General Information About ListServ
- About ListServe
- When do I need a mailing list?
- What kinds of mailing lists are available?
- What variables are to be considered when setting up a list?
1. About Listserv
ListServ is a commercial software package that lives on one of
Drexel's Unix servers. It can send email to lists consisting of
just a few names or to lists of many thousands of names. All ListServ
mailing lists at Drexel are associated with a list-owner,
generally one individual who is identified by an @drexel.edu
email account. Once a list has been created, it is managed by the
list-owner, who sends emailed commands to ListServ.
2. When do I need a mailing list?
In simple terms, you need a mailing list when it will make your life easier and streamline
your necessary tasks. If you are a faculty member, you may want a list so you can send
assignments and other information to all your students with a single click. If you are a student,
you may want to communicate with your fellow members in a student organization. A department head
may want to send mail to all faculty and staff in that department, or to all the students majoring
in that subject. Whether or not a ListServ mailing list is the best tool depends on a number of
variables, and what functions you need the list to perform.
3. What kinds of mailing lists are available?
There are several different kinds of mailing lists that perform different functions.
Broadcast lists
If one person (or a very small group of persons) wants to send
messages to a list of email addresses, with no posting of messages
or responses to the list by others, then a broadcast list
is called for. For example, a professor with three teaching assistants
might want to send messages to his entire class or to have the TAs
send messages to the whole class. Alternatively, each TA might be
authorized to send messages only to his/her own sections, with only
the professor able to send messages to the whole class. Membership
in the list (the ability to receive the messages) may be totally
controlled by the list-owner, or may be open to subscription.
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Discussion lists
If all of the members (subscribers) to the list are able to post messages, this engenders an
exchange of opinion and information, i.e., a discussion or collaboration. In this case,
everyone subscribed to the list may post, and everyone subscribed to the list can read what the
others have posted. Again, membership may be open to subscription or may be controlled by the
list-owner. Posting may be totally open to list members (unmoderated list), or may require
the approval of the list-owner before being distributed to the list subscribers (moderated list).
Special lists
Sometimes a list owner will need to send out messages to a list that is composed of a different
group of subscribers each time. For example, an admissions officer may want to send out invitations
for campus tours to a different list of prospective students each week. If the list-owner is quite
comfortable with the process of populating and unpopulating the list, that list-owner may choose to
have a special list, essentially a blank matrix into which the list-owner feeds the one-time
list of addresses.
Personal address lists
For short lists, users may choose a do-it-yourself process utilizing the address book feature of
their email software, or even just copy and paste email addresses into the email client header. Some
of the advantages and disadvantages of this technique will be discussed under "What variables are to be
considered".
Mass mail lists
IRT maintains a set of mass mail lists comprising large aggregates
of the university community. A list of these Preconfigured lists
and the procedures for using them are given at:
http://www.drexel.edu/IRT/policies/preconfiglist.html
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4. What variables are to be considered when setting up a list?
In considering whether and what kind of list may be useful, a potential list owner needs to look
at a number of variables. (If you want to discuss these variables rather than read about them, send
an email to
mailreq@drexel.edu
and give us your telephone number and a time when we can talk with you).
Size of address list
To conserve system resources, Drexel systems are configured to
block any mailing with more than 200 addresses in the header. This
sets an absolute maximum for mailings to, from, or within the Drexel
network. At Drexel, a ListServ list is the only way to send messages
to more than 200 email addresses. However, many Internet Service
Providers have set much lower limits and routinely block what appears
to them as unsolicited mass mail (spam).
As a rule of thumb, we recommend that 50 email addresses is a practical
limit beyond which a ListServ list is probably more convenient and
more effective.
Frequency of list use
If you are only going to send to a list once or twice, the labor for you and for IRT to create the
list may be more than it's worth. If you are going to mail to the same people frequently, then it's
probably worthwhile to create a ListServ list, even if you are well within the absolute and even
recommended size limits. Think through your projected use of the list, balancing out the process of
creating the list versus the labor of doing the job each time manually.
Stability of address list
Some lists are created once and require few or no changes throughout
their useful life. Other lists are constantly changing, with recipients
subscribing and unsubscribing and changing their email addresses
as often as they change their socks. A professor may create a list
for a class using the Photo
Class List utility and, since that utility uses the unchanging
Official Email Addresses, the list will be stable for the whole
term. On the other hand, a student organization with a growing membership
may have to update its list for each mailing, or may choose to have
an "open" list where the list members can keep their own subscriptions
up to date.
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Privacy of address list
Have you ever received a message with scores or hundreds of addresses showing in the "To:"
field? It is very inconvenient to page down through header stuff to find the message. Moreover, some
recipients object strenuously to having their email addresses displayed for all to see, viewing this
as both an invasion of privacy and as raw material for someone else's spam list. This may be a reason
to choose a ListServ list, which shows only the list name and not the individual addresses.
[Hint: If you prefer to use your own address book to create a short list, you can insert
the list name or copy the recipients' addresses into the "Bcc:" field; in the "To:"
field, put your own user address. That way, the only address the recipients see is your own.]
Sensitivity to how a list is acquired
Many computer users are understandably sensitive to invasion of privacy and theft of identity.
A ListServ list not only masks the identity of the recipients by not sending the user addresses out
in clear text form that is easily copied, but its standard headers and footers give the messages an
official aura that is reassuring to the recipients. By reducing the opportunity for unauthorized
persons to construct their mailing lists from our mailing lists, we help control the "noise level" of
unsolicited email that people so justly resent.
Open/closed subscription
There are two possible modes of subscription. The list may be totally open so that anyone
with a computer and email can subscribe. Or the list may be closed to subscriptions, and the
mailing list is created and managed by the list-owner. This variable is set at the time of list
creation.
Moderated/Unmoderated posting
There are three possible modes of posting. In a broadcast list,
only the list-owner(s) or list-editor(s) can post messages to the
list. In a moderated discussion list, every list member may
post but only after the message is approved by the list-owner or
list-editor. In an unmoderated discussion list, the message
posted by any list member goes directly to the whole list without
the intervention of the list-owner.
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Last updated on 11/22/02 by Ruth Matson and Beth Davis Hazany,
IRT.
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