Greetings from Texas, where I've developed a software solution to keep your online group connected. Because it runs in the cloud, you just need your email reader and web browser. Our service starts at $100 per year, and we have a 30 day free trial (no credit card required).

My first attempt at hosting an online discussion group was a complete failure …

That was back in 1992, and I was running a BBS (Bulletin Board System) focused on a programming language called SQL. Part of the problem was that I did not know what I was doing, and part of the problem was that I did not have the right tools.

When the Internet came around a few years later, I made it my mission to build the right tools, and help group leaders with the technical problems, so they could take maximum advantage of our online world. So if you are comfortable hosting parties in the real world, I will be happy to keep the virtual world running smoothly for you and your group.

The Drawback That Is Really An Advantage

There Are No HTML Emails On My System

That's right, my system converts all HTML emails into plain text, before it sends them out. Plain text email is personal, which is perfect when you are talking to friends and colleagues.

No HTML eliminates the big red fonts, the cloud backgrounds, and embedded company logos. Most people just talk with regular words when they converse with friends. It's only the marketing guys that like to grab your attention with outlandish styles in their emails.

No HTML Standard For Emails

The first problem that converting HTML to plain text solves is formatting. That's because there is no standard for HTML email, like there is for web browsers. Each email reader, and each online ISP (Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail) has a different version of HTML. And when you compose your fancy HTML message on one system, and send it to another system, it does not always look like the author intended. In fact, the message can be completely mangled and unreadable. And since your mailing list is going to have lots of people, on lots of different computers, with lots of different email readers, on lots of different ISP's, receiving HTML messages is a frustrating experience for everybody.

Never, Ever A Virus In Plain Text Emails

The second problem that plain text emails solves is you can never have a virus, worm, trojan horse or malware of any type. There have been viruses in HTML email, and of course just about any attachment you can name, including MS Word files (the Macros), PDF's, EXE files, MP3's, etc.

I've written a lot of complex code to convert and format incoming email

To make sure that the emails your group receives are easy to read, and safe. And if you do need to send a picture, a Word document, a spreadsheet, or a PDF, you can send it as an attachment.

I do have one exception for HTML Email

Fancy Newsletters That You Receive

I know that on occasion you get a very pretty email newsletter that you would like to share with your group. Maybe from your national organization, or a sister group. It's got several columns of text, pictures, graphs, the whole nine yards.

And my solution is to Forward them to your list. My system will keep that fancy HTML on our server, and send everybody a plain text email with a clickable link. So people can click on the link and see the contents in it's original format. In addition, the plain text version will be included, for people that want just the facts.

What About Attachments?

I have 3 options for handling attachments

By default, your list will not allow attachments. So out of the box, your mailing list can never infect your members with any type of malware, because we are sending plain text email, and never an attachment.

If you would like your group to be able to send attachments, you simply turn on that option. Now any member can an attachment with their emails, just like they send an attachment to anybody else.

Those attachments are run through two different virus scanners, to insure that no malware exists. And then delivered to all of your members.

In many cases, an even better option is to send attachments as links. Your members send the attachments the same way, but our system keeps the attachment on our server, and inserts a clickable link in the email.

If your member wants that attachment, they just click the link to download it to their computer.

This has a couple of advantages. First of all, it gets by any spam filters or size restrictions at your member's ISP, and means that all of your members get the email. Second, you did not use up the bandwidth or waste the time of those members that did not want that particular attachment.

mail-list^® clients say:

Getting Members On Your List

Closed Membership Groups

If you have a list of all of your member's email address, then you can just load them onto our system. In this situation, I do not require any confirmation process. You simply copy and paste them into our web page, or send in a command via email. Our User Guide will give you the explicit instructions you need.

And you have a choice of whether you want your members to get your Welcome message or not. In most cases, people just load the list, and then send out a brief message telling everybody that the mailing list is now open.

Open Membership Groups

If you want strangers to find and join your group, then you will want to approve each person. They might start the process by signing up on your web page, or sending a blank email to yourlistname-on@mail-list.com.

This triggers a couple of actions. First of all, they get back via email your Acknowledgement Message. You will have customized this to contain your group's mission and your rules and guidelines.

Second, you as the list moderator, will get an email asking you to reply to approve this new membership. If and when you do, the new person will be on your mailing list.

Troublemaker on your list?

Are you worried about somebody disrupting your list with unprofessional behavior?

Most lists run unmoderated, meaning that any subscriber can post a message, and it immediately goes out to your list.

While you can put your entire list into a moderation mode, if it's just one or two people that have proven untrustworthy in the past, then you can just put those people on an exception list.

That way everybody else's messages goes immediately to your list, while the troublemaker's messages come to you for approval. You can then review their message, and simply reply to approve it.

Or you can reject it back to them with your reasons for the rejection. Or you could even send it to the list, with your comments added for everybody to see. You can not edit their message though.

If you are concerned about new people to your list causing problems, or maybe being spammers, then you can choose the option to have all new subscribers automatically to into a moderation mode. The system will then send their first message to you for approval.

If you approve it, the system will then remove their moderation status, and they will automatically become a full fledged member of your list.

Mailing Lists, The Original Social Media

What can a mailing list do for you?

• Exchange information, ideas, news. For example, the Leadnet listserv …
• Interact with like minded people. This means that PicBookArts …
• Provide an archive of knowledge for both current and future members. This allows CNS-Listserv …
• Conduct virtual meetings. To cite just one, Ashcroft Board of Directors …

This Is Not Your Dad's Listserv

It's both good and bad that so many people have been on a mailing list before. It's good because they know how simple and effective they can be. It's bad because they remember all the little glitches that happened. All the glitches that I have eliminated in my system :-)

It's not rocket science to create a mailing list system, and the Internet has dozens and scores of different systems in use these days. And many of them were written back in the 1980's and have never been upgraded. So I do get a bit touchy if people assume those glitches are going to keep on happening.

When you search Twitter for what they are saying about Listservs, it's easy to find people grumbling. With only 140 characters allowed in a Tweet, people tell it like it is.

And here is how we have engineered those problems away.

Some Unique Features That I've Cooked Up

Signal To Noise Ratio, Automatically Reducing The Noise

While your members love great information (Signal), one thing I've learned (mainly by monitoring the comments people leave when they unsubscribe from a list) is people hate all the extraneous crap (Noise) that can fill up their inbox too. I think that is because email is so personal, and people don't like being interrupted with extra emails, nor with extra garbage in your emails.

My system eliminates all the excess garbage coming in with your subscriber's emails, like ads, disclaimers, out of office replies, VCF signatures, ICS calendars, encryption keys, Winmail.Dat files and long top post replies.

Top posting is when people reply to an email, and just leave the original message below their reply. Old timers like myself hate it. We think people should intersperse their reply, immediately after the point they are answering. However, Outlook and even Gmail force people to top post, so I've had to write some programs that recognize a top post reply, and trim things down to size. Typically I leave the first 20 lines of the reply intact, but you can adjust that number to anything you want. I have one list that only leaves the first 5 lines on :-)

Monitor delivery of your emails into the inbox at the large ISP's in real time.

Delivery into the Inbox is a continuing weakness with email. With all the spam being sent, your subscriber's ISPs are sometimes blocking good email too. So I've built a system that monitors each email sent to your list, and tells you whether it made it into the Inbox at the major ISP's.

It's a real time system and you can look at your dedicated web page any time you want. Or if you want to see how all the lists are doing overall, please visit Inbox Monitor System

1 Question Survey

Sometimes you need to know what people are thinking about. And while there are free services on the Internet that let you run surveys, simple is better. And most people don't want to answer long drawn out surveys anyway.

So use my "1 Question" survey from any message to your list. Subscribers click on a link and can vote thumbs up, thumbs down, and optionally fill in their comments. It's anonymous, and you can see our User Guide when you are ready to use this feature.

mail-list^® clients say:

What can a Mail-List Group do for you?

• Overcome mobility, isolation and physical handicaps. As an illustration, Epilepsytalk …
• Provide virtual mentoring. This allows DeskDrawer …
• Create a sense of community. This means that, Kiawah Island home owners …
• Get answers to difficult questions. For instance, The Practical Farmers of Iowa …

Coming Attractions …

One of the new options I'm working on, is to allow members to rate each message that is sent out. To give somebody from 1 star to 5 stars, along with an optional anonymous comment.

This will allow people to get a 4 or 5 star rating from their fellow members. So you can recognize the valuable contributors to your list, by displaying those stars on every post they make.

Web forums typically associate a rating level with everybody, but usually just on the number of messages posted, not the quality. This feature would allow quality to be included, as judged by their peers.