Page 1 of 1

Newbie questions about Mailman

Posted: Sun May 24, 2020 5:26 pm
by Ctein
Dear folks,

I am completely new to the world of list servers. I've been sending out a monthly newsletter for years to subscribers manually, just BCCing an email to an address list. Now I have a chance to do it properly... and, following the Mailing Lists instruction page, I almost have it figured out. The key word being almost. Hence, some newbie questions:

1) When I'm adding Mass Subscriptions, is there a way to format the data so that the additions to the membership list include BOTH the member's address and the member's name? I can't figure out how to do that — the parsing engine seems to want a list of pure email addresses, one to a line.

2) Is there a better way to prevent anyone but me from posting to the list than simply having Moderation On? I'm the only one with moderator privileges, but it seems to me there ought to be a toggle somewhere to keep anyone else from even being able to try to post. But, so many toggles!

3) When I send out a new newsletter via the list, will it automatically hide all the recipient's addresses from each recipient, or is that something I have to toggle on? If so, where is the toggle?

4) And, finally, the most basic of newbie questions -- once I've created the list, how do *I* post to it to send out my newsletter???

Thank you in advance for all your patience and handholding. I really appreciate it!

- pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. Dragon Dictate in training! ]
======================================
-- Ctein's Online Gallery. http://ctein.com 
-- Digital Restorations. http://photo-repair.com 
======================================

Re: Newbie questions about Mailman

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2020 9:50 am
by k6rfm
Hi Ctein!

I haven't run a list using this software, but I've been thinking of using it instead of running my own mail server for a while.

For uploading a file with mass subscriptions, it uses the normal RFC822 address format, with the email address in angle brackets and the real name preceding:

Code: Select all

Joe Doakes <joe@dokes.com>
Sherry Addams <s.addams@mail.org>
I don't know of any way to restrict who can send to the list other than making it moderated.

The "To: " field in the messages that go out will just say "To: listname@lists.sonic.net", the list members won't see each other's addresses, at least by default, and I don't think there's an option to do otherwise.

Finally, you just send the mail to "listname@lists.sonic.net"; then (if it's moderated) log on to the admin interface and select "Tend to pending moderator requests" to approve it.