Listserv
Listserv provides members of the Dartmouth community with a high-performance mailing list management system.
About Listserv
Dartmouth College licenses the Listserv software from L-Soft Corporation. Listserv provides members of the Dartmouth community with a high-performance mailing list management system. Every Listserv list hosted at Dartmouth must have an owner listed in the Dartmouth Name Directory. Listserv is a mechanism for managing a list when any or all of the following characteristics are necessary:
- World wide advertisement of the topic.
- Automatic processing of subscription and sign-off requests.
- Automatic maintenance of archives of postings. These archives can be retrieved by e-mail or searched and read via a Web interface.
- Automatic formation of daily digests of postings.
- Control of the posting process, including moderation, limitations on service area, or limiting the ability to post to subscribers or editors.
- The number of subscribers is potentially large (over 1,000) or widely distributed geographically.
Listserv at Dartmouth runs on a dedicated host computer, "listserv.dartmouth.edu". List owners can control all aspects of a list's operation by using the Web interface as noted below.
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Requesting a List
To request a new list, submit the form at www.dartmouth.edu/comp/email-cal/using/lists/grouplists.html
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Managing a List
List Management via a Web Interface
An interactive product demonstration of the Web interface is available on the L-Soft Web site.
List Management via E-mail
To control a list, you can send e-mail to listserv@dartmouth.edu with the command in the body of the mail message. The most frequently used commands include:
Subscribers
- SUBscribe listname username: Adds a user to the list of subscribers (e.g., SUBCabin-TrailJacob Jones).
- SIGNOFF listname: Removes a user from the list of subscribers (e.g., SIGNOFFCabin-Trail).
- REView listname: Sends the user a list of the subscribers (e.g., REVCabin-Trail).
- INDEX listname: Sends the user a list of the archive files (e.g., INDEXCabin-Trail).
- SEND filename: Sends the user an archive file listed by the INDEX command (e.g., SENDCabin-Trail.LOG0701E).
Owners
- ADD listname emailaddress firstname lastname: Adds a subscriber to the list and notifies the subscriber of the addition (e.g., ADDCabin-TrailJacob.Jones@dartmouth.edu Jacob Jones). If the name fields contain non-alphabetic characters, they must be enclosed in quotation marks (e.g. ADD Cabin-Trail Jacob.Jones@dartmouth.edu "Dr. Jacob Jones").
- QUIET DELete listname emailaddress: Removes a subscriber from the list, but does not notify the subscriber of the deletion (e.g., QUIET DELCabin-TrailJacob.Jones@dartmouth.edu).
- GET listname (NOLOCK): Returns the list of subscribers, including any concealed subscribers without removing the list from service [e.g., GETCabin-Trail (NOLOCK)].
- GET listname (NOLOCK HEADER): Returns the configuration information about a list without locking the list [e.g., GETCabin-Trail (NOLOCK HEADER)].
Listserv is a rich environment. There are facilities that control Web distribution of archives, topics within a list, automatically deleting failed addresses, and many other features. Documentation is available on the L-Soft Website.
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