Mailing Lists

Purpose

Mailing lists allow distribution of messages to a mass number of recipients with very little effort on the part of the sender. There will be one or more addresses assigned to the account as a Moderator. Moderators have the ability to add and remove members from the list and review the current list.

The advantages to mailing lists over sending to a large group of recipients are numerous, but some major ones are as follows:

• Multiple Moderators can use the same list and any Moderator can quickly add, remove, or review the list allowing for easy management.
• Any valid Submitter can send emails to all list members without having knowledge of all members of the list. Mailing list type determines who is a Submitter.
• When sending to over 249 senders messages you will not be added to the spam list.
• Further configuration can be done to allow custom behavior of the Mailing list.

This is a few, but some very notable advantages to Mailing lists.

Features/Configuration

There are multiple ways to have a Mailing list set to send out email. The Mailing list can be set to recognize different senders as valid Submitters. If a valid Submitter sends an email to the mailing list it will be re-sent to all members of the list. Submitters can be set to one or more of the following:

• List Moderators: When Moderators are the only valid submitters to the list it gives them the greatest amount of control. They will be the only ones allowed to send messages on the list which ensures that the information going out is relevant to the list.
• List Members: If all Members of a list are able to send messages it is extremely difficult to monitor and you run the risk of people sending out inappropriate material. However, if you require input from multiple people this is a great way to ensure that all members of the list will be able to provide their opinions
• Anyone: There are many security issues with allowing anyone to send email to a mailing list, so this setup is hardly ever used as it can become a problem if people are not following the mailing list rules.

Another option when setting up the Mailing list is setting the Submitter's address on sent messages to be hidden. This would simply allow for complete anonymity on the Mailing list. Unless someone decides to give out information about themselves in their e-mails then no member of the list would have any knowledge of who they are.

Security/Control

Moderators will be the only ones able to add/edit and remove addresses from mailing lists. This ensures that the security and integrity of the mailing list is maintained. By sending an e-mail message formatted in a particular way, moderators have the ability of maintaining their list no matter where they are located in the world. Moderators have the option to receive an e-mail message whenever any changes are made to the list ensuring the list remains secure. A review option is also available that will e-mail the moderators a list of all addresses on their list.

To have a list setup, we need to know the e-mail addresses of all moderators of the list and we will need a list of e-mail addresses (one address per line) laid out in a text document which we can import into our mail server.

Pricing

Pricing depends on the size of the mailing list. A small mailing list comes free with most of our hosting packages. For further information on our mailing list solutions, please contact our Sales Department and they will be more than happy to help you choose the best option for your needs.