List Maintenance and Use

List Maintenance and Use involves three roles - the Author, the Clerk, and the Traffic Cop. You may put on different hats at different times (usually you'll be switching between author and clerk). Identify the role for the task you wish to perform. 

The technical documentation uses other names, but we'll save those for later. For now, let's define the functions that each role performs, so we can understand the approach necessary to get the message out.

Author

Messages are written by authorized individuals and sent to a list with an email address like:   listname@sheperd.com . The file containing the addresses of authorized individuals is established when the list is initialized and may be modified by contacting the system administrator .

When the mail hub receives a message from an authorized address, it re-sends the message to everyone on the list. Each person receives an individually addressed message. (They do not see the addresses of the other people on the list.) The "From" address on the message may be either the list's address or the author's email address depending upon the type of list.

Messages sent by unauthorized users (viruses, for example) are forwarded to the System Administrator. They do not get re-sent to the list. (See " Types of Mailing Lists " for exceptions)

Clerk

To perform list maintenance, use an internet browser to connect to  http://thomas.sheperd.com:8383  and log in using a sheperd.com account provided when the list is established. In addition to the list of addresses, there are controls available to define headers and/or footers added to every message automatically. See the step-by-step instructions.

The clerk also receives messages returned due to bad addresses or full mailboxes. These are known as "Bounced Messages".

Traffic Cop

The system administrator identifies the list owner for each list and manages the authorized posters file for each list. To give individuals permission to "post" (send messages to the list), contact the system administrator via email.

Information about lists is available from the system administrator. A special address is used to request this information - imailsrv@.thomas.sheperd.com. This address works only with Plain Text email. If your email program is set up to use graphics as "stationery", you will probably get the Help Page returned to you,

The Readers 

Unless restricted by the System Administrator, a list of the members of the list is available from the system administrator. They may also be known as "subscribers".

To receive a list of users on a given list  (if enabled for that particular list), send a mail message to imailsrv@sheperd.com with the following in the body of the message:

   list listname

This works only with Plain Text email. If your email program is set up to use stationery, you will probably get the Help Page returned to you.