What is a Mailman List?

Mailman is an electronic mailing list manager that offers an efficient way to disseminate information to large numbers of people and hold long-distance discussions among many people. Mailing lists are an easy way to reach a large audience quickly by automating the distribution of email to all those who subscribe to the mailing list. Mailing lists have become a critical component of scholarly collaboration. Many colleges and universities are also using them to conduct the day-to-day administration of their institution.

Why Establish a List?

The purpose of Mailman mailing lists at Pittsburg State University is to facilitate open communication and disseminate information. Mailing list services are available to current faculty, staff or student organizations. Lists are good for facilitating communication among faculty who share common interests, members of departments, members of student organizations, and members of various campus committees. (Participation in PSU lists is not limited to persons affiliated with PSU.) Another purpose for establishing a list is for information dissemination, such as periodic announcements and online newsletters. Such lists are called "one-way" lists. Subscribers receive posts from the owner but cannot send messages back to the list subscribers. The person responsible for managing a list is known as the list's "Primary Owner." If the Primary Owner leaves the University, they must find a new owner and identify this new person to the Listmaster. If no new list owner can be identified, the Listmaster reserves the right to delete the list. While we provide this service, neither OIS nor PSU can be held responsible for how it is used by others or for statements made on mailing lists.

What is the Cost?

There is no charge for Mailman mailing list services provided at PSU. The Office of Information Systems funds the costs of hardware, software, and staff support for this service. We will not host external lists for a fee. There are commercially operated FREE list hosting services that are readily available, including Topica, Yahoo Groups, and Coollist. There is a catch, however, in that the lists you run there are subject to advertising. If this is unacceptable, then a fee-based hosting service is an alternative. A good one is Lyris.

Definition of Terms

Primary Owner:
(Note: All references to "owner" or "list owner" in this and other PSU Mailman documents denote the Primary Owner unless otherwise specified.)

Each mailing list has one Primary Owner. This is the PSU faculty/staff person who requested the list's creation and who is ultimately responsible for the list. (For a registered campus/student organization, this must be the faculty adviser. For a Fraternity/Sorority, this must be the Greek Advisor.) The Primary Owner will remain on record as the responsible person until a Transfer of Ownership Form is completed or the list is deleted. The Primary Owner can add and delete members, change the list's setup options, and perform list-administration functions. In most cases the Primary Owner will also act as the Maintenance Owner, but may appoint someone else as the Maintenance Owner as in the case of a student organization where the Primary Owner is the faculty advisor but the Maintenance Owner is a student officer/member of the organization. The Primary Owner should always maintain a subscription to their list so they can monitor for inappropriate use and enforce policies.

Maintenance Owner:

A list has at least one Maintenance Owner, who may also be the Primary Owner. The Primary Owner may appoint a Maintenance Owner(s) but retains final responsibility for the operation of the list. The Maintenance Owner is responsible for the day-to-day workings of the list: solving subscription problems, handling mail-delivery error messages, and so forth. This owner receives email sent to the listname-owner and listname-admin addresses. This owner is also the Moderator for lists that have been set to require approval for posting messages. This owner can add and delete members, change the list's setup options, and perform list-administration functions.

Listmaster:

Listmaster refers to the OIS staff member administering the Mailman mailing list system. This person creates new lists, deletes unneeded lists, maintains the overall integrity of the system, and enforces the mailing list policies.

Listname-owner / Listname-admin:

These two terms are interchangeable in Mailman as both refer to the person called the Maintenance Owner. For example, email sent to listname-owner@pittstate.edu or listname-admin@pittstate.edu will be delivered to the Maintenance Owner(s) for the list.

Moderated List:

A moderated list is one that has been configured to require that every message posted to the list be approved by the moderator (usually the list owner) before it is distributed to the list members. A moderated list can be used to ensure that topics are kept relevant and appropriate but requires constant attention from the owner to keep discussions flowing smoothly.

Unmoderated List:

With an unmoderated list, the members are able to freely post messages to the list with no approval from the list owner. Posting to an unmoderated list can be limited to current list members or open to anyone. Most lists are unmoderated, as this allows for more open and varied discussions, no delays waiting for moderator approval, and requires much less work on the part of the list owner.

One-Way List:

One-way list refers to a list where only one person, or a small group of editors, can post messages to the list. This type of list is most often used for announcements or newsletters, where you do not want member's replies to be distributed to the entire subscriber base.

Public vs. Private Lists:

Anyone visiting the PSU Mailman web page will see a listing of all publicly listed mailing lists at PSU. From this page they can view information about a list, subscribe to the list, view list archives (if the list is archived), and view a roster of list subscribers. However, the list owner can set varying degrees of access to all of these items, including whether or not the list shows up on the Mailman page. A list should be configured as public if it is intended for a wide variety of subscribers discussing a common interest. A private list is better suited for a smaller, well-defined group such as members of a committee.

Who May Own a List?

To own a list, you must be a current PSU faculty or staff member. In addition, official student organizations may own lists (individual students may not). Student organizations must be registered with the Campus Activities Center and have a current faculty or staff member as the Primary Owner of their list. In order to effectively manage a list, you need reliable (daily) access to email and Internet services.

List Owner Responsibilities

The list owner is responsible for the smooth functioning of their list. Depending on the nature of the list, this can require as little as five minutes once per week or several hours per day. In any case a list owner must become familiar with Mailman, the electronic mailing list software in use at PSU. Specific list owner duties can range from adding and deleting subscribers to monitoring every message before it is distributed to the list. The responsibilities of the list owner include:

• responding to subscribers' requests for removal from the list
• assisting subscribers with subscribing or unsubscribing to the list
• correcting subscriptions that are made incorrectly or in error
• configuring or re-configuring their lists to change list attributes such as Maintenance Owners, open/closed list status, moderated/unmoderated status, etc
• creating and maintaining current and relevant list descriptions, welcome messages, and list specific instructions and policies
• responding to errors related to their list such as delivery and remove errors
• responding to requests made by the Listmaster
• staying informed about current mailing list policy
• keeping the discussion germane and reprimanding spammers swiftly
• notifying individuals who will be presubscribed to the list of the list's purpose and how to unsubscribe themselves

Listmaster Responsibilities

• enforces Mailman list hosting policies as defined on the Mailing List Policies page
• creates new lists for owners
• maintains a record of Primary Owners and records changes of list ownership when requested
• deletes unneeded lists upon request from list owners
• notifies list owners about changes to Mailman
• decides on disposition of orphaned lists (owner address no longer valid) by contacting the Primary Owner for correction or list deletion

The Listmaster will not answer questions from subscribers but will instead refer them to the appropriate list owner. If the owner needs help, then he or she should contact the Tech Coordinator or Tech Support Consultant for their area. If the Tech Coordinator or Tech Support Consultant is unable to resolve an issue, they will contact the Listmaster for further assistance.

Requesting a List

To request a list, complete the Mailman Mailing List Application Form (requires GUS access). Applicants with questions about the form should request assistance from the Tech Coordinator or Tech Support Consultant for their area.

Not all requests will be honored with a list. The Listmaster may ask for additional documentation regarding the granting of a list. The Listmaster may recommend other electronic conferencing technology that would better serve the purpose of the request. Other considerations that will determine the status of a list request include the relevance of the list to the education, research, or administration of the University and the capacity of available resources within OIS including how the size of the proposed list will affect University electronic mail systems.

In 2-3 days the applicant will receive notification via email that the requested list has been created, the list password, and a link to the administrative web interface for the list.

List Name

The name of a list should convey the purpose and/or group served by the list. The name can be 3-15 characters in length and can be made up of letters, numbers and dashes (-) but cannot contain spaces. List names that use inappropriate language or appear to represent a different group than the one applying for the list will not be allowed. All list names will have "-L" appended to the end to identify them as lists and prevent them from being confused with individual email addresses since the list name will also be the email address of the list. For example: to send a message to the list "listowners-L" you would address your email to "listowners-L@pittstate.edu"

Email Attachments

The distribution of large documents (PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, images, music, etc.) via a mailing list is highly discouraged. By default, Mailman lists restrict message size to 40K. While this size limit can be modified by the list owner, sending large files to numerous people at once can create problems. A message with a large attached file sent to a mailing list will be duplicated for each member of the list, which can place a heavy load on the PSU email system and network, affecting all PSU users. Some list members may not have sufficient free space in their email account to be able to receive a large message at all, thus generating error messages back to the list. Also consider that many list members will be receiving their mail at home, over a dial-up connection, and will not appreciate having to wait for large files to download. If you need to make large files available to your group, it is better to upload them to a web server and then simply distribute the link to the file via the mailing list.

Once Your List is Created

Subscribe Yourself to the List

List owners are not automatically subscribed to the lists they own. In order to participate in list discussions and monitor the topics and usage of your list, you will need to be a subscriber to the list. A link to the list subscription page is included in the initial email message you receive informing you the list has been created. This is the same page that others will need to visit to subscribe to your list. You may also send an email to "your-listname-request@pittstate.edu" with the subject "subscribe", or "help" to either subscribe to the list or receive instructions for all available email-based commands.

Create a Welcome Message for Your List

Subscribers automatically receive a global, generic welcome message from Mailman telling them they have successfully subscribed and how to unsubscribe, if desired. You will receive the same welcome message after subscribing. As the list owner, you should create a list-specific welcome and information message to be appended to the global welcome message. To enter your list-specific message, follow the admin link provided in the email you received notifying you that your list had been created. Once there, enter the list password and enter your welcome text in the "new-subscriber welcome message" field in the General Options section. Be sure to click the "Submit Your Changes" button at the bottom of the screen to save your changes. This would also be a good time to enter a description of the list and its intended use in the "introductory description" field. This text will be displayed at the top of the "List Information" web page visited by potential subscribers.

List Configuration

As a list owner you will need to make several decisions regarding how your list should operate. The primary list-setup choices you will need to make when configuring a new list are: (default values are in bold)

1. How will people join the list?
• Anyone may subscribe
• Subscription requests are forwarded to the list owner for approval
• Only the owner can add members
  
  
2. Should information about this list be publicly available? More info.
• Yes; the list is for anyone who is interested
• No; it's confidential and for a select group
  
  
3. Who can send messages to the list? More info.
• Anyone in the world; this is best for a service type list
• List members only; this is best for a discussion type list
• The owner(s) or a designated editor; this is best for a newsletter (one-way) type list
  
  
4. When someone replies to a list message, the reply should ordinarily go to:
• The list members; this is best for group discussion
• The person who sent the original message
• A specific email address
  
  
5. Should messages be archived on the server?
• Yes; this keeps a history of all messages sent through the list.
• No; messages are distributed to list members and then forgotten.
  
  
6. Who should have permission to access the list's message archives (if available)?
   
   • The list members
   • Only the owner(s)
   • Anyone in the world

There are many additional parameters that can be configured to fine tune or specialize a list to a specific purpose. Further information regarding all available settings can be found in the Mailman List Management Guide.