mailman Frequently Asked Questions - University of Denver

Frequently Asked Questions About Using and Managing Electronic Mailing Lists At DU

The following are frequently asked questions about using and managing mailing lists at the University of Denver. Please address questions not covered here to info-mlm@du.edu. This document was last edited August 30th, 2005 - questions with a star (*) have been added or modified since the last version.

Available Questions

How do I subscribe to a mailing list?
How do I unsubscribe from a mailing list?
What are these subscription passwords and how do I find out what mine is?
How can I change my subscription password?
How can I find out which du.edu mailing lists my email address is subscribed to?
How can I change the email address which is subscribed to one or all du.edu mailing lists?
How can I subscribe two email addresses to a mailing list so I can post to that list from both addresses, but only receive messages from that list on one of the addresses?
*When reading email using MS Outlook, emails to my list appear to come from ListName-bounces@du.edu instead of my email address - why?
*Each month I receive an email with the subject du.edu mailing list memberships reminder - what is this?
Questions For List Administrators...
How do I get to my list administration / manager interface?
How do I change my list administrator password?
*I received a notice that a message has been held for my approval because there were too many recipients to the message - what is this?
How do I hide the sender of messages which are posted to my list, so that the messages appear to come from the list's address?
What is the difference between a list administrator, and a list moderator
*How do I configure my mailing list to be moderated?
How do I get to my list's moderation interface?
I'd like to have someone else in my department, club, Etc be able to moderate messages sent to my list - how do I configure my list to have a separate moderator?
*How do I configure my mailing list to be unmoderated?
*How can I allow anyone to post to my mailing list?
*How can I keep anyone from posting to my mailing list, without requiring me to disapprove each posting?
*How can I allow anyone to subscribe to my mailing list, without requiring my approval for each subscription?
*How can I disallow subscriptions to my mailing list?
How can I have multiple managers and/or moderators for my mailing list?
*I will no longer be manager of my mailing list - how do I configure the list to have a new manager?
How can I subscribe people to my mailing list?
How can I unsubscribe people from my mailing list?
*My list's membership list shows an alphabetic index instead of showing all of the members on one page - how can I change this?
How can I keep HTML email messages and attachments from being sent to my mailing list?
*Subscribers are complaining about receiving monthly password reminders for my mailing list - how do I turn this off?

Questions For List Users; Subscribers...

How do I subscribe to a mailing list?

You can subscribe to a mailing list via the web or email:

send an email to listname-subscribe@du.edu(where listname is the name of the mailing list you want to join).

Alternatively, using the web, visit the list information page and click on the mailing list you would like to subscribe to. You will then be presented with a subscription form where you can enter your email address, your name, and specify whether you would like to receive emails from the list one by one as they are sent to the list, or as a digest (a batch of messages, usually sent once per day).

Once you have initiated a subscription to a mailing list via one of the above methods, you will receive a confirmation email which you will have to reply to in order to complete your subscription. This insures that the email address you have attempted to subscribe to the mailing list is a valid and reachable email address.

How do I unsubscribe from a mailing list?

Send an email (originating from the email address which you want to unsubscribe) to listname-unsubscribe@du.edu (where listname is the name of the mailing list you want to unsubscribe from). You will have to reply to a confirmation email in order to verify that you do want to unsubscribe (this keeps others from forging your email address and unsubscribing you from a mailing list with out your knowledge).

You can also unsubscribe via the web:

go to the list information page, and click on the mailing list you'd like to unsubscribe from.
click the "unsubscribe or edit options" button at the bottom of the mailing list's info page.
Login using the email address you would like to unsubscribe, and the password for your subscription (see the question about passwords for more information).
Check the "Yes, I really want to unsubscribe" check box, and click the "Unsubscribe" button to immediately be unsubscribed. Note that if you have elected to receive emails from this list in digest form, you may receive one more digest after you have unsubscribed from the list.

If you need to unsubscribe an email address which you no longer have access to (such as an email address with a previous employer) please call 303-871-3450 or email info-mlm@du.edu.

What are these subscription passwords and how do I find out what mine is?

There is a password associated with each mailing list you are subscribed to, in order to keep others from modifying your mailing list options. If you are subscribed to two mailing lists, you technically have two passwords (although they can be the same if you like).

You only need your mailing list subscription password when unsubscribing from a mailing list via the web, or if you want to change your options (such as whether to temporarily stop receiving email sent to the mailing list, or whether to receive email from the list in a daily batch instead of individual messages).

To have your password for a particular mailing list emailed to you, send an email to listname-request@du.edu (where listname is the name of the list for which you want your subscription password) and put the word password in the body of the email - your password for that mailing list will be emailed to your subscribed email address.

You can also have your password emailed to you by using the web interface:

Go to the list information page, and click on the mailing list for which you'd like to get your password.
At the bottom of the page, enter your email address and click the "unsubscribe or edit options" button.
Under the "Forgotten Your Password?" heading, click the "Email My password To Me" button.

How can I change my subscription password?

Please do not use a password which you use for other services, such as your DU pass code, because it is possible for some mailing lists to be configured to send (unencrypted) monthly password reminders to list subscribers.

Send an email to listname-request@du.edu (where listname is the name of the list for which you want to change your subscription password) and include the following two lines in the message:


password <oldpassword> <newpassword>

end

Replace the string <oldpassword> with your current password, and <newpassword> with what you would like to use as your new password.

You can also use the web interface to change your password:

GO to the list information page, and click on the mailing list for which you'd like to change your subscription password.
At the bottom of the page, click the "Unsubscribe Or Edit Options" button.
Login with your email address and current password
Fill in both the "New password" and the "Again to confirm" fields with what you want your new password to be.
If you click the "Change Globally" check box (below the "Change My Password" button) you can change your password associated with all du.edu mailing lists which your email address is currently subscribed to
Click the "Change My Password" button.

How can I find out which du.edu mailing lists my email address is subscribed to?

go to the list information page, and click on a mailing list which you know you are subscribed to.
click the "unsubscribe or edit options" button at the bottom of the mailing list's info page.
Login using your email address and password. IF you don't know your subscription password, see the question about passwords.
Click on the "List my other subscriptions" button - you will be taken to a list of all mailing lists which your email address is subscribed to.

How can I change the email address which is subscribed to one or all du.edu mailing lists?

If you have changed email addresses, such as using john.smith@du.edu instead of jsmith@du.edu, you can change your subscription email address without having to unsubscribe the old address and then subscribe your new address. You can also make this change globally, for all du.edu mailing lists.

Go to the list information page and click on the mailing list for which you'd like to change your subscribed email address. If you want to change your subscribed email address for all du.edu mailing lists, click on one of the mailing lists which you know you are subscribed to.
Click the "Unsubscribe or Edit Options" button at the bottom of the page.
Login using your email address and subscription password.
Enter your new email address in both the "New address" and "Again to Confirm" fields.
Optionally you may enter your name in the "Your name" box.

IF you would like this change to take affect for all du.edu mailing lists which your old email address is subscribed to, check the "Change Globally" check box.

Click the "Change MY Address and name" button.
You will receive an email at your new email address which you will need to reply to in order to confirm that you want the change of address to take place. Remember when replying to the confirmation email, that your "from" address must be your new email address.

How can I subscribe two email addresses to a mailing list so I can post to that list from both addresses, but only receive messages from that list on one of the addresses?

Subscribe both email addresses to the list as normal.
Go to the list information page and click on the mailing list in question.
Login using the email address and password from which you do not want to receive messages from this mailing list.
Click on the "subscription options" category and set the "mail delivery" option to "disabled".

Alternatively you can send an email, from the email address at which you do not want to receive emails from the mailing list, to listname-request@du.edu, and include the following three lines in the message:


 set authenticate <your_password>

set delivery off

end

Replace the string <your_password> with your actual password for your subscription to the mailing list for which you want to suspend delivery.

Remember that each subscription to a mailing list has it's own password, so if you have two email addresses subscribed to the same mailing list, it is possible for each subscription to have a separate password. If you do not know your mailing list password, see the question on passwords.

*When reading email using MS Outlook, emails to my list appear to come from ListName-bounces@du.edu instead of my email address - why?

Microsoft Outlook's rendition of the From: header also includes other information from the sender envelope header, mainly:

MyListName-bounces@du.edu

When an e-mail cannot be delivered, it is e-mailed back to the e-mail address contained in the return path. For mailman mailing lists, this return address is MyListName-bounces@du.edu. Emails delivered to the -bounces address on the Mailman server are analyzed with the objective of taking steps to disable distribution to that subscriber, if e-mail to them exceeds bounce limits set by the list administrator.

Microsoft Outlook is including contents of the envelope header, where other mail software does not. For the moment, there is no solution to this issue, although we are testing a workaround (09/01/2005).

*Each month I receive an email with the subject du.edu mailing list memberships reminder - what is this?

If a mailing list administrator turns on the option to send out monthly password reminders to list subscribers, you (as a list subscriber) will receive an email containing your subscription password(s) for those mailing lists. Please note that this monthly email only contains information about mailing lists for which monthly password reminders are enabled - not for all mailing lists you are subscribed to.

To stop receiving these monthly reminders, you can appeal to the administrator of the mailing list in question (send an email to ListName-owner@du.edu to reach a mailing list's administrator) to disable monthly password reminders.

Questions For List Administrators...

How do I get to my list administration / manager interface?

GO to the list admin page at https://listserv.du.edu/mailman/admin, and click on the name of your mailing list. You can also just point your web browser to an address of the form https://listserv.du.edu/mailman/admin/listname (where listname is the name of your mailing list). You will need your list administrator password to manage your mailing list (each mailing list has a separate password). If you are having difficulty accessing your mailing list's management interface, please call 303-871-3450 or email info-mlm@du.edu.

How do I change my list administrator password?

GO to your mailing list's list admin page
Click on "Passwords"
Fill in the "Enter new administrator password" and the "Confirm administrator password" fields with what you would like your new administrator password to be.

Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page.

*I received a notice that a message has been held for my approval because there were too many recipients to the message - what is this?

Occasionally you may receive an email like the following:


As list administrator, your authorization is requested for the following mailing list posting:



    List:    ListName@du.edu

    From:    User@du.edu

    Subject: Important Announcement, according to me

    Reason:  Too many recipients to the message

"Too many recipients" refers to the number of recipients in the To: and CC: fields of the email, not to the number of subscribers to your mailing list. For example, sending email to ListName@du.edu, and putting a Microsoft Outlook distribution list in the CC field containing 40 email addresses, would be sending to 41 recipients.

If Mailman sees a number of recipients which exceeds it's threshold (10 by default) it will hold the message for your approval as a safeguard against something potentially malicious. You can increase mailman's threshold for this bu:

Go to your list's list admin page
Click on "Privacy Options..." and then "Recipient filters"
Change the "Ceiling on acceptable number of recipients for a posting" value to a number greater than the number of recipients typically included in emails sent to your mailing list.
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page

How do I hide the sender of messages which are posted to my list, so that the messages appear to come from the list's address?

When doing this, remember that often people have signatures at the bottom of outgoing emails, or other identifiable characteristics, and having a mailing list replace the sender of messages with the list's email address is not perfect anonymity.

Go to your mailing list's list admin page
Set the option which says "Hide the sender of a message, replacing it with the list address (Removes From, Sender and Reply-To fields)" to "yes"
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page.

What is the difference between a list administrator, and a list moderator

There can be two ownership roles associated with each mailing list - a list administrator and a list moderator.

The list administrators are the people who have ultimate control over all parameters of this mailing list. They are able to change any list configuration variable available through the list's administration web pages.

The list moderators have more limited permissions; they are not able to change any list configuration variable, but they are allowed to tend to pending requests, including approving or rejecting held subscription requests (someone attempting to subscribe to a list for which subscription requires approval), and disposing of held postings.

The list administrator can tend to the same pending requests that a list moderator can; the list moderator roll is for delegating moderation duties for a list to someone else. If your mailing list is not moderated (moderation requires that postings to the list must be approved before they will be sent to the list subscribers), or there is only one person overseeing your mailing list, then you will probably not use the separate moderator role as the list administrator can also tend to moderation requests.

*How do I configure my mailing list to be moderated?

When a mailing list is moderated, messages which are sent to the list must be approved before they are actually sent on to the list's subscribers. Messages can be approved by the list administrator, as well as by an optional list moderator roll.

You can choose to moderate messages from people who are subscribed to your mailing list, and/or moderate messages from people who are not subscribed to your mailing list. In some cases a list administrator desires to moderate messages from non-subscribers, but allow messages to pass through automatically when they are from a list subscriber.

To enable moderation for your mailing list, do the following:

GO to your mailing lists list admin page
Click on "Privacy Options..." and then click "Sender Filters"
If you want your list's subscribers to be moderated, set "By default, should new list member postings be moderated?" to "yes", and make sure the "Action to take when a moderated member posts to the list" option is set to "hold"
If you want non-subscribers who send messages to your list to be moderated, set "Action to take for postings from non-members for which no explicit action is defined." to "Hold"
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page
If you chose to have your list's subscribers be moderated:

Click "Membership management" (in the main navigation area)
Under the "Additional Member Tasks" section, the "Set everyone's moderation bit, including those members not currently visible" option should be set to "On" - This will cause the current subscribers to your list to be moderated.
Click the "Set" button at the bottom of the page
Still at the "Membership management" page, find the email address of managers for this mailing list, and uncheck the moderation ("mod") check box. This will allow managers to post to their own mailing list without then having to approve the message.
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page

How do I get to my list's moderation interface?

IF you are the mailing list manager, go to your list's list admin page and click on "Tend to pending moderator requests."

IF you are a moderator for a mailing list (not a list manager), point your web browser to an address of the form https://listserv.du.edu/mailman/listdb/listname (where listname is the name of your mailing list). For example, the moderation interface for the (nonexistent) helloworld-l mailing list would be at: https://listserv.du.edu/mailman/listdb/helloworld-l

I'd like to have someone else in my department, club, Etc be able to moderate messages sent to my list - how do I configure my list to have a separate moderator?

Configure a moderator password which the moderator will use to access this mailing list's moderation interface:

GO to your mailing list's list admin page
Click on "Passwords"
Enter a password in both the "Enter new moderator password" and the "Confirm moderator password" fields - do not use the same password as your list administrator password.
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page.

Configure the moderator's email address, so that the moderator gets notified when there are pending requests which they need to deal with:

Click on "General" in the main navigation area of your list admin page.
In the field labeled "The list moderator email addresses" enter the email address of your list moderator. If you will be having multiple moderators, you can enter multiple email addresses here, one on each line.
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page.
IF the new list moderators' email addresses are not already subscribed to the mailing list, you will probably want to have them subscribe themselves or you can subscribe them.

*How do I configure my mailing list to be unmoderated?

When a mailing list is moderated, messages which are sent to the list must be approved by the list administrator or (optional) additional moderators before they are actually sent on to the list's subscribers. Disabling moderation will allow anyone to send a message to your mailing list and it's subscribers.

You can choose to moderate messages from people who are subscribed to your mailing list, and/or moderate messages from people who are not subscribed to your mailing list. You may want to choose to moderate non-subscribers, instead of disabling moderation all together.

To disable moderation for your mailing list, do the following:

GO to your mailing lists list admin page
Click on "Privacy Options..." and then click "Sender Filters"
If you do not want your list's subscribers to be moderated, set "By default, should new list member postings be moderated?" to "no" - there is no need to change the "Action to take when a moderated member posts to the list" option.
If you do not want non-subscribers who send messages to your list to be moderated, set "Action to take for postings from non-members for which no explicit action is defined." to "Accept"
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page
IF you chose to not moderate list subscribers above:
- Click "Membership management" (in the main navigation area"
- Under the "Additional Member Tasks" section, the "Set everyone's moderation bit, including those members not currently visible" option should be set to "Off" - This will cause the current subscribers to your list to have their moderated option unset.
- Click the "Set" button at the bottom of the page
- Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page

*How can I allow anyone to post to my mailing list?

To allow open postings, please follow the instructions for configuring a mailing list to be unmoderated. You can elect to allow postings from list subscribers, allow postings from non-subscribers, or to allow postings from both.

*How can I keep anyone from posting to my mailing list, without requiring me to disapprove each posting?

Note that essentially you are configuring your mailing list to be moderated, and rejecting messages from moderated senders instead of holding them for your approval.

GO to your mailing lists list admin page
Click on "Privacy Options..." and then click "Sender Filters"
If you would like to disallow posting from your list's subscribers, set "By default, should new list member postings be moderated?" to "yes", and make sure the "Action to take when a moderated member posts to the list" option is set to "Reject"
If you would like to disallow posting from non-subscribers, set "Action to take for postings from non-members for which no explicit action is defined." to "Reject"
Optionally, enter text in the field labeled "Text to include in any rejection notice to be sent to moderated members who post to this list" - this text will be included in the "you are not allowed to post to this list" notice sent to any posters you have disallowed. You may want to enter something here like "This list is for the dissemination of information about the fictitious DU copper club, if you have questions about the club, please email du-copper-club@du.edu."
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page
If you chose to disallow posting from your list's subscribers:

Click "Membership management" (in the main navigation area)
Under the "Additional Member Tasks" section, the "Set everyone's moderation bit, including those members not currently visible" option should be set to "On" - This will cause the current subscribers to your list to be moderated.
Click the "Set" button at the bottom of the page
Still at the "Membership management" page, find the email address for list manager(s), and uncheck the moderation ("mod") check box. This will allow manager(s) to post to their own mailing list!
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page

*How can I allow anyone to subscribe to my mailing list, without requiring my approval for each subscription?

If your mailing list should allow open subscriptions, such as event announcement or public lists:

Go to your list's list admin page
Click on "Privacy Options..."
Under "What steps are required for subscription?" select "Confirm"

When people attempt to subscribe themselves to your mailing list, they will be required to confirm their email address is valid, but you (as list manager) will not have to approve their subscription.

*How can I disallow subscriptions to my mailing list?

IF your mailing list should not allow people to subscribe, such as departmental or club lists:

GO to your list's list admin page
Click on "Privacy Options..."
Under "What steps are required for subscription?" select "Confirm and approve"

When people attempt to subscribe themselves to your mailing list, they will first be required to confirm their email address is valid, and you (as list manager) will also be required to approve their subscription. At this time it is not possible to deny subscriptions automatically.

How can I have multiple managers and/or moderators for my mailing list?

You may also want to read about list administrator vs. list moderator rolls.

Anyone who knows your list administration or list moderation password may administer or moderate your mailing list, however you should configure your mailing list with the email addresses of any additional list administrators or moderators so they will receive any notices about held requests, new subscriptions, Etc.

Go to your list's list admin page.
IF you are adding additional list administrators (having full control to change the configuration of your mailing list), add their email address to the "list administrator email addresses" field. Make sure that each email address is on a line by itself, and that you do not delete your own email address from the field unless you will no longer be administrator for this mailing list.
IF you have already configured one list moderator but would like to add additional list moderators (having the ability to approve or disapprove pending requests for your mailing list), add their email address to the "list moderator email addresses" field. Make sure that each email address is on a line by itself.
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page.

*I will no longer be manager of my mailing list - how do I configure the list to have a new manager?

The new list administrator should be familiar with the list manager duties at http://listserv.du.edu/manager-duties.html.
Configure your mailing list for the new manager by:

GO to your list's list admin page
In the field "The list administrator email addresses. Multiple administrator addresses, each on separate line is okay" enter the email address of the new list manager. IF the mailing list has multiple list managers, replace your email address with the address of the list manager who is replacing you.
Click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page.
Click "Membership management..." (in the main navigation area).
Locate the email address of the new manager, and uncheck the "mod" checkbox, then click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the page.

How can I subscribe people to my mailing list?

It's generally a good idea to allow people to subscribe themselves (opt in) to mailing lists, however if you need to subscribe a list of people to your mailing list:

Go to the list admin page of your mailing list, and click on "Membership management."
On the Membership management page, click on "Mass Subscription."
you can elect to either subscribe or invite someone to your mailing list (the only difference being the wording of the confirmation email sent to the potential subscriber).
It's generally a good idea to elect to send the welcome message to new subscribees - this lets them know that they have been subscribe to the mailing list, and what the purpose of the mailing list is.
Enter email addresses (one address per line) into the text box, or you can upload a text file containing a list of email addresses. Email addresses can be any of the following form:
```
username@du.edu

Joe Smith <jsmith@domain.com>

jdoe@domain2.com (Jayne Doe)
```
If you include full names with the email addresses, they will be stored along with the email address.
- Important Note - When uploading a file of email addresses to subscribe, please make sure that the file is a text file, not a Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel document. Text files can be created using notepad, or when selecting the "text document" format from the Save As menu of Word Pad, or the "Plain Text" format from the Save As menu of Microsoft Word. IF exporting a list of email addresses from Microsoft Excel, please paste the column containing the email addresses into a text file, or directly into the text box of the list management interface.
If you have elected to send a welcome message to new subscribees, you can enter an additional message to be included in that message (such as why you are subscribing them to this list).

How can I unsubscribe people from my mailing list?

Go to the list admin page of your mailing list,
Click on "Membership management"
You a presented with a list of current subscribers to your mailing list - you can use the "unsub" check box to unsubscribe users. To get more information about what the other check boxes on this page mean, click on "Click here to include the legend for this table." Note that unsubscribing people from your mailing list via this method will send them an email notifying that they have been unsubscribed from your mailing list; if you do not want these notifications to be emailed, see below.

For an an alternative way to unsubscribe people from your mailing list, from the "membership management" page, you may click on "Mass Removal" to type in or upload a file containing a list of email addresses to unsubscribe. Using the mass removal interface you can elect to suppress sending a notice to people who you are unsubscribing, although we do not recommend suppressing this message, as it's nice to let people know that you are unsubscribing them.

NOTE: By clicking on a subscriber's email address from the "membership management" page, you can change options such as their password or the email address which is subscribed to your mailing list. It is also possible to set these options globally, meaning that they take affect for all du.edu mailing lists which the email address is subscribed to - we highly discourage changing a subscriber's option globally, as this has ramifications outside of the mailing list which you manage!

*My list's membership list shows an alphabetic index instead of showing all of the members on one page - how can I change this?

If a mailing list has more than 30 subscribers, the membership list provides an alphabetic index to show members who's email address starts with a given letter. IF you would prefer all of your subscribers to appear on a single page, and your list has fewer than 100 subscribers, call 303-871-3450 or email info-mlm@du.edu.

How can I keep HTML email messages and attachments from being sent to my mailing list?

From the list admin page of your list, click "content filtering"
Set "Should Mailman filter the content of list traffic according to the settings below?" to "yes"
Set "Should Mailman convert text/html parts to plain text?" to yes

*Subscribers are complaining about receiving monthly password reminders for my mailing list - how do I turn this off?

Go to your list's list admin page and set the "Send monthly password reminders" option to no.

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