Introduction to Email List Services Using
Majordomo2 (Mj2)
Imagine that you want to send a letter to a group of friends, each receiving
a personal copy. If the post office worked the way email list programs do,
you would give the post office a list of your friends' addresses and your
letter. The post office would make a copy for each addressee and then deliver
them. What's more, when a friend replied, the post office would distribute
it to you and to all your other friends. That's basically how email lists
work.
Email lists make it easy for a group of people to have discussions.
Instead of sending a mail message to member of the group, you send it
to an email address for the list. The message is then redistributed to
everyone who subscribes to the list. Reading a list, then, is a matter
of reading your email.
Having an email list might sound daunting at first, but once you actually
use it, you get a feel for how it works. Once it's set up, the list will
distribute email with very little subscriber intervention. The list owner
must handle basic list maintenance, such as answering questions from new
users and acting on error messages generated by the list's users or subscribers.
There are several different email list programs. NC State's the Office of Information
Technology uses Majordomo2, but for the purposes of this documentation
we may refer to the software as "email list program" or "list
program" or simply Mj2.
Each list may have one or more owners. The owner "manages" the list
through email, adding or removing subscribers, moderating the list and
receiving various error messages related to it. If a list is owner-moderated,
all messages will be sent to the owner for approval before posting. If
a list is closed-subscription, all subscription requests must be approved
by the owner.
Last modified
March 5, 2008
by dlschmid
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