Mailman quick-reference card

How to accomplish some common tasks (in no particular order) - a resource for ALIAnet list owners...

How to add subscribers to an e-list

The easiest way to add subscribers to an e-list is via the Mailman web administration interface. Select your list, authenticate using your e-list list owner password, and go to the Membership management page.

At the bottom of the page, there is a text entry box titled mass subscribe members - a fairly loose term, since you can subscribe one member or a thousand, using the same entry box.

Enter the e-mail address[es] of those who you want to add to the e-list here: one per line. You can copy and paste addresses from a text file into the box, too - so long as the end-result is one e-mail address per line. You can add subscriber names by placing the name at the front, and placing their address in < and > brackets, with no other punctuation, such as the example below:

Jo Bloggs <jo.bloggs@com.com.au>

Choose whether you want to send a welcome message to the subscriber[s] or not - using the checkbox options just above the text entry box

Click Submit your changes. You will be returned to a copy of the membership management page - with a statement about the success or otherwise of your operation.

Note: you must have the explicit permission of each person that you are adding to the list before you do so.

How to remove subscribers from an e-list

There are a couple of ways to remove a subscriber from an e-list. The first method uses the membership management page at your list's web administration interface. You'll notice that subscriber addresses are listed in chunks of 30, sorted alphabetically. If you can't see the address that you need to unsubscribe in the chunk shown, look just under the table of addresses for a link to the relevant chunk of addresses.

Once you've located the address, all you need to do is check the tick box in the column immediately to the right of the address - titled unsub - so that it is unchecked, then head to the bottom of the page and click Submit your changes

An alternative method is to use the Mailman list subscriber interface. Select the appropriate list, and head to the bottom of the resulting information page.

Enter the e-mail address that needs removing in the text box next to the Edit options button, then click the button.

You'll arrive at a page titled '[listname] configuration for [subscriber]'. To remove the address, enter the list administration password next to the Unsubscribe button, then click it. A page will be returned to tell you that they have been unsubscribed.

What can I do about e-mail address error messages?

E-mail errors are relatively common - people forget to update their addresses, or mis-type them, and mail servers come and go. If you've never received an e-mail error message from your e-list, you've led a charmed life.

For the rest of us, it's still not that hard. Whilst it is up to subscribers to maintain their subscription, don't be afraid to dive in and tidy up!

If you consistently get an error message from a single address [and especially if the message is something like 'user not found' or 'host not found'], remove the address from your list.

If you get error messages saying 'operation timed out' or something similar, be a little more patient - but if you get a lot over time from a single address, remove it.

If you get indecipherable error messages, or can't find or remove an offending address, forward a copy of the message to mailman-owner@lists.alia.org.au.nospam (please remove '.nospam' from address), with a note asking for help. We're more than happy to solve, sort out and explain!

It is a worthwhile exercise to set up a mail filter to send any e-list administrative traffic to a special folder in your mail system - just to avoid confusion, and to track the amount of error messages arriving. If you feel there are proportionately too many, contact ALIAnet administrative staff.