Slashdot Mirror
Mailing List Managers?
greyrax asks: "So I'm trying to convince someone to go open source for their list manager. They're about to upgrade to an expensive proprietary solution.
With about 400,000 subscribers to this newsletter, a database back-end would certainly be helpful. Bounced address management and easy unsubscribes is important (I've read Smartmail vs. MailMan comparison here). Virtual host support and a web interface are desirable. Any thoughts from the /.ers since this thread last year would be appreciated."
one thing i hate is having to "e-mail with subject \"help\" to receive a list of possible commands", each of which, I gather, includes sending an e-mail with a certain subject, then receiving an e-mail in confirmation of it. Blech!
Whatever you use, make sure it has a clean web interface, and configure it to include a link at the end of each e-mail sent to the group to the effect of "Click here to change or configure your mailing list membership."
One thing I hate is having to "log in with the plaintext password I store and mail you every month without fail to some random mailing list name to do anything because this MLM is too braindead to understand listname-requests, or even listname-(command)".
Whatever you use, make sure it has a clean email interface, and configure it to include rfc2369/rfc2919 List-(Subscribe|Unsubscribe|Post|Help|Owner|Id) headers so I can filter and automate control of it.
Ecartis is a great example of a MLM with support for both email and web-based manglement. Email is the standard double-opt-(in|out) stuff, with various other methods of authentication to make sending batched/automated commands easy for admins. Web emails you a "cookie" (effectively a temporary password), and lets you set up a (secure) password once logged in; if you forget your password, you just don't include it on login and get another cookie.
No monthly spam with one of your passwords going out for all to see to some random location in your filters (mine end up in lists/(test|news|announcements)), and an extensive but by no means required web interface, without the need for a monthly insecure irritating to filter spam.