The ADVANCED List
PUT ADVANCED LIST PW=XXXXXXXX * * ADVANCED Mailing List * * Subscription= By_owner * Send= Editor * Editor= editoraddress@DOMAIN.COM, (ADVANCED) * Confidential= No * Limits= Sub(150) * Validate= Yes,Confirm * Sizelim= 150 * Default-Options= REPRO,NOACK,SUBJ * Subject-Tag= ADV * Reply-to= List,Ignore * Daily-Threshold= 50 * Review= Owner * Notebook= Yes,E:\LISTS\ADVANCED,Monthly,Private * Digest= Yes,Same,Daily,00,Size(750) * Renewal= 2-Monthly,Delay(14) * Auto-Delete= Yes,Full-Auto,Delay(5),Max(100) * Errors-To= erroraddress@DOMAIN.COM * Owner= jowner@DOMAIN.COM (Jessica Owner) * Owner= Quiet: * Owner= joeschmoe@DOMAIN.COM (Joe Owner) * * This is the List Header for the Advanced LISTSERV mailing list. *
An Example of an ADVANCED LISTSERV Mailing List
This List Header uses many of LISTSERV's available features.
This section will describe the settings selected for each of the keyword parameters. For additional details on the settings, click on the keyword below.
Note: Certain keywords are not available or function only in a limited way in LISTSERV-Lite. These exceptions will be noted below.
When you GET your List Header from the server, it automatically adds the
PUT listname LIST PW=XXXXXXX command at the top.
* Subscription= By_Owner
Indicates that all subscription requests made in the usual way will be forwarded to the List Owner. The List Owner will then decide whether to ADD the new member. The prospective subscriber will receive a note informing them that the request was forwarded to the List Owner.
* Send= Editor
* Editor= editoraddress@DOMAIN.COM, (ADVANCED)
Indicates "Self-Moderation": all subscribers may post directly to the list without intervention but non-subscribers are moderated. This option is useful when a subscriber sometimes posts from an address different from their subscribed address. The name of the list must appear within the parenthesis.
Indicates that a mailing list will be listed in the CataList sm service maintained by L-Soft. This parameter is independent of Subscription= options, and whether a list has public or private archives. To hide a list from CataListsm use Confidential= YES.
* Limits= Sub(150)
The usage of the keyword Limits= is dependent upon the version of LISTSERV at your host. For Ease-Home lists, it indicates the number of subscribers a list is allowed to have. Because it affects billing, Ease-Home List
Owners must have the assistance of the Ease-Home Site Manager to change the value of this parameter.
The LIMITS keyword is not available in LISTSERV-Lite.
* Validate= Yes,Confirm
The Validate= keyword controls the level of command validation desired for your list. When set as above, LISTSERV requires confirmation for all updating commands that List Owners and List Subscribers execute. In some instances, the use of a personal password may be substituted in lieu of the "OK" confirmation method.
* Sizelim= 150
Indicates that the maximum number of lines for any post is 150. Subscribers who send posts larger than this will receive a rejection message. This keyword may prevent subscribers from re-sending an entire quoted digest back to the list. It may also help to avoid encoded attachments such as pictures from being posted. The actual setting is subjective and will depend upon the typical size of your list's posts.
* Default-Options= REPRO,NOACK,SUBJ
*Subject-Tag= ADV
The Default-Options keyword defines the options that all new subscribers will have at the time they join or are added to the list. REPRO and NOACK were discussed previously.
Certain Default-Options (e.g. POST/NOPOST, RENEW/NORENEW, REVIEW/NOREVIEW) are not available in LISTSERV-Lite.
SUBJ is short for SUBJECTHDR and it indicates that all new subscribers to the list will also receive a Subject-Tag on the subject line of all list posts in the form [Subject-Tag]. The default value for Subject-Tag is the name of the list. The List Owner may define a different Subject-Tag if desired. In this example, the abbreviation ADV was chosen for this list.
Visit this link for a tutorial for setting individual subscriber options.
* Reply-to= List,Ignore
The Reply-To= keyword in the List Header is used to control the configuration of the "Reply-to:" header line in every message that LISTSERV processes.
Note: LISTSERV can only control the address placed in the "Reply-To:" header line. How the reader's mail program uses that address when the reader presses the "Reply" button cannot be controlled by any LISTSERV settings. See below for further discussion.
The * Reply-To= List,Ignore option will set the "Reply-to:" field to the List Address and ignore (override) the setting in the "Reply-to:" field set by the original sender. This will result in replies more consistently going back to the list.
The default setting is * Reply-To= List,Respect which will set the "Reply-to:" field to the List Address unless the original sender has something set in that field, in which case LISTSERV will respect what is there and will not change it. The Respect option is the reason why some replies will go back to the list (if the original sender does not use a "Reply-to" field) and some will go back to the original sender.
* Reply-To= Sender [,Respect or Ignore] will set the "Reply-to:" to the original sender's address (same as the From: field). The optional Respect or Ignore will operate as stated above.
This keyword will allow you to control how LISTSERV populates the "Reply-to:" address in the messages it processes. However, because of variations in mail programs, some inconsistency may result even when the keyword is set as desired. Some programs may use the "Reply-to:" field address; however others may use the "From:" address. And even others use the (hidden) "Sender:" field. There may even be a choice that the user can specify. There are as many variations as there are different kinds of mail programs and there is no set rule or standard.
Therefore, List Subscribers must learn the details of their own mail program and be responsible and pay attention to where their messages are directed. List Owners may have to explain this to their subscribers.
This keyword limits the number of postings that may be processed by the list in a calendar day midnight to midnight, server time. The default will depend upon your site installation. When its value is reached, the list is automatically placed on hold, and the List Owner must issue the FREE listname command. The list will not process messages (even after the next calendar day is reached) until the FREE command is issued.
Optionally, a second parameter can be added such as * Daily-Threshold= 50,4. The second parameter indicates the number each individual List Subscriber is allowed. When the value of the second parameter is reached by a List Subscriber, they are sent a message that their posting will not be processed and that they should resend it later if they still want it to be posted. The list itself is not held in this situation. The default for the second value is to have no limit.List Owners and list editors are exempt from the individual daily limit. There is no command to reset the limit for an individual subscriber, although the List Owner may update the List Header to increase its value.
Note that in our ADVANCED list, adding the second parameter will not have any effect since the ADVANCED list is self-moderated and therefore each List Subscriber is considered an editor and therefore, exempt from the second parameter's limitation. However, for a Send= Private
(or Public) list, this optional second parameter may be helpful when trying to control certain subscribers who tend to use the list as a personal message board.
* Review= Owner
This keyword defines the categories of users who are allowed to review the Internet addresses and names of the persons subscribed to a list. The Owner option which is the most secure indicates that only the List Owner(s) may access this information. The Private option indicates that only List Subscribers may access this information (using the Review listname command) and is the default. The Public option indicates that anyone may access this information. Subscribers have the alternative to conceal their name and address from a Review command by issuing the SET listname CONCEAL command; however, List Owners always have access to this information by issuing a Query command.
* Notebook= Yes,E:\LISTS\ADVANCED,Monthly,Private
This keyword controls whether notebook archives will be saved for a list. The first parameter Yes indicates that they will. This can be set to No and the remaining part of the line deleted if archives are not desired. If Notebooks=Yes, then Digests are also automatically enabled, unless you specifically turn them off. See further discussion below about Digests.
The section portion after the Yes is the literal pathname on the LISTSERV server where the archives reside. This value must be set by your server’s LISTSERV Site Manager and may not be changed by the List Owner.
The third parameter indicates how often archive notebooks (called notebook logs) are saved on the server. Monthly indicates that a month’s worth of posts will be saved in a log with the naming convention LOGYYMM where YY indicates the 2-digit year and MM indicates the 2-digit month. If you have a large volume of posts, you may wish to change this to Weekly so that when log notebooks are downloaded the size will not be overwhelming.
The fourth parameter indicates the security access level to the archive notebooks. Private indicates that only List Owners and Subscribers may access the archives. Public indicates that anyone can access, read, and download the archives files. This parameter is independent of whether you have a public, private or moderated list.
* Digest= Yes,Same,Daily,00,Size(750)
The List Owner controls the availability and frequency of digests through the Digest= list header keyword, which defaults to Digest= No for lists without an archive and Digest= Yes,Same,Daily for archived lists. Digests are larger messages containing all the postings made by List Subscribers over a specified period of time.
LISTSERV digests are not edited. Digest subscribers will get the same content as individual mail subscribers. However, those who subscribe in the digest version will get all the messages for a given day, week or month in 1 or more batches depending upon the parameters in this line. This means TOPICS do not apply to Digest subscribers. This subscription method is useful if one is just "listening into" or "lurking on" a list and prefers to read the postings at leisure. Digests are kept separately from list archives and it is not necessary for a list to be archived to allow digests. In other words, using Notebook= No does not preclude the use of Digest= Yes.
The first parameter Yes indicates that the digest function (and indexes, if Notebooks are also enabled) has been enabled. This can be set to No and the remaining part of the line deleted if a digest version of the list is not desired.
The second parameter is a disk or directory specification, or the word Same, which means that the digest will be stored in the same location as the list Notebook archives. As noted under Notebooks above, a literal pathname specification here may only be set by the LISTSERV Site Manager and may not be changed by the List Owner.
The third parameter indicates the frequency in which a digest is distributed. It can be set to Daily (the default), Weekly or Monthly. A more frequent distribution will reduce the amount of disk storage required. Very large digests (e.g. monthly) may cause mail problems for users and should be avoided.
The fourth parameter is optional and specifies when the digest is to be actually distributed. For daily digests, the default is midnight, server time, but you can specify 'hh' in a 00-23 scale (24 is also accepted for midnight). For weekly digests, specify a weekday such as Tuesday. For monthly digests, you may specify a number from 1-31 corresponding to the day of the month when the digest will be distributed. However, if you code a number larger than 28, you may not get a digest every month.
The last parameter is also optional. It takes the form Size(number) and specifies the maximum number of lines the digest is allowed to reach before a "special issue" is cut. Our example is set to Size(750). A digest may actually run over the number that is indicated since LISTSERV will never truncate a message in order to meet the digest size limit. Thus, if you've reached 700 lines of your 750 line setting and the next message is 100 lines long, your digest will be distributed at 800 lines. The default is to have virtually no limit and is dependent upon the host configuration.
* Renewal= 2-Monthly,Delay(14)
This keyword controls whether or not subscribers are required to renew their subscriptions on a regular basis, and what the subscription period is.
The Renewal= keyword is not available in LISTSERV-Lite.
The setting 2-Monthly indicates that renewal notices are to be sent every two months. Delay(n) is the confirmation delay where (n) equals the number of days between the time the subscriber is asked to confirm the subscription and the day the user is automatically removed from the list. This default is Delay(7).
For the ADVANCED list, subscribers are set on a bi-monthly (every two months) schedule for renewals and have 14 days to confirm their subscription (with the CONFIRM listname command) before they are automatically deleted from the list.
Subscribers that are active on the list will not be required to renew their subscriptions. This is because LISTSERV uses the last activity date (which may or may not be the same as the subscription anniversary date) for the purpose of subscription renewal. The last activity date may be one of the following:
- the subscription anniversary date
- the last date the subscriber posted to the list
- the last date the subscriber changed personal options
* Auto-Delete= Yes,Full-Auto,Delay(5),Max(100)
Indicates that the automatic deletion facility of LISTSERV is activated. If a delivery error occurs to an expired user or one whose account is permanently disconnected, LISTSERV may be able to intercept the delivery error and take action based on the value of the Auto-Delete= List Header keyword.
In LISTSERV-Lite the Auto-Delete does function, but only as if set to Yes,Semi-Auto,Delay(0),Max(1). Other values are ignored if present.
For the ADVANCED List, we have opted for fully automatic deletion to occur either after 5 consecutive days of error messages or a total number of 100 error messages from an individual subscriber’s e-mail address. When this facility is enabled, the List Owner will receive a Daily Monitoring Report (if errors are occurring) itemizing those addresses that are under observation by the LISTSERV auto-delete feature. If the thresholds are reached, then the offending e-mail address will be deleted from the list and the Owner and subscriber will be notified.
It is important to note that LISTSERV will not be able to intercept and handle error messages that do not follow standard formats. In that case, LISTSERV forwards the error message to the list owner for resolution, if set to Semi-Auto. Utilizing the Full-Auto parameter will greatly reduce the number of error messages that a list owner receives.
The default setting for most lists is Auto-Delete=Yes,Semi-Auto,Delay(4),Max(100).
* Errors-To= erroraddress@DOMAIN.COM
Instructs LISTSERV to send error messages to a specific e-mail address. For example, you may wish only a single non-quiet owner to receive the messages. In that case you would specify just that owner’s address. Or you could specify a specific non-owner address and Owners
* Owner= jowner@DOMAIN.COM (Jessica Owner)
* Owner= Quiet:
* Owner= joeschmoe@DOMAIN.COM (Joe Owner)
This keyword identifies the e-mail address of the list owner(s). Multiple lines indicate that there are multiple owners with the authority to make changes to the list.
To prevent additional owners from receiving LISTSERV administrative messages they can be set to Quiet owners as was done for the ADVANCED List. All owners listed after Owner= Quiet: will not receive list error messages or other notifications. There must be at least one non-Quiet owner for a list.