Listowner Basics

If you have a sig that's automatically inserted by your e-mail software turn it off or delete it each time you send a command to the listserv as the listserv won't recognize your sig as a valid command and will grump at you.

All posts (mail messages) to be distributed to everyone who is subscribed to the list should be sent to the list address:
PH-Consortium-L@LIST.NIH.GOV

How do I:

• Set my personal password
• Change the list header
• Review and ok posts sent to the list from new subscribers and/or asked for revise and resubmit (R&R)
• Set a subscriber to where they can post directly to the list (Noreview)
• Find addresses in the subscriber's list (Query and Scan)
• Set a subscriber to where they can NOT post to the list (Nopost)
• Set a subscriber to where they can again post to the list (Post) after having been set to nopost
• Adding a subscriber to the list (Add)
• Removing a subscriber from the list (Delete)
• Changing a subscriber's list options
• Dealing with error messages
• Change the list mail template
• Some common templates for responding to common mail problems
• LSoft Listowner's Manual and Documentation

Set your personal password

Send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
pw add yourpassword

The listserv will ask you to confirm your command to make sure it came from you. See LSoft Listowner's Quick Start Manual for info on how to change or reset your personal password.

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Change the list header

The list header is where you configure the settings for your list.

If you want to make changes in your list header, you need to get the list header
Send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
get PH-Consortium-L (header nolock

The listserv will send you mail containing a copy of your list header. Always keep the last working version of your list header in case you mess up when you're making changes.

Here is the list header I suggest and a version that documents what each line of the list header does.

Make any changes in the list header and then send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put the new list header. The first line of your mail should contain the put command and your personal password. Make sure that you include only the list header in the body of your mail message.

LSoft documentation for List header keywords.

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Reviewing posts from new subscribers

If your default list subscription option is Review, You'll receive posts from new subscribers that you'll have to decide whether to send to the list or whether to ask them to review and resubmit (R&R) or reject outright (e.g. ads).

Read each post to make sure it's consistant with list guidelines.

• If the message is consistant with list guidelines, then simply reply to the message and type ok in the body of your reply. If your e-mail software copies the text of the post you're replying to, you'll need to delete this text. The fastest way is at the beginning on the quoted text hold down the shift key and then press the control (ctrl) key and the End key, then press the delete key.
• If the message is NOT consistant with list guidelines, then you'll need to do a revise and resubmit (R&R) or reject the post entirely if you feel that it can't be revised to be consistant with list guidelines.
  • Forward the post to the original sender (CC it to yourself if your e-mail software doesn't keep a copy of the mail you send).
  • Change the subject line to: "Please revise and resubmit" or something of the sort
  • Put in a greeting and an explanation of what needs to be fixed and why and ask them to revise and resubmit.
  • and then include the post that was rejected. Cut out the top portion of the message that the listserv adds. I generally leave only the following fields of the original message header: To, From, Date, subject fields. I also leave the text of the message the person sent.

There are several standard templates I've developed for common problems (e.g. excessive quoting, one liners, flaming, etc) that you can modify and use for R&Rs. See http://okcforum.org/~editor/

I generally screen about 3 posts from new subscribers prior to setting them to where they can post directly to the list. I keep a list of the addresses of people set to review who have posted and refer to this each time I receive a post to be reviewed. e.g.

bettyh@health.state.ok.us #1 ok
joeblow@wherever.com #1 ok, #2 ok
psyche@okcforum.org #1 R&R quoting, #2 ok

Note. To set a subscriber to where you screen their messages prior to releasing them to the list, send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of the message put
set PH-Consortium-L review for username@node.name

Note. This is the default list setting if you have
* Default-options= Repro,Subject,Review
in your list header.

To set a subscriber to where they can post directly to the list, send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of the message put
set PH-Consortium-L noreview for username@node.name

Replace the text username@node.name with the subscriber's e-mail address who you want to set to noreview.

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Query and Scan Commands

To find out list settings for a particular subscriber, or to find out if an address is still subscribed to your list, send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
query PH-Consortium-L for username@node.name

Note here that the listserv is very literal.
username@node.name
is not the same as
username@my.node.name
even tho those two node names may both be aliased at the user's site and may both work at the user's site. You'll encounter this problem, when someone subscribes from one address and their node name changes due to their network people changing things at their site, etc. They'll e-mail you and indicate that the listserv is rejecting their posts. In this case you'll need to use wildcards to broaden your search for their address in the subscriber's list. e.g.
username@*node.name
or
username@*
or
*@*node.name
to find out how they're listed in the subscriber's list. The listserv will send you an e-mail with a list of subscriber addresses that match your search string.

Note you can also use the scan command to look for addresses in the subscriber's list.
scan PH-Consortium-L for username@node.name
or
scan PH-Consortium-L for Joe

Most of the time when the person's address in the subscriber's list doesn't match their address from their e-mail, I delete the old address and have them subscribe again. If they are set to noreview, I tell them to e-mail me when they have subscribed and I set them to noreview. Alternatively you can add the new address and set it to nomail (so they can post, but don't get two copies of each message from the list).

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Nopost command

When someone acts out on list (flames, and other posts that are inconsistant with list guidelines), I typically send them private mail explaining the problem and ask them to keep their posts consistant with list guidelines. If they don't bring their behavior in line with list guidelines, I'll set them to nopost until they agree to keep their posts consistant with list guidelines. Typically I don't CC the list unless the person was flaming someone on list. If the person was flaming (insulting, berating, belitting, calling names, etc), I will set them to nopost, explain why, and tell them that until they agree to keep their posts consistant with list guidelines they won't be allowed to send messages to the list and CC the list, so that everyone else knows that I've taken action to stop the flaming. Hopefully given that in this case list members are professionals, you won't have much of this to deal with.

Note that you should keep all e-mail pertaining to these types of interactions as documentation.

To set a subscriber to where they can't post to the list (nopost), send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
set PH-Consortium-L nopost for username@node.name

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Post command

To set a subscriber to where they can again post to the list (post) after you've set them to nopost, send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
set PH-Consortium-L post for username@node.name

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Adding a subscriber to the list

You can manually add a subscriber to the list, though I don't recommend doing so for several reasons:

1. unless you want to spend the rest of your life doing things that people can do themselves, you need to educate people on how to use the listserv by pointing them to the faq page instructions on how to subscribe
2. you might not get their address right--they won't be added and you'll get error messages and will have to spend time figuring it out
3. when they subscribe the listserv asks them to confirm their subscription. This prevents other malicious people from spoofing fake requests to join the list and makes sure the address is correct.

To add a subscriber to the list, send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
Add PH-Consortium-L username@node.name UserFirstName UserLastName

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Deleting a subscriber from the list

To remove a subscriber from the list, send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
Del PH-Consortium-L username@node.name

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Changing subscriber list options

To change subscriber list settings, send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put on of the following commands:

To set a subscriber to digest mode:
Set PH-Consortium-L digest for username@node.name

To set a subscriber from digest to receiving individual mail messages mode:
Set PH-Consortium-L nodigest for username@node.name

To temporarily stop list mail to a subscriber:
Set PH-Consortium-L nomail for username@node.name

To start sending list mail to a subscriber after they've been on nomail:
Set PH-Consortium-L mail for username@node.name
etc

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Dealing with Error Messages

For each time a post can't be delivered to a subscriber, you get an error message. This can really add up. For instance

• if you have 50 messages a day sent to your list and
• the list has 100 subscribers; and
• 10% of subscribers can't receive mail for some reason (mailbox full, user doesn't exist, etc),

For perminant errors (unknown user), I delete that address from the subscriber's list by sending mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
quiet del PH-Consortium-L username@node.name

For transient errors (full mailbox, no route to host), you have three options:

Remove that address from the subscriber's list, by sending mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
quiet del PH-Consortium-L username@node.name
or
set the user to nomail by sending mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
quiet set PH-Consortium-L nomail for username@node.name
or
set the user to digest by sending mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
quiet set PH-Consortium-L digest for username@node.name

Note the use of the "quiet" qualifier which tells the listserv not to send notification to the user of the change.

Which option you choose depends on your personal preference.

• If you remove them from the list, they'll stop getting list mail and if they attempt to post to the list, it will reject their post. Typically they write the listowner and ask why or subscribe again and send a post to the list to ask why (which you can intercept because the list default is to set new subscribers to review.) If you keep track of why they were removed, you can tell them why, and they will need to subscribe again.
• If you set them to nomail they won't receive any mail from the list, but will be able to post to the list (drawback-if the subscriber is on noreview it clutters up the list with messages that should have been sent to the listowner - they may send mail to the list asking why they're not getting mail from the list). You'll also need to tell them how to turn list mail back on
• If you set them to digest mode, you will only get one error from their account each time a digest is sent out instead of one error for each list message that bounces from their address (1 or 2 error messages per day instead of 50). They may ask you why their list setting was changed, and you can tell them why and how to go back to received individual message from the list again.

At first these error messages will be difficult to decipher, tho it gets easier as you become more familiar with the types of errors which are typically:

• Full mailbox (usually transient)
• Unknown user (usually perminant)
• Unknown host name (usually transient)
• Other transient errors (no route to host, can't deliver for n days, etc)

Usually the reason you're getting the error will be about 3 screens down in the body of the error message. See LSoft's Handling Errors Guide for more info on typical error messages.

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Change the list mail template

The list mail template contains the text of automatic messages sent to list members (e.g. when they join, leave, change list settings, attempt to post when they're set to review, etc). You can edit these standard messages to contain information specific to your list. For instance, if your list is set to where all new subscribers are set to review, you could change the message that the listserv automatically sends them when they send a post to the list letting them know why their posts are temporarily being screened, reminding them about the list guidelines and that it's their responsibility to keep the list a cool place to interact. Very useful!

To get the default list mail template, send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
GET Default MAILTPL
and the listserv will send you a copy of the default mail template. You can edit this template to fit your needs.

Here is a Custom Mail Template for PH-Consortium-L that I put together. You should be able to use it as is, except that you will need to replace the current web page address http://www.state.ok.us/~chs/draft/phc/index.html with the new address for the list web pages. Note that if you use MS Word to edit this file, be sure to save the file as "MS DOS text" NOT in Word format. Also, note that the mail template I provided does not contain any alterations of the web interface which you can configure.

To store your new list template, send mail to LISTSERV@LIST.NIH.GOV
In the body of your mail put:
PUT PH-Consortium-L MAILTPL PW=your password

Here's the relevant section from the LSoft Listowner's Manual if you want to know more about editing the mail template.

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Here are some e-mail templates that I use when asking for Revise and Resubmits for my list for common problems (e.g. quoting, flames, one-liners, html format, etc).

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