Looking For Help With Mailing List

[mollyo]

Mailman's mailinglist has been pretty reliable, but I have run into some trouble. The closest thing to help I've come across is this tutorial: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~help/mail_news/mail...rief_intro.html. It's been linked to a lot in the forums, but really isn't that useful.

 

I feel a little abandoned - as though TCH kind of drove me into woods and left me there by offering this other useful thing but not being able to point me to a place for help. Sucks that there doesn't seem to be helpful documentation or support for this third party... what is a mailinglist considered? application? service? thingy? -- You know, like, Advanced Guestbook has it's own FAQs, forums, mods, etc. I'm obviously not asking TCH to offer help for stuff that's not theirs, but maybe only offer services that have reliable support. Or at least warn me ahead of time. Maybe they did and I'm D-U-M.

 

 

Okay, that's pretty general; here's what I'm up against now:

I've sent an email to my mailinglist, it's in my sent mail, it's in the list archives, but I haven't received a copy. What gives? What are possible explanations? Does is sometimes take longer? Why? Are there server issues I don't know about? etc, etc

 

Or, to appease the almighty TCH-Thomas of the "What This Forum Is About" topic, where should I be asking this question? Maybe there should be a "third-party thingies" forum.

 

Whew!

Molly O

[TCH-Thomas]

Hello Molly,

I am not sure if I am that almighty but let me try to explain the scripts found in the cpanel and TCH.

 

First of all, it is cpanel.net that decides completely which scripts that the cpanel will contain, when new scripts are added and when updates to these scripts will be available.

TCH have no control over this.

 

There is as I am sure you know, thousands of scripts out there and no one on this earth can know everything about every single little script.

Since TCH does not know what cpanel.net plans to include in the future cpanel versions, I believe a decision was made that there will be no help desk support for for scripts. Also, these scripts must also be seen as anything else. If we we dont know how to use it or if we dont find/understand the documentation, we should not use it. But, that is why we have this forum. I am sure there are members here who knows how to solve it. Hang on and someone might know.

 

There are plenty of other mailing scripts which I believe will do what you want. One popular is Dada Mail.

 

Hope this helps...

[TCH-Andy]

Hi Molly,

 

What you are describing can happen, particularly if you have a large mailing list. If you open a ticket at the help desk, we'll have a check for you on if the emails were sent out, or if there was an issue.

 

For a full manual to mailman - please see MailMan Manual

 

As Thomas says, I would actually try DadaMail as a better alternative to mailman.

[masako]

This is a rather old thread, but I just experienced the same problem of my e-news not getting delivered using Mailman. The helpdesk replied to my cry for help already, then I found this thread afterwards.

 

I actually have a dumb question...as I'm really an accidental techie here at my nonprofit organization.

I'm nore really sure how the Mailman relates to the cpanel? I don't go thru the cpanel at all when I send out the e-news. What's the connection?? I must be missing something? When the helpdesk person replied to my cry for help, he said that he restarted the Mailman server. Does totalchoice have a special server for mailing lists?

 

What's it all mean??

 

masako

[TCH-Bruce]

cPanel is how you install the mailing list software. From there it's all configured in the mailman program itself.

[TCH-Rick]

Mailman is software to send out mailing lists that is included as a part of cPanel. It requires a server process or daemon to run constantly. Unfortunately, this process can stall and must be restarted. An advantage to using DadaMail is that it does not require a daemon and, in my opinion, is more reliable. It also allows more options as you can customize it.

[abinidi]

I'm on a Mailman list for a website I frequent (not affilaited or hosted by TCH), and I've found out that to post to that particular Mailman list you have to post in plain text, not HTML or rich text. That is a setting that you'll have to set in your mail client.

 

However, I'm not sure if those settings are specific to that list, or if it is a general Mailman list application issue.

 

But I thought I'd let you know, in case it helps your specific situation.

 

Good luck.

[TCH-Bruce]

However, I'm not sure if those settings are specific to that list, or if it is a general Mailman list application issue.

Posting in plain text is the preferred method for most mailing lists. I used to run a majordomo mailing list and it irritated the heck out of me when people posted in HTML.