Listserve Subscriber File Procedure?

[veillady]

Hi, Creating a newsletter for a group. Wanting to create a file with the emails and names to upload for subscriptions. I tried a plain excel file with two columns, names and emails. The system yeeted it back. Would it like a Comma delimited better? Only emails no names? Any suggestions?

[veillady]

I skipped the file for now and pasted in the emails in a list to load the data. I sent out a newsletter. Some people didn't get it. Are there any reporting functions that allow me to see who bounced? The Mailman GUN talks about logs. Can I access the logs for my listserv?

[joemuller]

Hi, Creating a newsletter for a group. Wanting to create a file with the emails and names to upload for subscriptions. I tried a plain excel file with two columns, names and emails. The system yeeted it back. Would it like a Comma delimited better? Only emails no names? Any suggestions?

If you copy/paste or upload a list of addresses, they need to be in the same one-line format as they do in an email -- here's what the official Mailman guide says:
---
3.44. How can I Mass Subscribe a list with real names?

The list for a mass subscribe can contain lines in any of the following formats:

jdoe@example.com
<jdoe@example.com>
John Doe <jdoe@example.com>
"John D. Doe" <jdoe@example.com>
jdoe@example.com (John Doe)

The last three all associate the real name "John Doe" with the subscription. The formats can be intermixed in one mass subscribe.

If the real name contains a '.' or other special character, it must be quoted as in "John D. Doe". Otherwise quoting the real name is optional.
---

I skipped the file for now and pasted in the emails in a list to load the data. I sent out a newsletter. Some people didn't get it. Are there any reporting functions that allow me to see who bounced? The Mailman GUN talks about logs. Can I access the logs for my listserv?

You'll want to turn on all of the options in the Bounce Processing page -- that should send you (the owner of the mailing list) a notification email any time a message to members of your mailing list gets bounced back. Usually an adjustable number of bounces to a given member can happen before their subscription is turned off. For more information on bounces and how to adjust to your needs, please look at the Mailman manual here.

-- Joe M

[veillady]

SO glad to hear from you Joe!
In my defense I HAVE been reading the MANY assorted help sources for mailman, but between the two versions and the assorted sites it's a bit difficult ; D Your link to the https://wiki.list.org/DOC/How%20can%20I ... al%20names looks like just what I needed for that issue, thank you, I will be trying it.

The second problem is not as simple maybe. I already have it set to notify me of addresses reaching the bounce threshold.I am including a screenshot of the bounce page showing the settings, but I 'think' I have it right and have received a few bounce notifications so that seems to be working. It's set to;
Yes
5.0
7
3
7
yes, yes, yes, yes

When I was setting the newsletter up I did a small test of 8 addresses. It seemed as if I added the addresses to the member list, and then sent an email to the listserv address and all the test addresses got it. So then I uploaded the 2300 addresses for the full list, sent the same email and hardly anyone got it? People got a subscribe message that many of them had trouble with. It's an older cohort and not very tech savvy, even though when I did another small test for subscribing it seemed pretty easy. I don't think we got the subscribe message with the first small group. and I thought I had it set to be seamless, without a subscribe step. It can't bounce if it doesn't send to begin with... Also when I look at the archive it doesn't show all the tests or the final mailing on Friday. Any additional advice much appreciated!

[joemuller]

Yes, those bounce settings look correct - please let me know if you're not getting notices - they should arrive daily.

Concerning the second part, you can make two changes - the first is when doing a Mass Subscription in the future make sure to change the option 'Send welcome messages to new subscribers?' to 'No'. The second thing you can do is under General Options, you should probably change the following:

Send monthly password reminders? No.
Send welcome message to newly subscribed members? No.

There will always be a small included section automatically added to the end of the email to indicate that it came from a mailing list and provides a link for folks to Unsubscribe if they so choose.


It looks like one or more messages were held for review - you can manage those under the 'Tend to pending moderator requests' page. You will usually be notified via email if a message is held for review/approval. You can also see all posts to the list under 'Go to list archives' link -- I see the last post was on September 18th from a sonic.net address, but let me know if there's a particular day you posted something to the group and I can review our logs.

-- Joe M

[veillady]

Ok, I seem to have finally overcome my user error with your kind help!

One last small issue. I am getting duplicates of all the administrative emails, bounces, subscriptions etc. The ones I am getting I want to get, so I feel confident the settings are correct, but It is a pita getting them all twice and I would love to figure out what I have done in the admin and mod settings to generate this. Any clues?

Much appreciated,
Stacy

[joemuller]

One last small issue. I am getting duplicates of all the administrative emails, bounces, subscriptions etc. The ones I am getting I want to get, so I feel confident the settings are correct, but It is a pita getting them all twice and I would love to figure out what I have done in the admin and mod settings to generate this. Any clues?

Hi Stacy! My apologies for not seeing your response sooner - I think there's two things that could be causing the duplicate administrator emails - the first is that your veillady@sonic.net address is forwarding copies of everything it receives another one of your mailboxes, sa****na@sonic.net (redacting full name here), and the other is that the same mailbox is listed as a moderator address, so anything that gets sent to both the administrator/owner and moderator lists. If you're just using one email as both the owner (can add/remove members and approve/reject postings), I recommend removing the sa****na@sonic.net email from the moderators list to simplify things.

Basically any addresses with administrator/owner can do everything a moderator can. (For larger mailing lists and/or ones with many discussions going on, you can have certain folks just have the 'moderator' role to help handle day-to-day tasks without giving them full control over the mailing list.)

-- Joe M