Page 31 - Mercury Manual.book

Mailing lists 26
Mailing list settings and options

ly specialised and is not normally required; because it can cause problems with mail delivery,
we recommend that you only use it if you are very sure of what you are doing.

Membership file The name of a file where Mercury should store the membership information
for the mailing list. Mercury will automatically add the extension .MLF to whatever path you
enter here. You must enter a filename with a full path in this field.

Archive file Mercury can save copies of every message sent to a list in an archive file. If you
want it to do this, enter an archive filename here. The filename must be a legal filename and
can include a path if you want to create it in a specific directory. You can use the following
special characters in the filename:

~Y The year, expressed as two digits
~M The month, expressed as two digits
~D The day, expressed as two digits
~W The week of the year, expressed as two digits
Using these substitution characters allows you to create sequences of archive files matching
specific periods of activity.

Allow membership enumeration via the mail server REVIEW command The Mercury mail
server has a REVIEW command that can be used to list the members currently subscribed to a
mailing list. The REVIEW command will only be processed for any given list if this control is
checked in that lists's definition- if it is unchecked, the command will return an error.

Conceal this list from the Mail server's LIST command The Mercury Mail Server, MAISER,
has a command (LIST) that returns all the lists serviced by the running copy of Mercury. If
you do not want a list to appear in responses to this command, check this control and it will
not be included in the summary returned by the mail server.

List owners (moderators) A mailing list can have one or more moderators, who are effec-
tively managers for the list. Moderators have full control over the membership and settings
of a list, and you can also configure a list so that only moderators may actually send mail to
its membership: when you configure a list this way, then the list is said to be moderated. The
intention of a moderated mailing list is that mail must be submitted to the moderator, who
will then decided if it should be distributed. Note that a list can have moderators without be-
ing a moderated list - that is, a list can have supervisors, but can still distribute mail sent from
the general public. A list need not have any moderators if you wish, and it is permissible for
a moderator not to be a member of the list. To create or change the moderators for the list,
use the Add new moderator, Change selection and Remove selection buttons next to the mod-
erator list.

Adjusting the order of moderators The first moderator in the list of moderators for a list has
The first moderator
named for a list has a spe- a special role: he or she is known as the Primary Moderator, and will be the person to whom
cial role, and is known as queries and other issues associated with the list will be addressed. You can adjust the order
the primary moderator:
his address is always giv- of moderators in the list, and hence the primary moderator, using the Move selected up and
en as the technical con- Move selected down buttons next to the list.
tact for the list.
The List Access Page
Welcome files, farewell files You can create simple text files that are automatically sent when
someone subscribes or unsubscribes from a mailing list. These files should usually contain
instructions for unsubscribing and resubscribing to the list, but can contain anything you feel
is appropriate. Enter the filenames for the Welcome and Farewell files in their respective