[Mailman] Configuration of Mailman for announce only and group modes

[sergey]

This is how to configure a mailing list for announce only. Announce only means that only the list owner can post to the mailing list, and all subscribers will get the post from the list admin. There are several options for this type of setup, the basic steps are the same however:


1. Create a mailing list via cPanel control panel cPanel -> Mail -> Mailing Lists

2. Log into the list admin control panel using cPanel -> Mail -> Mailing Lists > Edit

3. Add administrators' e-mail accounts in General Options of a mailing list:
General Options -> (The list administrator email addresses. Multiple administrator addresses, each on separate line is okay). Usually just one address would go here, and this is the address of the admin who will be posting to the list. Make sure to subscribe this admin email address to the list seen below under "mass subscription" otherwise the list admin will not be able to post to the list.

4. The list should have the "terse phrase" option filled out for best results especially when dealing with multiple lists.

5. If you do not want send a welcome message to newly subscribed members set "Send welcome message to newly subscribed members?" to No This option is usually set to "no" for list admins who are importing email addresses from another list. Enabling yes is a good idea for opt-in lists. You can set this to yes after you import list members from the list admin or command line.

6. Should administrator get notices of subscribes and unsubscribes? - default is no, but should probably be set to yes.

7. Add members emails to List:
Membership Management -> Mass Subscription
Choosing the subscribe option instead of the invite option can still send notification to the user that they have been subscribed, even if the option "Send welcome messages to new subscribees?" has been check "no." See the step above for how to prevent this. If you prefer to upload a list of members, upload them in one email address, per line format. Don't forget to include the list admins email address so that the admin can post.

Optional configuration settings:
[General options]

A. Prefix for subject line of list postings - This prepends the subject line of the email that is sent to list members with what you have defined in this setting.

B. Hide the sender of a message, replacing it with the list address (Removes From, Sender and Reply-To fields) - The reply address can be masked with the list address, or you can use the admin address. Most lists use the list address for announce only mode. Group mode can be setup for either method. Tight communities will often use the real sender address so list members can contact each other directly. Looser knit community lists might prefer to hide the sender address for spam concerns by list members who might harvest list member addresses.

c. Where are replies to list messages directed? Poster is recommended for announce only mailing lists. Use the "List" option for certain group-style lists. The list mode allows all members on the list, to post to the list, and all list members would receive the posts from any member, who posts.

d. Send monthly password reminders? Probably should be disabled for most lists.

e. Maximum length in kilobytes (KB) of a message body. Defaults to 40, 40 is a good number for announce only, text based lists. image intensive lists especially group lists that send lots of attachments, should be set higher.

f. Discard held messages older than this number of days. 0 is the default but can waste space. Set this to something like 120 for customers who you configure the list for.

g. Configure Sender filters (Privacy options -> Sender filters)
and set the following options:

- By default, should new list member postings be moderated? (set to yes if you want to manually approve each member posting to the list.

- Action to take when a moderated member posts to the list (set to reject if they are not allowed to post to the list. A moderated member is a list member who has been set to be moderated by the list admin.

- Action to take for postings from non-members for which no explicit action is defined (set to reject or hold. Reject deletes the email as it arrives, hold is used because often times in group mode, list members reply to the list from an external or secondary email address that is not in the mailman system. If this is set to hold status, the list admin receives an email advising him to login and tell the list what to do with the queued message that arrived from this address, and what to do with subsequent replies from this address. Typically a list admin set fro group mode wild use "hold" then the admin would select the accept option when prompted if the email was sent from a legit list user, or reject if sent from someone who is not desired as a list member.

[jgold101]

This is something new to me so pardon me if I'm missing the obvious.

How do I code my webpage to add subscribers? Is there a script somewhere to automatically add opt-in members to my list?

Thanks
Jack

[Matt]

If I recall correctly there are links in the list admin area which can be used for the public signup pages. Yes, you can automatically add members as well using the list admin.

See Step 7 above.

[jgold101]

Thanks for your help!

[bdominick]

If you want to design your own forms on your own pages, one of the easiest ways is to use a PHP mail form script to send a formatted subscribe message to MailMan, which has great email-based management features. I've done this a couple times. Keeps your visitors from having to see the hideous MailMan interface.