Summary for listserv owners.
            Apr 2003, Dave Rasmussen, I&MT Special Projects

This document summarizes some basic functions that a list owner needs to
use to manage a list. There are references for printing an official
listserv list owner manual for a more complete list of functions one
can use with their lists.

When sending mail to the listproc to do list management functions,
make sure your mail client is sending only text. Html, signature files,
and some mime headers will cause error messages to be returned because
all the listproc server is looking for are listproc text commands. Most
mail clients have a way to send only text or ascii text, or to turn off
HTML. Also for sending messages to lists, ascii text is preferred but other
stuff can be sent as attachments. Make sure if you send attachments that
they weren't created from some obscure application that most people don't have.

In the following examples we pretend there are lists called somelist
and anotherlist. If (syntax) appears in the line, it signifies the syntax
for the command and examples with sample data follow.

Subscribers of your list can still subscribe and unsubscribe themselves
unless you turn off open subscriptions. All they have to do is send an
email message to listproc@uwm.edu with commands in the body. What
follows are commands your subscribers can send:

(syntax)	subscribe listname Myfull Name
		sub somelist Dave Rasmussen
		subscribe somelist Bruno Wolff III

or

(syntax)	unsub listname
		unsub somelist 
		unsubscribe anotherlist

They can also set whether they want individual messages or periodic digests
of messages:
		set somelist mail digest

or to turn off messages while on vacation:

		set somelist mail postpone

or to turn it back on:

		set somelist mail ack

or to see what else one can set:

		help set



We talked about some commands the subscribers can use. Now we'll describe
some commands that can be used by the list owners for administering their
lists.

Again, commands to the listserv software to change subscribers or options
of a list that one owns have to be emailed to listproc@uwm.edu 
(listserv@uwm.edu is an alias to the same) and in the body type
out the commands.

For the list owner to add someone:	
(syntax) add listname listpassword subscriberaddress subscribername

	add somelist panther dave@uwm.edu Dave Rasmussen

and to delete a subscriber:
(syntax) del listname listpassword subscriberaddress

	del somelist panther dave@uwm.edu

To see how one's list is set up and its subscribers, the review command
can be used:

	review somelist 

To read about various listproc commands there is an online help tree.
The start of the tree can be had by just mailing the word "help"
to listproc. 

You can control whether your list is moderated or if you want to add other
owners and so forth without calling I&MT for help with this version of
the listproc software. For those who don't know, moderated lists allow
list owners to determine who can and can't post to the lists, so that 
if a student raises a topic that alarms others and say the list has 500
subscribers, it won't turn into a freeforall. Those selected as moderators
receive mail posted and then decide what goes out to the rest of the list.
This is the default mode for all new listproc lists.

For students who wish to read mail from accounts other than UWM, please
only use their UWM address in your lists, but encourage them to forward
their uwm address to wherever they choose, using the forward mail feature
from panthermail at www.panthermail.uwm.edu and look on the left hand
column for forwarding mail.

I have manuals on the listproc software for a slightly previous version,
but the commands haven't changed, on the following web page:

http://www.uwm.edu/IMT/MiscDocs/listserv/

Recommended is the ownerman in either rtf (microsoft word) or postscript
printer formats, and the userman.

The ownercard can be condensed to 1 sheet of paper. The owner manual is
43 pages long and the user manual is 20.

Questions that arise in the use of listproc should be directed to the
helpdesk, help@uwm.edu or calling 229-4040. If the answer is not known
up front it will be referred to someone who will have an answer. Please 
mention that it is a listserv under the listproc processor and not a reflector.

More info about reflectors can be read about in the online unix manuals
with the command: man ur

One final suggestion, if you have large attachments or documents that you
want to share with others, instead of mailing it out to a lot of people,
it can be better to save it on your web page and email a link to the web
page. This can be a great benefit to people who use slow web mail programs,
or have limited disk space. Moreover, those who still connect using 56k
modems which usually only have an effective throughput of 28k, or slower,
really don't want to have to down load megabytes of info when they open
their mailboxes.