Thank you for using mail-list.com as your mailing list server. Our goal is to provide the best, most reliable, and easiest to use mail list server on the planet. If you have any suggestions or comments, please do not hesitate to email or call.
The list owner of this list is your_email@address.com. In addition, you may specify other email addresses that can control this list. Together these addresses are known as list moderators, and all the list moderator email addresses have the same privileges and capabilities.
This is a Discussion Group List, sometimes known as a Listserve. Any subscriber may post a message that will be sent to all subscribers.
This list may be set up so that messages must be approved by the list moderators before being broadcast. In addition, this list may be set up so that each subscriber must be approved by the list moderators before being added to the list.
Table of Contents:
Public Addresses:
Subscriber On
Subscriber Off
Subscriber Switch
Subscriber Vacation
Posting Messages
Delivering Messages
Secret Addresses:
List Administration
Basic Commands
Changing Content or Features of Your Mailing List
Public addresses are email addresses that you can freely give out, and encourage people to use. Public addresses will help people quickly subscribe, unsubscribe, post messages, switch themselves to/from the digest mode, or temporarily stop mail delivery via the vacation command.
An email sent to this address by a potential subscriber (joe@domain.com), starts the Subscription process:
When a subscriber want to Unsubscribe, they send an email to:
Any email sent here will remove the address that is sending the email, and return your Goodbye message.
A discussion group allows you to set up one or two delivery options, and then your subscribers can choose which delivery format they want. The delivery format can be each individual message as it is posted, or a digest of all messages sent that day.
The digest Switch address is:
An email sent from the subscriber to the yourlist-switch@mail-list.com address will switch the subscriber either -into- or -outof- digest mode.
This address allows your subscribers to temporarily suspend mail delivery from the list. It is useful since it does not force people to unsubscribe and re-subscribe when they need to control the delivery of their email.
The vacation address is:
yourlist-vacation@mail-list.com
An email sent from the subscriber to the yourlist-vacation@mail-list.com address will switch the subscriber either into or out of vacation mode.
When your subscriber is in vacation mode, they will not receive any messages from your list, although they can still post to your list.
Messages are posted to your list by sending them to:
People need to set up their email like this:
To: yourlist@mail-list.com From: joe@domain.com (their subscribed address goes here) Subject: Hello Everybody ! (whatever they want goes here)
Their email must come from the same exact email address as subscribed to the list. All postings are compared against the list of subscribers, and will be rejected if a matching email address is not found. For example: if someone is subscribed with their home email address, and tries to post from a work email address, it will be rejected.
Most Discussion Group lists approve each subscriber, but allow messages to immediately be broadcast to the list, without any intervention by the list moderator.
Secret addresses should only be known by the list owner and any additional moderators that they have designated. Security is difficult in email, and people could learn how to control your list with the secret addresses and corresponding passwords. So take appropriate precautions, and remember that you can change your password at any time by sending email or giving us a call at 1-713-527-9393.
yourlist-moderator@mail-list.com
The List Administration address allows you to manage the list of subscribers and request reports by sending in email messages to this address, with the proper commands placed in the body of the email.
When you send in your list administration commands, your email must be sent From one of these address(es):
List Administration requires a password placed in the Subject line, for your list it is:
open_sesame
Please copy and paste that password into your email to avoid typos.
In summary, your email headers should look like this:
To: yourlist-moderator@mail-list.com From: your_email@address.com Subject: open_sesame
You will place the commands in the body of the email. Put only one command per line.
You may put as many commands as you want into the body of the email. Each command will be executed separately.
The complete list of commands available is listed in a separate document called "Index of Discussion Group Commands".
Some commands require an email address to work upon. Some commands do not need an email address. The Joe and Sally addresses we use are examples only, and not part of the command.
--
Subscribe an address
subscribe joe@domain.com
This starts the subscription process. A confirmation message with a random number in the Subject line is sent back to joe@domain.com. When the subscriber returns the confirmation message, or clicks on the URL in the body of the message, their email address will be added to your list and they will receive the Welcome message.
This is called double opt-in, and it keeps pranksters and viruses from signing up other people to your list.
You can change the contents of the confirmation message, but not the Subject line.
Find this verbage on the web page at http://db.mail-list.com/list_search.html
Confirmation Message: (only used when allowing anyone to join automatically)
--
Unsubscribe an address
unsubscribe sally@domain.com
The goodbye message is sent to the subscriber and the address is removed from your list.
--
Check if a subscriber is on your list
checklist mike@domain.com
An email will be returned showing the status of that particular email address.
--
List all the subscribers
showlist
--
Show the number of subscribers on your list
showcount
--
In summary, if you were doing several commands in one email, it would
look like this:
To: yourlist-moderator@mail-list.com
From: your_email@address.com
Subject: open_sesame
subscribe joe@domain.com
unsubscribe sally@domain.com
checklist mike@domain.com
showlist
showcount
Changing Content or Features of Your Mailing List
You use your web browser to make changes to your Welcome message, Goodbye message, add or remove moderator email addresses, etc.
Visit http://db.mail-list.com/list_search.html at any time, and make changes to your mailing list. You will need to tell the system your list name and password.
List Name: yourlist
Password: open_sesame
After you have made the changes, our computer will send a confirmation email to the list moderators. This is to help insure that it's really You who requested the changes. After you confirm the request (by hitting "Reply" to the email), the listmaster (that's us) will migrate your changes into production for them to take effect. We will email you when that is done. We strive to provide 2 hour turnaround on changes during daylight hours (Texas Time) Monday through Friday.
This Owner's Manual provides all the basic commands needed to operate your list. In addition, there is an Advanced Owner's Manual and a Really Advanced Owner's Manual which describes optional commands and procedures.
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