MIT Mailman Subscriber / List Member Options

MIT Mailman User Guide:
Subscriber Options / Membership Management

DRAFT, May 5, 2003.

Mailman subscribers (list members) have a number of options they may set themselves once they are subscribed to a list. To get to the options, go to the list's general web page, available from http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/<insert-listname-here>. Note that some of the options will have a Set globally checkbox. Checking this field will cause the changes to be made to every mailing list that you are a member of on mailman.mit.edu. This may be especially useful for options such as Mail delivery for when you are out of the office. [add info on Mass Subscription / Mass Removal]

Mailman does have an email interface for subscribers to subscribe, unsubscribe, change password, set options, etc. Users can send email to INSERT-LISTNAME-HERE-request@mit.edu with the command 'help' in the body to get the complete list description and available commands.

Note on LISTSERV migration: When LISTSERV lists are transitioned to Mailman lists, certain LISTSERV subscriber options will be migrated to Mailman. These include digest, nomail, mime, conceal, repro, and ack. We are looking at including migration of topics.

Subscriber Option in Mailman	Available settings	Comparable LISTSERV Keyword
Mail delivery Set this option to Enabled to receive messages posted to this mailing list. Set it to Disabled if you want to stay subscribed, but don't want mail delivered to you for a while (e.g. you're going on vacation). If you disable mail delivery, don't forget to re-enable it when you come back; it will not be automatically re-enabled.	Enabled Disabled Set globally	Mail / NOMail Setting this option to Mail indicates that the subscriber will receive mail from the list.
Set Digest Mode If you turn digest mode on, you'll get posts bundled together (usually one per day but possibly more on busy lists), instead of singly when they're sent. If digest mode is changed from on to off, you may receive one last digest.	Off On	DIGest / NODIGest Causes the subscriber to receive one posting per digest cycle (typically daily) rather than individual messages as they are processed by LISTSERV.
Get MIME or Plain Text Digests? Your mail reader may or may not support MIME digests. In general MIME digests are preferred, but if you have a problem reading them, select plain text digests.	MIME Plain Text Set globally	MIME / NOMIME Toggles MIME functions on and off. Currently this is only useful if the user has a mail client that supports MIME digests.
Receive your own posts to the list? Ordinarily, you will get a copy of every message you post to the list. If you don't want to receive this copy, set this option to No.	No Yes	REPro / NOREPro Controls whether or not the subscriber will get a copy of his or her own posts back from the list after they are processed.
Receive acknowledgement mail when you send mail to the list?	No Yes	ACK / NOACK ACK causes LISTSERV to send a short confirmation message to the subscriber when the post has been received and distributed. NOACK disables the confirmation feature for the subscriber.
Get password reminder email for this list? Once a month, you will get an email containing a password reminder for every list at this host to which you are subscribed. You can turn this off on a per-list basis by selecting No for this option. If you turn off password reminders for all the lists you are subscribed to, no reminder email will be sent to you.	No Yes Set globally	Not applicable.
Conceal yourself from subscriber list? When someone views the list membership, your email address is normally shown (in an obscured fashion to thwart spam harvesters). If you do not want your email address to show up on this membership roster at all, select Yes for this option.	No Yes	CONCEAL / NOCONCEAL Subscribers may choose to "hide" their subscription from the REView command by using the CONCEAL command.
What language do you prefer? Languages other than English may be set up by the List Owner for the web interface.		Not applicable since language options for list administration were not needed.
Which topic categories would you like to subscribe to? By selecting one or more topics, you can filter the traffic on the mailing list, so as to receive only a subset of the messages. If a message matches one of your selected topics, then you will get the message, otherwise you will not. If a message does not match any topic, the delivery rule depends on the setting of the option below. If you do not select any topics of interest, you will get all the messages sent to the mailing list.	Option will be available if Topics are set up by the List Owner.	Similar to TOPICS List of topics to receive mail based on match in subject line. (Mailman has more options use of topics at the list level; specifically not restricted to topic in subject.)
Do you want to receive message that do not match any topic filter? This option only takes effect if you've subscribed to at least one topic above. It describes what the default delivery rule is for messages that don't match any topic filter. Selecting No says that if the message does not match any topic filters, then you won't get the message, while selecting Yes says to delivery such non-matching messages to you. If no topics of interest are selected above, then you will receive every message sent to the mailing list.	No Yes	Specified w/ the topic category "other".
Avoid duplicate copies of messages? When you are listed explicitly in the `To:` or `Cc:` headers of a list message, you can opt to not receive another copy from the mailing list. Select Yes to avoid receiving copies from the mailing list; select No to receive copies. If the list has member personalized messages enabled, and you elect to receive copies, every copy will have a `X-Mailman-Copy: yes` header added to it.	No Yes Set globally	Not available.
Listowner Options for Subscribers in Mailman on Membership Management Page > Membership List	Available settings	Comparable LISTSERV Keyword
mod List owners may set a user's personal moderation flag. If this is set, postings from them will be moderated, otherwise they will be approved.	mod	EDITOR / NOEDITOR A subscriber set to EDITOR on an edited/moderated list may post directly to the list without a moderator's intervention. REVIEW/NOREVIEW When a subscriber is set to REVIEW, all postings from that subscriber are forwarded to the list editor or list owner for approval. post/nopost is also relevant; send keyword at list level also relevant
hide List owners and list members may conceal a specific member on the list of subscribers.	hide	CONCEAL / NOCONCEAL Subscribers may choose to "hide" their subscription from the REView command by using the CONCEAL command.
nomail List owners and list members may disable delivery of mail to the member; this screen will show if it was done by the user, the list admins, or the system due to excessive bounces.	nomail	Mail / NOMail Setting this option to Mail indicates that the subscriber will receive mail from the list.
ack Should the member receive acknowledgement mail when s/he sends mail to the list?	ack	ACK / NOACK ACK causes LISTSERV to send a short confirmation message to the subscriber when the post has been received and distributed. NOACK disables the confirmation feature for the subscriber.
not metoo Does the member want to avoid copies of their own postings?	not metoo	REPro / NOREPro Controls whether or not the subscriber will get a copy of his or her own posts back from the list after they are processed.
nodupes Does the member want to avoid duplicates of the same message?	nodupes	Not available.
digest Does the member get messages in digests? (otherwise, individual messages)	digest	DIGest / NODIGest Causes the subscriber to receive one posting per digest cycle (typically daily) rather than individual messages as they are processed by LISTSERV.
plain If getting digests, does the member get plain text digests? (otherwise, MIME)	plain	MIME / NOMIME Toggles MIME functions on and off. Currently this is only useful if the user has a mail client that supports MIME digests.
language Language preferred by the user	language	Not applicable since language options for list administration were not needed.

The Mailman Delivery Team recognizes that not all LISTSERV functionality will be available in Mailman. Certain options have been identified as not comparable available in Mailman. The option listed below will not be carried forward during LISTSERV migration and owners/subscribers will have to decide on a case by case basis how to proceed.

LISTSERV subscriber options settable by the subscriber that are not comparably available in Mailman include:

INDex/NOINDex
In LISTSERV, causes the subscriber to receive one posting per digest cycle containing only an index of subject topics for all messages during that cycle. See the section on DIGEST (above) for further information.
Not available in Mailman; subscribers might want to change to DIGEST instead. If list archives are kept they can access the mail via the web.
HTML/NOHTML
In LISTSERV, toggles the HTML function for digests and indexes on and off.
In Mailman, this is settable by the list owner for the entire list on the "Content filtering" page under "Should Mailman convert text/html parts to plain text? This conversion happens after MIME attachments have been stripped. (Edit convert_html_to_plaintext)".
FULLHdr/IETFhdr/SHORThdr/DUALhdr/SUBJecthdr/FULL822/SHORT822
In LISTSERV, allows the subscriber to control the amount of mail header information prepended to list mail.
In Mailman, some header information is settable by the list owner for the entire list on the "General Options" page under " Should messages from this mailing list include the RFC 2369 (i.e. List-*) headers?" and "Should postings include the List-Post: header?" By default, Mailman prepends the list name in the subject line (similar to SUBJHDR).

In LISTSERV, owners could also set certain subscriber options that are not comparably available in Mailman include:

POST/NOPOST
In LISTSERV, a subscriber set to NOPOST may not post to the list. NOPOST gives the individual list owner the ability to serve out abusive or obnoxious posters without having to add such users to the list's "Filter=" setting. Subscribers set to NOPOST will still receive list mail – they just won't be able to post mail to the list.
In Mailman, similar functionality is available under Membership Management; subscribers may be set to "mod", meaning all their posts will be held for approval.
RENEW/NORENEW
In LISTSERV, enables or disables subscription renewal confirmation on an individual subscriber basis. RENEW requires subscribers to regularly (e.g. annually) confirm that they would like to continue their list subscription.
In Mailman, there is not a comparable feature. However, Mailman does have bounce processing, which has the ability to automatically set to nomail or unsubscribe a user based on bounces.
Files/NOFiles
In LISTSERV, these options toggle the receipt of non-mail files from the list.
In Mailman, similar behavior might be achieved using Content filtering.