take action. |
In the even that there is a problem
reaching a host or domain, this setting tells Mailman
how long to hold onto the delivery error messages before
taking action. In practice, this is a good way of
preventing persons from getting bounced just because
their network is flaky and not reliably reachable. |
| Minimum number of posts to the list
since members first bounce before we consider removing
them from the list. |
This amounts to telling Mailman how
many times to try someone before giving up. |
| Maximum number of messages your list
gets in an hour. |
Mailman uses this guesstimate to help
figure out some of the characteristics of the bounce
notifications that it receives. Give this setting your
best shot. |
| Action when critical or excessive
bounces are detected. |
This setting tells Mailman what to do
when one of the above conditions are met, or when a
"fatal" error is recorded attempting to deliver to an
address.
Do nothing: Mailman will keep
attempting to deliver to the address despite the
futility of the effort -- this setting in effect disable
automatic bounce handling.
Disable and notify: Mailman set the
problem account to "nomail" status and notifies you of
the problem.
Disable and DON'T notify: sets problem
account to "nomail" status but doesn't bother you with
the details.
Remove and notify me: removes the
problem account from the list and sends a note to the
list manager. |
Unlike other mail list managers, Mailman has a built-in
archival feature that is easily activated and configured by
the list manager.
Value
|
Description
|
| Archive messages? |
Setting this to "yes" will cause
Mailman to store a record of all traffic sent thorough
the list. |
| Is archive file source for public or
private archival? |
If set to "private," then only list
members are able to access the contents of the list
archive. They will be prompted for their list password
when the try to access the contents. Setting this to
"public" will allow anyone to access the list archives
through the listinfo page.
Note: think carefully about whether
your list membership wants their identities and postings
made available to the world at large by making the
archive public. Public access means that web spiders
will be able to store and make available member's
writings outside of the context of the list to which
they were posted to the list. |
| Set date in archive to when the mail
is claimed to have been sent, or to the time we resend
it? |
Determines whether the message is
stored with the time stamp of the sender when the note
was sent, or the time stamp at the time it was approved
by the moderator (when applicable). |
| How often should a new archive volume
be started? |
The main archive screen for a list
breaks down the archive content based on this setting.
There is no best setting here, only what is most
appropriate based on the list's function and the amount
of traffic that it receives. |
Mail-News and News-Mail Gateway
Settings
|
In the event that you find it useful to gate your list
traffic onto USENET, you can use these settings to set up
the service. Note that you may need to talk to your system
or network administrator to make sure that your news server
will work nicely with this list gateway.
Value
|
Description
|
| The Internet address of the machine
your News server is running on. |
This is the host name of your NNTP
server. If in doubt, contact your system administrator
for this setting. Make sure to use a host that you have
permission to post to. |
| The name of the Usenet group to
gateway to and/or from. |
Make sure that this newsgroup is
available on your news server. |
| Should posts to the mailing list be
resent to the newsgroup? |
Specifies whether messages sent to
the list should be sent to the news group for the entire
world to see. |
| Should newsgroup posts not sent from
the list be resent to the list? |
Specifies whether or not messages
posted by people out there in the world who are not
members of the list should be gated and distributed to
list members. |
| Should mailman perform a catchup
on the newsgroup? |
This setting tells Mailman to begin
gating the newsgroup content to the mail list beginning
at the moment that the setting is evoked. Saying yes
will effectively mark all of the previous news postings
are having been read, and Mailman will ignore previous
postings to the group. |
A new feature in Mailman v2 is the inclusion of
Auto-responder functionality. This feature allows a list
administrator to specify that automated responses be sent in
a number of different circumstances. The top of this screen
shows a number of strings that can be inserted into the
response text in order to craft responses with text that is
specific to the list that is using the auto-responder.
Value
|
Description
|
| Should Mailman send an auto-response
to mail list posters? |
If yes, then Mailman will
automatically send the response text (entered below) or
a specified attachment to persons sending mail to the
list address. This may be useful, for example, in
sending FAQs or list participation guidelines to
senders. |
| Auto-response text to send to mail
list posters. |
This field contains the text that is
mailed to all posters to the list address when the
auto-response feature is turned on for the list
address. If you would prefer to send a file as the
automatic response, you should specify and upload the
file using the field below the text box. |
| Should Mailman send an auto-response
to email sent to the -admin and -owner addresses? |
This setting allows you to specify
auto response actions to be taken if you would like to
have replies sent to the list owner/administrator. |
| Auto-response text to send to -admin
and -owner emails. |
This field contains the text that is
mailed to all posters to the list address when the
auto-response feature is turned on for the list -admin
and -owner addresses.. If you would prefer to send a
file as the automatic response, you should specify and
upload the file using the field below the text box. |
| 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. |
Version 2 of Mailman allows you to
intercept mail traffic sent to a list's administrative
address. In addition to sending an automated response,
you may also specify whether the system will discard the
message or forward it along to the administrative
command handler. This may be useful in informing users
about list use or enforcing membership rules. |
| Auto-response text to send to
-request emails. |
This field contains the text that is
mailed to all posters to the list address when the
auto-response feature is turned on for the list -request
addresses.. If you would prefer to send a file as the
automatic response, you should specify and upload the
file using the field below the text box. |
| Number of days between auto-responses
to either the mailing list or -admin/-owner address from
the same poster. Set to zero (or negative) for no grace
period (i.e. auto-respond to every message). |
This setting allows you to determine
the frequency with which people will receive auto
responses send to auto-responder active addresses.
Setting this value to zero means that a response will be
sent for every posting to the active address, otherwise
additional responses will not be sent to a given user
until the number of days specified by this field have
passed. |
Other Administrative Activities
|
In addition to the web-based access to list settings,
Mailman provides three links at the top of each
administrative page for "other" activities.
Tend to pending administrative
requests.
There are primarily three instances when you will need to
tend to administrative requests. Whether the administrator
is notified immediately for each request or just once per
day is dictated by the switch in Mailman's general settings
section. Note that if you have multiple requests pending
you can work your way down the page clicking the appropriate
action for each request before submitting them all at once.
You do not need to click on the submit action on this page
after answering individual requests.
1. When a posting is held because it was posted by a
non-member. If you are running a list on which only members
can post, items that are being held for review will appear
in this section for your review. As the list administrator
you have four actions available on this screen.
- Defer the posting, leaving it for a later time or for
another list administrator to look at.
- Approve the posting and forward it to list members.
- Reject the posting: the original poster will be sent
notification of the rejection along with the explanation
that appears in the message box on this screen. You may
customize the message as you see fit or leave it empty.
- Discard the message with no notification sent to the
poster. This is particularly useful for spam.
When choosing the action you will have two additional
options:
- Preserve message for site administrator: this will
keep a copy of the message in the admin requests section
even if you choose an action other than defer.
- Additionally forward this message to: allows you to
take action on the note and forward a copy of it to
another person.
2. When you operate a moderated list, you will use this
feature to accept or reject postings following the same
guidelines as for non-members postings above.
3. When you operate a list where subscription requires
administrator approval, user petitions to join will be
listed on this page. You should click accept or deny as
appropriate.
Go to the general list information
page.
Following this link takes you to the list's "public"
information page. This is the page that your subscribers
use to log in and modify their settings, it is also the
gateway to the list archive.
Edit the HTML for the public list
pages.
Mailman allows you to customize the look and feel for
many of the pages that are accessible by your list
subscribers. This is nice if you want to take the time to
"brand" web pages. The following pages can be customized:
- The general list information page
- The subscriptions results page
- The user specific options page
- The changing user options results page
When you follow the link to a particular page you are
shown the source HTML in a browser window. In order to make
modification you will need to know how to write raw HTML
code and insert it in the proper places in the page source.
It is important to note that within the source there are
embedded Mailman fields that are inserter on-the-fly when
the user loads the page. You can identify the Mailman
fields because they are enclosed in angle brackets and are
of the form
<MM-Field-Name>
It is suggested that you not make modifications to the
Mailman field tags unless you are an advanced user who
understands the implications of modifying or removing these
fields.
GNU Free Documentation License
GNU Free Documentation License Version
1.1, March 2000 Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation,
Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and
distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but
changing it is not allowed.
0. PREAMBLE The purpose of this License is
to make a manual, textbook, or other written document "free"
in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective
freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without
modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially.
Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and
publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not
being considered responsible for modifications made by
others. This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means
that derivative works of the document must themselves be
free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General
Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for
free software. We have designed this License in order to use
it for manuals for free software, because free software
needs free documentation: a free program should come with
manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does.
But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can
be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter
or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend
this License principally for works whose purpose is
instruction or reference.
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS This
License applies to any manual or other work that contains a
notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be
distributed under the terms of this License. The "Document",
below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the
public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you". A "Modified
Version" of the Document means any work containing the
Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with
modifications and/or translated into another language. A
"Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter
section of the Document that deals exclusively with the
relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to
the Document's overall subject (or to related matters) and
contains nothing that could fall directly within that
overall subject. (For example, if the Document is in part a
textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain
any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of
historical connection with the subject or with related
matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or
political position regarding them. The "Invariant Sections"
are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated,
as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that
says that the Document is released under this License. The
"Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are
listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the
notice that says that the Document is released under this
License. A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a
machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose
specification is available to the general public, whose
contents can be viewed and edited directly and
straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images
composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings)
some widely available drawing editor, and that is suitable
for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to
a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters.
A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose
markup has been designed to thwart or discourage subsequent
modification by readers is not Transparent. A copy that is
not "Transparent" is called "Opaque". Examples of suitable
formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without
markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or
XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming
simple HTML designed for human modification. Opaque formats
include PostScript, PDF, proprietary formats that can be
read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or
XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not
generally available, and the machine-generated HTML produced
by some word processors for output purposes only. The "Title
Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus
such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the
material this License requires to appear in the title page.
For works in formats which do not have any title page as
such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent
appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of
the body of the text.
2. VERBATIM COPYING You may copy and
distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially
or noncommercially, provided that this License, the
copyright notices, and the license notice saying this
License applies to the Document are reproduced in all
copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to
those of this License. You may not use technical measures to
obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the
copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept
compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a
large enough number of copies you must also follow the
conditions in section 3. You may also lend copies, under the
same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display
copies.
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY If you publish
printed copies of the Document numbering more than 100, and
the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must
enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and
legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the
front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both
covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the
publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the
full title with all words of the title equally prominent and
visible. You may add other material on the covers in
addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as
long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy
these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in
other respects. If the required texts for either cover are
too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones
listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and
continue the rest onto adjacent pages. If you publish or
distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than
100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent
copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each
Opaque copy a publicly-accessible computer-network location
containing a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free
of added material, which the general network-using public
has access to download anonymously at no charge using
public-standard network protocols. If you use the latter
option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you
begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure
that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at
the stated location until at least one year after the last
time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your
agents or retailers) of that edition to the public. It is
requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of
the Document well before redistributing any large number of
copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated
version of the Document.
4. MODIFICATIONS You may copy and
distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the
conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you
release the Modified Version under precisely this License,
with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document,
thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified
Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you
must do these things in the Modified Version:
- A. Use in the Title Page (and on the
covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the
Document, and from those of previous versions (which
should, if there were any, be listed in the History
section of the Document). You may use the same title as a
previous version if the original publisher of that version
gives permission.
- B. List on the Title Page, as authors,
one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship
of the modifications in the Modified Version, together
with at least five of the principal authors of the
Document (all of its principal authors, if it has less
than five).
- C. State on the Title page the name of
the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
- D. Preserve all the copyright notices
of the Document.
- E. Add an appropriate copyright notice
for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright
notices.
- F. Include, immediately after the
copyright notices, a license notice giving the public
permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of
this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
- G. Preserve in that license notice the
full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts
given in the Document's license notice.
- H. Include an unaltered copy of this
License.
- I. Preserve the section entitled
"History", and its title, and add to it an item stating at
least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the
Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is
no section entitled "History" in the Document, create one
stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the
Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item
describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous
sentence.
- J. Preserve the network location, if
any, given in the Document for public access to a
Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network
locations given in the Document for previous versions it
was based on. These may be placed in the "History"
section. You may omit a network location for a work that
was published at least four years before the Document
itself, or if the original publisher of the version it
refers to gives permission.
- K. In any section entitled
"Acknowledgements" or "Dedications", preserve the
section's title, and preserve in the section all the
substance and tone of each of the contributor
acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.
- L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections
of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their
titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not
considered part of the section titles.
- M. Delete any section entitled
"Endorsements". Such a section may not be included in the
Modified Version.
- N. Do not retitle any existing section
as "Endorsements" or to conflict in title with any
Invariant Section.
If the Modified Version includes new
front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as
Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the
Document, you may at your option designate some or all of
these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to
the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's
license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other
section titles. You may add a section entitled
"Endorsements", provided it contains nothing but
endorsements of your Modified Version by various
parties--for example, statements of peer review or that the
text has been approved by an organization as the
authoritative definition of a standard. You may add a
passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a
passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end
of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one
passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may
be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one
entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for
the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement
made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may
not add another; but you may replace the old one, on
explicit permission from the previous publisher that added
the old one. The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document
do not by this License give permission to use their names
for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any
Modified Version.
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS You may combine the
Document with other documents released under this License,
under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified
versions, provided that you include in the combination all
of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents,
unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your
combined work in its license notice. The combined work need
only contain one copy of this License, and multiple
identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single
copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same
name but different contents, make the title of each such
section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses,
the name of the original author or publisher of that section
if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment
to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in
the license notice of the combined work. In the combination,
you must combine any sections entitled "History" in the
various original documents, forming one section entitled
"History"; likewise combine any sections entitled
"Acknowledgements", and any sections entitled "Dedications".
You must delete all sections entitled "Endorsements."
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS You may make a
collection consisting of the Document and other documents
released under this License, and replace the individual
copies of this License in the various documents with a
single copy that is included in the collection, provided
that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim
copying of each of the documents in all other respects. You
may extract a single document from such a collection, and
distribute it individually under this License, provided you
insert a copy of this License into the extracted document,
and follow this License in all other respects regarding
verbatim copying of that document.
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS A
compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other
separate and independent documents or works, in or on a
volume of a storage or distribution medium, does not as a
whole count as a Modified Version of the Document, provided
no compilation copyright is claimed for the compilation.
Such a compilation is called an "aggregate", and this
License does not apply to the other self-contained works
thus compiled with the Document, on account of their being
thus compiled, if they are not themselves derivative works
of the Document. If the Cover Text requirement of section 3
is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the
Document is less than one quarter of the entire aggregate,
the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on covers that
surround only the Document within the aggregate. Otherwise
they must appear on covers around the whole aggregate.
8. TRANSLATION Translation is considered a
kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of
the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing
Invariant Sections with translations requires special
permission from their copyright holders, but you may include
translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition
to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You
may include a translation of this License provided that you
also include the original English version of this License.
In case of a disagreement between the translation and the
original English version of this License, the original
English version will prevail.
9. TERMINATION You may not copy, modify,
sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly
provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy,
modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and
will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from
you under this License will not have their licenses
terminated so long as such parties remain in full
compliance.
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE The
Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions
of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time.
Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present
version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or
concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/. Each version of
the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the
Document specifies that a particular numbered version of
this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have
the option of following the terms and conditions either of
that specified version or of any later version that has been
published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.
If the Document does not specify a version number of this
License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a
draft) by the Free Software Foundation.
|
