Managing project mailing lists

About project mailing lists

Mailing lists distribute messages to groups of users. People can participate in mailing lists in several ways:

• Subscribers receive messages as they are come in to the list.
• Digest subscribers receive groups of messages at regular intervals.
• Allowed posters can send messages to the list.
• Moderators are decision makers who under particular circumstances determine what messages may be posted to the list.

When you add a mailing list, you can select from one of three types:

• Discuss
• Unmoderated
• Moderated.

The following paragraphs describe each type of mailing list.

Note: Mailing list behavior also depends on whether the list is private or public, and whether the project that contains the list is private or public. See Mailing list administration and policies for details.

Discuss mailing lists

This type of mailing list offers some filtering of messages that are posted to the list. Messages from list members are posted automatically. Messages from a non-member are first sent to a moderator for approval. If the moderator approves the message, it is sent to list members. Otherwise, the message is returned to the sender.

Discuss mailing lists process messages as follows:

• An allowed poster can send messages to the mailing list. Email notifications are automatically sent to people with an allowed poster role, only if they are also subscribers or digest subscribers.
• A mailing list moderator, a digest subscriber, and a subscriber can send messages without any need for authentication by the moderator.
  These users receive a copy of their own messages. Digest subscribers receive the copies within 24 hours, along with other messages posted to the list.
• If a non-subscriber (or a subscriber using a different address) sends a message, the address is checked against an "allow" database. If the address is in the database, the message goes through, and if not it is bounced to the moderator for approval. If the message is approved, the user's email address is added to the "allow" database. If the moderator does not respond to the moderation request, the request times out after ten days and the user receives a notice that the submission was not approved.

Unmoderated mailing lists

This type of mailing list is open to anyone. Unmoderated mailing lists do not provide any control over who is posting to them. Any message addressed to this list is forwarded to subscribers. All of the default (automated) mailing lists in the CollabNet environment are unmoderated, and all project members are automatically subscribed to the default lists.

Moderated mailing lists

This type of mailing list restricts all postings. The moderator must every message, even messages that he or she has created.

About default project mailing lists

Each project on this site has five default mailing lists. These mailing lists provide the standard needs of most projects; however, you can add other mailing lists to satisfy your project's specific needs.

The default mailing lists are:

dev@projectname.domain.com

The main list for developers to discuss specific project development issues and requirements for version control in the project.

cvs@projectname.domain.com

Automated notifications of file version control changes and discussion of those changes.

announce@projectname.domain.com

Announcements of new releases and other major project events.

issues@projectname.domain.com

Automated notifications and discussions of the project's reported issues or artifacts and changes made to issues or artifacts, such as reassignment, comments, or resolution.

users@projectname.domain.com

A more general discussion list for the project's end users.

To access your project's existing mailing lists:

1. Click the Projects tab.
2. Click the Mailing lists link in the navigation bar.
3. From the project's Mailing lists page, click the edit link appears for the mailing list that you want to access.
   An Edit mailing list page appears for that list. See Mailing list administration and policies for details.

Adding and deleting mailing lists

Default mailing lists are created with your project. If traffic becomes too high for a list, you can create a new mailing list to divert traffic for particular topics.

To add a new mailing list:

1. Click the Projects tab and click the link for the project where you want to add a mailing list.
2. Click Mailing lists in the left navigation pane.
3. Click the Add new mailing list link.
4. On the Add new mailing list page, set up and configure your new list.
   See Mailing list administration and policies for more information about the fields and settings in this screen.

To delete a mailing list:

1. Click the Projects tab.
2. Click the link for the project where you want to delete a mailing list.
3. Click Mailing lists in the left navigation pane.
4. Click the Edit mailing list link next to the list you wish to delete.
5. Click the Delete mailing list link.
6. On the page asking for confirmation, indicate that you want to delete the list.

Mailing list administration and policies

As the project owner, you modify your project's default mailing list settings, add new lists, delete unnecessary lists, add and remove subscribers, designate moderators, and set other mailing list parameters.

Both the Add mailing list and Edit mailing list page settings include the following:

• List name field.
• Description text field.
• List owner's email text field.
• Prefix to appear on the subject line of all messages. You can use up to the maximum number of characters allowed. This value is set by the site administrator and is listed below the Prefix entry field.
• An automatically generated Trailer with instructions for subscribing and unsubscribing which can be toggled on or off.
• Private checkbox:
  • If this box is checked, your mailing list is private. Private mailing list access is restricted to project members with a project role that includes the "Private Mailing List- View" permission. If users who do not have a project role with the "Private Mailing List- View" are subscribed to the list, they receive email messages sent to the list but cannot access the mailing list through the CollabNet Web interface.
  • If this box is not checked, the mailing list is available to all users who can access the project. If the project that contains this mailing list is private, only project members can perform functions such as viewing the mailing list and its archives. If the project is public, non-members can access the mailing list and its archives.
• List type options determine how the list handles posts from non-subscribers and subscribers. For public projects, mailing lists can be configured to handle message posts at three different levels:
  • Discuss allows subscribers and allowed posters to post without moderation. Posts from non-subscribers are moderated.
  • Moderated sends all posts to a moderator.
  • Unmoderated allows anyone to post messages without moderation.
• Initial members text boxes in which you can include the email addresses you wish to have subscribed to the list. For more details on subscribing users, see Editing subscribers and moderators below.

Deleting archived mail items

Periodically, you may find a need to delete obsolete, irrelevant, or spam messages from a mailing list archive.

To delete archived mail:

1. Click the Projects tab.
2. Click the link for the project that contains the mailing list that you want to maintainS.
3. Click Mailing lists in the left navigation pane.
4. Click the Mailing List Archive link for the appropriate mailing list.
5. Scroll to the archived item you wish to remove and click the Delete link.
6. Verify the deletion by selecting the Yes or No radio button and clicking the Submit query button.

Editing subscribers and moderators

You add and remove mailing list subscribers, designate list moderators, and suppress certain users from posting messages from the Members section of the Edit mailing list page. The following links are available: Edit subscribers, Edit digest subscribers, Edit moderators, Edit allowed posters. These links display an Edit screen where you can subscribe or unsubscribe users by entering their email addresses for the desired action.

Adding trailers

You can add a trailer to all the mail sent out from a particular mailing list. The trailer provides instructions for the user on how to unsubscribe from the mailing list. These instructions are appended to all messages that are sent to subscribers. The trailers appear as a footer in every message. Enabling the trailer is strongly recommended for lists with more than 100 members.

Note: Regardless of whether trailers are activated or not, they are never appended to archived messages in Mailing Lists. However, when you reply to an original message the trailer in the original message will remain as part of the email thread in the archive with the prefix ">."

To activate trailers:

1. Log in to CollabNet.
2. Click the Projects tab and click the Mailing Lists link.
3. Click the Edit Mailing List link of any mailing list.
4. Check the Trailer checkbox.