Here is what the Create Mailing List page looks like. The annotation numbers point to the notes below. Because this page has so many options, we have split the graphic into two parts.
(1) Name
(required) Defines the name of the mailing list. This must be a single word, and should be in lower case letters. This name is the
official Mailing List Name - it is what both administrators and users will see. It also defines the email address for list mail. For example, if the name is jazz-discuss and the Site's
host name is list.acme.com, the mailing list's email address will be jazz-discuss@list.acme.com.
Be sure to choose the name of the mailing list carefully. Once the mailing list is created with this name, it cannot be easily changed.
(2) Topic
(required) Defines the Topic under which this Mailing list will be categorized. When users go the Lyris Web Interface for your Site, they will need to choose the
Topic you select here in order to get to this mailing list.
(3) Description
(required) A very short description of the mailing list. This description will be visible to users. Also, when electronic mail goes out from the group, this
description will be in the email message. For example, if the Description is Jazz Discussion, the Reply-To: field for mailing list email will be:
Reply-To: "Jazz
Discussion" <jazz-discuss@list.acme.com
(4) URL Logo
(optional) The URL to a web-ready graphic to be displayed in the Lyris Web Interface for this Mailing List. Since the Lyris Web Interface uses white as a
background color for all the web pages, it is a good idea to make your graphic look good on a white background. This URL can be a local path (off of your Web Server's document root), such as
/graphics/jazzdisc.gif or a full URL, as in http://www.company.com/graphics/jazzdisc.gif. If you specify a full URL, the graphic does not need to reside on the same Web server as
the Lyris Web Interface. This is convenient, because it means that the user can update the logo graphic without having access to the hard drive on the machine running Lyris.
The Mailing List Logo is displayed at Top of every page of the Lyris Web Interface when the user is in this Mailing List's Web Interface section. If no Mailing List Logo is defined (it is optional), the Mailing List Description text is displayed instead.
(5) Long Description
(optional) Reference to a document which describes this mailing list.
(6) Comments
(optional) Reference to a document with comments about this mailing list.
(7) Hello
(optional) Reference to a document which will be sent via email to new members of this mailing list at the time that they join. Leave Blank if no
document should be sent.
(8) Goodbye
(optional) Reference to a document which will be sent via email to members of this mailing list at the time that they leave the mailing list.
Leave Blank if no document should be sent.
(9) Language #1
(optional) The primary language used in messages on this mailing list.
(10) Language #2
(optional) The secondary language used in messages on this mailing list. Can be the same choice as the primary language.
(11) Admin
(optional) Reference to a person who is the administrative contact for this mailing list. Choosing a person as admin of a mailing list does not give the
person any security privileges, it is only for informational purposes.
(12) Sponsor
(optional) Reference to a document describing the organization sponsoring this mailing list.
(13) URL List
(optional) A World-Wide-Web URL to a web site for this mailing list. For example, if a web site called Jazz discussion Home page exists, you might enter the URL:
http://www.jazz-discuss.com/. This URL will be linked off the Mailing List Logo (or Description, if there is no logo) on the Lyris Web Interface.
(14) Keywords
(optional) Words which describe this mailing list. If several words are specified, separate each one with a comma.
(15) Security
(optional) Defines what level of security this mailing list has as regards new members joining this mailing list. The possible choices are:
1) open - anyone can join (no approval needed)
2) private - administrator must approve new members
3) password - new members need to know the
password to join
4) closed - only an administrator can add new members
An Open mailing list means that anyone who finds this mailing list can request to join (either by email or using the Lyris Web Interface) and they will be immediately and automatically approved. After joining, they will have full member status.
A Private mailing list means that anyone who finds this mailing list can request to join (either by email or using the Lyris Web Interface) but they will not be automatically approved. A List Administrator will have to approve their request to join before the person becomes a member. List Administrators who have their settings defined to receive Admin Mail will receive an email notice when a person requests to join a Private mailing list.
A Password protected mailing list means that anyone who finds this mailing list can request to join (either by email or using the Lyris Web Interface) , and will be automatically approved
only if they know the password. If they do not know the password, they will be automatically rejected. The password is defined in a field further down this page. For subscription requests which
arrive via email, the password is entered at the end of the subscription request, as in:
subscribe jazz-discuss open-sesame
A Closed mailing list is one in which non-members are not able to apply for membership. If a request for membership arrives by email, it will be automatically denied. On the Lyris Web Interface, the Join button will not be a choice on the Enter Mailing List page. New members to a Closed mailing list must be added by the List Administrator.
Note: you can change the Security status of a mailing list at any time. For instance, you can start out as an Open mailing list (so that anyone can join), and then become a Private mailing list (so that new members must be approved by a List Administrator).
(16) Visitors
(optional) Defines whether to allow Visitors on your mailing list. Allowing Visitors means that the Lyris Web Interface will allow non-members to Read and Search
the past discussions on your mailing list. They will also be able to Get Info about your mailing list. A Visitor cannot contribute to a mailing list, and cannot receive mailing list contributions
via email.
Allowing Visitors is often a good way for prospective member to get a taste of what a mailing list is about. They will be able to read past postings to see if the mailing list interests them. If it does, they can apply for membership.
Allowing Visitors is also useful for specialized mailing lists, where the information is not confidential, but you do not want just anyone joining. For example, a mailing list discussing Internal Telecommunications standards would want outsiders to be able to read the discussion, but may want the mailing list to be Private, so that only members of the standards committee can belong to the group.
(17) Allow Info
(optional) Defines whether non-members should be able to view general information about this mailing list, such as who the administrator is, what the description
is, etc.
(1) Admin Send
(optional) When set to yes, only List Administrators are allowed to contribute messages to the mailing list. Any member who attempts to contribute a message will
have their contribution automatically rejected. Admin Send is useful for announcement mailing lists, so that a select group is allowed to send announcements, but where members of the mailing list
should not be able to contribute to the mailing list.
(2) Moderated
(optional) Defines whether message contributions made by mailing list members will be automatically approved, or whether the message needs to be approved by a list
administrator.
The options are:
1) not moderated
2) all messages must be approved
3) new members need to have a number of messages approved
In the first choice, not moderated means that message contributions from mailing list members will be automatically approved, and be automatically distributed to the mailing list.
In the second choice, all messages means that message contributions from mailing list members will be held for approval by a list administrator before being distributed to the mailing list.
In the third choice, number of messages means that new members must have their first few message contributions approved. Thereafter, they will be able to contribute messages without needing approval. The number of approvals new members need is set by the next field, Approve #. If the Moderated setting is changed to number of messages after the list is created and people have joined, only the members who join after the change will be subjected to number of messages moderating. The pre-existing members will be considered as having passed their initial approval requirements. If the Moderated setting is changed from number of messages to another setting, the new setting will apply, and members who still had a number of messages to be approved will instead be held to the new Moderated setting.
Message contributions from List Administrators are never held for moderated approval, they are always approved. Since the List Administrator is the person who approves moderated messages, it would not make sense if the List Administrator had to approve their own message contributions.
List Administrators who have their settings defined to receive Admin Mail will receive an email notice when a message has been contributed and needs approval. The List Administrator will then go to the Lyris Web Interface and approve or reject the message contributions. Or, if the mailing list is set to automatically Release moderated messages, the List Administrator does not need to do anything for moderated messages to be approved: the messages will be automatically approved after the Release period has passed.
(3) Approve #
(optional) If the Moderated setting is for number of messages, defines the number of message contributions that new members need to have approved
before they can contribute without being held for approval. If the Moderated setting is not set for number of messages, this field has no effect.
(4) Release
(optional) If the Moderated setting is set to all messages or number of messages, defines the amount of time that should elapse before messages held for approval are
automatically approved.
For example, if the Release period is set to 1 day, messages held and waiting for approval will be automatically approved at midnight, the day of their contribution. The Release feature allows the List Administrator to do nothing in the normal course of running their mailing lists. The List Administrator will receive a copy of the message to be approved via email, and if the message is acceptable, the List Administrator does nothing, and the message is approved that night. On the other hand, if the message is not acceptable, the List Administrator has until midnight to reject the message.
If the List Administrator does not wish to use a Release period, they can set it to approval is always needed.
(5) Global
(optional) Defines whether the existence of this list should known to the outside world. Setting Global to Yes means that this Lyris Server will coordinate with
other Lyris Servers to exchange information about this mailing list. Setting Global to Yes makes it easier for people to find your mailing list.
(6) List Subject
(optional) Defines whether the name of this mailing list should be prepended to the Subject line of mailing list mail. This helps members of the mailing list
identify email as coming from your mailing list, and may help their email program filter and organize email better.
For example, if the original subject is:
Subject: new album from Betsy Smith
the new subject is:
Subject: [jazz-discuss] new album from Betsy Smith
(7) Password
(optional) If the list Security is set to Password, defines the password required for new members to join the mailing list.
(8) Confirm
(optional) Defines whether new members receive a confirmation request when joining the mailing list. The confirmation request will be an email message telling the
person that they have requested to join this mailing list, and the person will have to respond to the confirmation message in order to become a full member. The new member's status will be set to
confirm until the confirmation response is received, and the person will not receive mail from the mailing list until the confirmation is received.
Confirmation serves several purposes. It is quite common for people to mistype their email address when subscribing to a mailing list using the Lyris Web Interface. Without confirmation, the Lyris Server would waste effort trying to send mail to this incorrect address.
Another need for confirmation is to counter a common form of Electronic Terrorism. The Terrorist will sign someone they wish to harm to many mailing lists (perhaps several hundred), and that person will then be flooded with unwanted electronic mail, such that they will be unable to accomplish any work with that email address. If that person's email server is not perfectly configured, the act may crash the person's email server, use vast qualities of Internet bandwidth, or prohibit other people sharing the email server from receiving their email.
The Confirmation feature blocks this form of Electronic Terrorism. If the Terrorist subscribes someone to 100 Lyris mailing lists (all with Confirm set to Yes), the person will receive 100 confirmation messages, but no more mail after that. If the person does not respond to the subscription confirmation messages (as they should not), their memberships will not be activated.
We highly recommend that all Open mailing lists use the Confirm feature, as this form of Electronic Terrorism is quite common, and is very bothersome to the victim.
(9) Daily Message Limit
(optional) Defines the total number of messages which can be distributed to the mailing list in one day.
This features is generally used as a last resort to prevent mail loops from going out of control. A mail loop occurs mail sent to the mailing list members encounters a badly configured email server, and the email server sends a message back to the mailing list.
Lyris has many features to prevent mail loops from happening, so the Daily Message Limit will, in practice, never become an issue. However, if, for some reason, a message loop were to occur, the Daily Message Limit would shut off the mail loop and give an Administrator
(10) Message Size Limit
(optional) Defines the maximum size of messages which may be contributed to the mailing lists. Any contributed message over this size will be
automatically rejected. This setting is useful sometimes mailing list members will try to send a large attachment to a mailing list (such as a sound file), and most mailing list members do not want
to receive this size of a file from the mailing list. So, this feature will block excessively large messages from being sent.
(11) Reply To:
(optional) If defined, replaces the Reply-To: which the Lyris Server normally places in outgoing mailing list mail, and replaces it with the contents of this
field. Normally, the Reply-To: is the email address of the mailing list, so that recipients of mail from a mailing list can reply back to the mailing list.
It might be useful for an announcement to change this. For example, an announcement of a meeting might go out to the mailing list, but you might want replies to the announcement to be directed at the person scheduling the meeting, so that the person will be notified if people can or cannot come to the meeting. In such a case, the person's email address would be the Reply-To:.
Note: the Reply-To: text is generally an email address, as in:
bob@acme.com
or a combination description/email, as in:
"Meeting Administrator"
<bob@acme.com>
If you enter text in the Reply-To: field which is not valid, some mail systems may refuse email messages which contain this text, and you will cause mail problems.
(12) SMTP From:
(optional) If defined, replaces the From: in email messages going out to the mailing list. Normally, the From: is the email address and name of the author of
the message. However, in some cases you may want to obscure the author of the message, and replace it with something else. For instance, if several people in the sales department of your
organization can contribute announcements, you may want the From: to say sales@your-company
rather than the email address of the actual author. This helps protect the identity
of the true message author.
(13) From:
(optional) If defined, replaces the mail transaction MAIL FROM:<> in outgoing mailing list mail. This option is provided for advanced users. Normally, the mail
transaction MAIL FROM:<> is the error handler of the Lyris Server, and error mail is defined by Internet standards as going to this address. If you change this setting, Lyris will no longer receive
error mail, and thus will no longer be able to automatically process bounces, error messages, bad deliveries, etc.
(14) Preserve X-Tags
(optional) The message header of each email message contains various header lines, used for different purposes. Internet Standards defined
X-
headers as being user defined, and different email programs use them for different purposes. Lyris will remove these headers from mail bound for the mailing list, as they
can sometimes cause problems.
(15) Message header
(optional) If specified, adds this text to the top of every mailing list message.
(16) Message footer
(optional) If specified, appends this text to the end of every mailing list message.
(17) SMTP headers
(optional) If specified, appends this text to the end of the message header of every mailing list message. A message header text has the form of Key: Value.
If you want to add text to the header which is not a standard email header, you should prefix your key name with X- so that it does not interfere with normal operation of electronic mail. For
example:
X-Legal: Contents Copyright 1997 Walter Shelby Group Ltd.