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List Owners FAQ
This is a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) document for email list owners at
the Online Policy Group or one of its projects.
NOTE that the info herein applies to lists hosted at the public sites, groups.queernet.org and groups.onlinepolicy.net. Most of it also applies to "private" domains -- those hosted by us but with your own domain.
Q0. How do I reach OPG Support?
To reach OPG Support to help with management issues on your list, please use our task request forms so we can track your request more easily: http://www.onlinepolicy.org/services/services-expert.shtml
Q1. What's the URL for managing my list by web?
Q2. What's the address for managing my list by email?
Q3. What are delivery_modes, and how do they affect my list?
Delivery modes are whether a subscriber currently receives mail or not, and if they do,
whether they get individual messages or collections called "digests."
(Unlike Majordomo 1, the new version doesn't treat the digest and reflector formats of a list as separate lists, but rather, as delivery modes.)
Supported delivery modes include:
- each - a separate message for each post ("reflector")
- digest - a daily (or otherwise scheduled) batch
- nomail - on the subscriber list but no mail received
- unique - only one copy of a post if sent to multiple lists
This has some benefits: * You can change the delivery_mode for a
user without unsubscribing them * More important, they can do it themselves
without unsubscribing and resubscribing
Q4. How do I add a subscriber to my list by mail?
To add one subscriber to the default delivery mode, in the body of the message,
send the line approve PASSWORD subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS
(replacing PASSWORD with your list master_password, LISTNAME with your list's name,
and ADDRESS with the address of what Majordomo 2 calls the "victim" - that is, the person to be subscribed)
Q5. How do I add more than one subscriber by mail?
As before, you can put one command line per subscription
in your mail: approve PASSWORD subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS1 approve
PASSWORD subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS2 approve PASSWORD subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS3 and so on.
But you'll find another feature of Majordomo 2 helpful for repeated tasks.
It's called a "here-document." It's used to set up a list of things
that are either part of the same definition or "victims" of the same command.
To subscribe three users in one command, you'd send
approve PASSWORD subscribe LISTNAME << XXYYZZ ADDRESS1 ADDRESS2 ADDRESS3 XXYYZZ
It doesn't matter what set of letters follows the << on the first line, as
long as it's at least three characters long, starts with
three capital letters, contains only letters and numbers, and
- most important - matches the exact sequence you use at the end of the list.
Q6. Can I use here-documents for other commands?
Sure. Any command that can be repeated for multiple flags or users for a list can be given as a here-document.
Q7. How do I subscribe an address for the digest?
You subscribe it, then set digest delivery_mode:
approve PASSWORD subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS approve PASSWORD set LISTNAME digest ADDRESS
These can actually be combined into a single command: approve PASSWORD
subscribe-set LISTNAME digest ADDRESS And you can combine here-documents
and settings: approve PASSWORD subscribe-set LISTNAME digest << XXYY ADDRESS1 ADDRESS2 ADDRESS3 XXYY
Q8. All this password typing is getting tedious.
Can I give my password just once and have it apply to all the commands in a message?
Sure - put the command default password PASSWORD at the start of the message.
Then you can omit the approve PASSWORD part on every command.
So our multi-line example from above would now be: default password PASSWORD
subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS1 subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS2 subscribe LISTNAME ADDRESS3
Q9. What about the name of the list? Can I type that only once too?
Yes - you can say default password PASSWORD default list LISTNAME
subscribe ADDRESS1 subscribe ADDRESS2 subscribe ADDRESS3 or even default
password PASSWORD default list LISTNAME subscribe
<< XXYY ADDRESS1 ADDRESS2 ADDRESS3 XXYY which is an easy way to
copy-and-paste a default list, if you're updating a roster or otherwise getting a
list of lists on on a line from another source.
Q10. Is there a way a subscriber can view a list's messages via a web browser rather than by email (aside from using a web-only email service)?
They can set "nomail" delivery mode, then visit the list's archive on the user web site.
- To do so: - go to the user web site: http://groups.queernet.org/cgi-bin/mj_wwwusr
OR
http://groups.onlinepolicy.net/cgi-bin/mj_wwwusr
OR
http://lists.YOUR.DOMAIN/cgi-bin/mj_wwwusr or http://lists.YOUR.DOMAIN/cgi-bin/mj_wwwusr
- click "Sign in" - enter your email address and password
- click on "Unsubscribe or Change Settings" - find the list you're interested in
- click on the word "info" next to the list name - on the resulting page, you'll see a link that says "Message Archive"
Q11. Can I force my subscribers to reply to the whole list instead of to the sender?
Yes... but doing so is more flexible, and therefore more complex, than in old Majordomo.
There are actually four settings that are involved, three for the list
and one for each subscriber. By design, Majordomo 2 allows each subscriber to
determine whether or not they wish to have reply-to-list be the default.
It does this by tracking a flag called replyto for each subscription (that is, the occurrence of one address on one list).
The configuration controls three things:
- whether the flag should be on by default (default_flags)
- whether the user is permitted to override the setting (allowed_flags)
- if the flag is set, what address is used (reply_to - note that the spelling is different from the flag)
So in order to force your entire list to reply to the list, first ensure that new users will be set that way:
- be sure replyto appears in default_flags
- be sure replyto does NOT appear in allowed_flags
- be sure reply_to is set in the configuration
(by default it is set to the list posting address, which is represented by list-owners@$HOST
(Some list-owners are willing to let their more experienced users decide for
themselves if they want to override the default and make it easier for
themselves to send personal replies. To do this, skip the step involving allowed_flags;
the default behavior will be as you wish, but the more experienced users will be able to control their own replyto setting.)
Next you need to modify the setting for all subscribers.
If you want to do it from the web, your only choice is the tedious approach:
check the replyto box for each user, and check the box to the left of their address
indicating that you wish the change to be applied. For lists of any size, this is really tedious.
Fortunately, you can do it by mail in one command:
approve PASSWORD set-pattern-allmatching LISTNAME replyto /./ ...which
means "for all subscribers to LISTNAME whose address matches the pattern /./
-- that is, all subscribers whose addresses has at least one character
of any sort in it - set the replyto flag."
Q12. How do I remove (HTML, pictures, viruses, attachments) from posts to my list?
The simplest way is to add the "plaintext" template to your list. You can do that by mail or by web.
By mail:
- send mail to majordomo
- in the body, put: default password LISTPASSWORD configset-append LISTNAME config_defaults=plaintext configdef LISTNAME attachment_filters,attachment_rules
By web:
- sign in to the list-owner web interface using your list name, list password, and email address
- choose "Configuration" - click on "configshow"
- scroll to "config_defaults" and check the check-box to its left; add the word plaintext on a line by itself
- click on "configset"
Note that this isn't a foolproof solution to the problem of viruses:
some day, someone will figure out how to get a virus payload into plain text.
The only ways to provide up-to-date virus protection is using virus scanners
at the receiver's desktop, the receiver's server, the originator's server,
or (when we can find one that works and we can afford) the list
service's server... not as part of list handling.
Q13. I tried to use the "search" option on the "Subscribers" screen,
but I can't seem to match the address, no matter what I enter.
By default, the search entry field contains a single period (".");
this corresponds to the character that represents "any character"
in the pattern matching language used for searches.
You need to remove it when you enter a word or address to look up.
For instance, say you're trying to find all users with "sue" in their addresses on your list.
If you just type "sue" without clearing the period out, the software will fail to
find "sue@suescomputer.com " , because the pattern "sue" means
"any one character followed by 'sue'". Of course, since there is no
character before the "sue" part of that address, it won't match.
Q14. What's the difference between "confirm" and "consult"
on the token approval screens (including the list's "Moderation" page)?
Confirm tokens need to be approved by the person whom the request
affects before they can take place. Consult tokens need to be approved by one
or more of a mailing list's owners or moderators before they can take place.
For support questions not covered in the online tutorials, please fill out the
Support Requests Not Covered Elsewhere form.
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