 The Bat! Mailing Lists
By Leif
Gregory
Contents
There are basically two types of mailing lists. The first is a
distribution type, and the second is a discussion type. The distribution
type is basically a list where you are providing information in one
direction. Typical lists of this type are announcements, newsletters and
well, SPAM. These lists are very simple to set up, as about the only
thing you have to do is to create an address group with all of the
recipients in it. A discussion list is quite a bit more complex to set
up. Basically, people send posts (e-mail) to a single e-mail address.
From there the post is processed and then sent to everyone in an address
book group. The complexity lies in setting up the Reply To:, From:, POP3
accounts etc.
The easiest way to run a list is to have a separate POP3
account, and as a major plus a forwarding e-mail address (This is a
really nice option to have. If you have a forwarding address set up, the
e-mail address that subscribers will Un/Subscribe and send posts to will
never change. So if you change POP3 servers or give the list over to
someone else because you've decided you don't want to run it anymore,
you will not impact your subscribers.) To find one of these types
of services, just type either "free +email" or "free +POP3" in your
favorite search engine. You can set up a discussion list using your
existing (main) POP3 account, but it takes quite a bit more work, which
I will not cover in this how-to. It will however, generally follow the
same guidelines as a stand alone POP3, but your filtering will be a
little more complex.
I am going to define some variables so that the below how-to
will be much clearer. Please substitute your actual information for that
which I have provided.
- IDL - The name of our list. It stands for Internet
Discussion List
- ldgregory@pcwize.com -
The list moderator's address (Your normal e-mail address)
- list@idl.net - The e-mail
address that subscribers send their posts and Un/Subscribe requests
to.
- http://www.idl.com/ - The
IDL Web site.
- IDL - The address book group for normal IDL discussion list
subscribers.
- IDL Digest - The address book group for digest version IDL
list members. (Optional)
Procedure
for setting up the list using a separate POP3 account
First click here to download the IDL
mailing list account that I have created. You will be "importing" this
to The Bat! Imported is in quotes, because there is no actual provision
under The Bat! to import an account. I'll explain how to get this
account installed into The Bat! in just a minute. I have done about 90%
of the work for you, all you have to do is replace the "IDL" information
to suit your discussion list, which we will go through
step by step.
How to "import" the IDL account into The Bat!
- Go to where IDL.ZIP was saved when you downloaded
it.
- Double click the IDL.ZIP file.
- Click the "Extract" button.
- In the dialog box that comes up do these two things: The
"Extract To" field should be the directory that your accounts are
stored in under The Bat! In my case it is: C:\Program Files\The
Bat!\MAIL. The second thing is to check the "Use Folder Names"
checkbox if it isn't already checked.
- If The Bat! isn't already running, start it.
- Click "Account", select "New".
- In the "Account Name" field, enter "IDL".
- Click the "Next" button.
- Put your name in the "Your Full Name"
field.
- In the "E-mail Address" field put the forwarding e-mail
address you set up for your list. If you didn't set up a forwarding
e-mail address (You really should use one of these), then put the POP3
e-mail address that you will be using for the list.
- The "Organization" field can be left blank or put in the
name of your discussion list.
- Click the "Next" button.
- In the "SMTP Server" field, put whatever SMTP server you
will be using. I have mine set up for my regular ISP SMTP server
address.
- In the "POP3 server" field, put the address of the POP3
server you will be using to collect the list messages.
- Click the "Next" button.
- In the "Username" and "Password" fields, put whatever your
username/login is for the POP3 account you are using in step
14.
- The two checkboxes are up to you, but I have both
unchecked. If the POP3 account you are using requires APOP, then you
need to check this box. For the normal operation of the discussion
list, you don't need to keep copies of messages on the server.
- Click the "Next" button.
- Check the "Do you want to check the account settings now"
radio button and click the "Finish" button.
Ok, now that you have "imported" the IDL account, we need to
finish setting it up for your discussion
list.
How to set up the account for your discussion
list.
- Under the "General" sheet, verify that all the information
is correct.
- Under the "Transport" sheet, verify that all the
information is correct.
- For the first few weeks of your list's "life", you should
check the "Deferred" option in the "Delivery" options on the
"Transport" sheet. The reason for this, is that you want to make sure
that everything is correct in the outgoing messages to be sent to your
subscribers before they get sent.
- Under the "Mail Management" sheet, you shouldn't have to
change anything.
- Under the "Options" sheet, set whatever options you prefer
to use. You may want to leave the "Empty trash folder on exit"
unchecked for the first few weeks of list "life" also. Sometimes you
make a mistake in mail handling, and may accidentally delete a
message.
- Under the "Files and Directories" sheet, you may have to
modify the "Home Directory" depending on whether you specified a
different "Extract To" path in step 4 of the "How to "import" the IDL
account into The Bat!".
- Click the "+" in front of the "Templates" sheet.
- Select "New Message". We are now going to set this template
up. Hopefully you have given some thought as to what you would like
your messages to look like when you
post to your own discussion list. The merit to having the below
boilerplate:
--
***************************************************
Report
problems to:
<mailto:ldgregory@pcwize.com>
Check the IDL
FAQ: <http://www.idl.com/FAQ>
To unsubscribe, click
here:
<mailto:list@idl.net?subject=Unsubscribe_IDL>
***************************************************
Is
that your subscribers will be reminded each time you post a message to
your own discussion list of how to report problems, unsubscribe, and
where your discussion list web site or FAQ is. You can make this
contain as much or as little information as you want, but I would
suggest keeping it short.
Take very careful
notice of the two dashes right above the boilerplate. Please note that
it is '-- ' (dash dash space). The trailing space is extremely
important. What this is for, is that TB cuts off any text following
the '-- ' when you reply to a message. How this works in your favor is
like this.
You send a message to the list, at
the bottom of this message is your boilerplate. Now if you don't have
the '-- ', then when someone replies to your message, the boilerplate
is quoted. This basically helps you to keep the posts looking nice and
clean.
- This next block is your macros. Let me show them to you and
then I'll explain what they are doing.
%TO="IDL Members
<list@idl.net>"
%BCC="IDL
<list>"
%RETURNPATH=""
%RETURNPATH=mailto:ldgregory@biogate.com
The
Bat! requires that you have a valid e-mail address in the TO field.
Putting the discussion lists e-mail address in here serves two
purposes. The first is that it looks better than putting in your
e-mail address. The second and most important, is that when the
message is sent, you will receive it again.
This
sounds stupid, but it is necessary if you wish to verify that your
message went out without actually subscribing yourself to your own
list, and it allows you to keep the message in its final form just
like all the other posts that come from your subscribers. This is
useful if you want to create a digest version (which I'll get to later
in this article), or if you want to place a searchable message archive
on a Web site.
The BCC field must contain your
address book group that has all of your subscribers in it. This is
very important. If you put the address book group with all of your
subscribers in the TO field, then everyone who is subscribed to your
discussion list will see everyone else's e-mail address who is also
subscribed to the discussion list. This is considered very bad
netiquette.
Important Note: Just
for clarification on the text IDL <list>-- because I've
received many questions concerning it, is that the <list>
portion must say exactly that! This is how TB knows that it is an
address book group and not a contact. For example, let's say our
address book group is called SUBSCRIBERS instead of IDL.
Then the macro for %BCC will look like this: %BCC="SUBSCRIBERS
<list>". Notice the address book group name changed but the
actual text <list> did not. Your list will not work if
you do something like this %BCC=IDL
<IDL>".
The RETURNPATH is very
important in that it provides an e-mail address for bounced messages
to come back to instead of your subscribers. Trust me, you have to
have it in there, I learned the hard way with my list. Why are there
two of them? Well, there's an undocumented feature in The Bat! that
allows you to run a macro with a NULL input. What this does is to
clear the field so that the second occurrence of the macro can fill it
without worrying about what was stored in it previously. This will
become much more easily understood when we get to the filtering
section (filter
six).
- Select the "Reply" template. Again, you'll want include the
boilerplate to remind the subscribers when you reply
to a subscribers post. Here are the
macros:
%TO""
%TO="%OFROMNAME
<list@idl.net>"
%BCC="IDL
<list>"
%RETURNPATH=""
%RETURNPATH=mailto:ldgregory@biogate.com
Here's
where the NULL value macro becomes a little easier to understand.
Let's say "Billy Bob" <bbob@somewhere.com> sends a post. If I
want to reply to his message before it gets sent to the list, and send
my reply to the list, then I need to change his TO info so that it
matches with what we are going to do in the filtering section to all
of the messages posted. Namely change the TO, and REPLY-TO
information. Again, just hang on a little while and I'll explain this
fully in the filters section.
- This pretty much concludes the account setup. You shouldn't
have to use the forward template, and you can put whatever cookies in
the cookies template that you want to use.
- One last thing about the account settings. There are five
folders (other than the default ones) included the IDL account. Here's
what they are for.
***** Note: If you don't see
the below folders, select the IDL account, then hold down the
CTRL-ALT-SHFT-L keys simultaneously. This will force TB to search for
any missing folders in that account.
SPAM - This is the folder
I move SPAM to. I'm pretty aggressive in tracking down spammers. If
you are interested, I wrote an article for my weekly e-zine entitled
"To Catch A
Spammer".
Moderated - This is where the messages in their
final form (as they were distributed to your subscribers) will reside
after the "Move moderated incoming messages" filter processes
it.
Failures - This folder will be used to catch bounce
messages. Believe me, you will get them. Remember the RETURN-PATH
macro? This is what its main purpose is for. Please ensure that the
e-mail address you use in RETURN-PATH is different than the one your
subscribers use to post and Un/Subscribe to. This will keep the bounce
messages from possibly being missed by the filters in your IDL account
and getting sent out to your subscribers.
IDL Subscribers -
This is the folder that Subscribe requests get moved to once the
filter has added them to the address book. This provides three
functions. One is that at a glance, I can roughly tell how many people
are subscribed to the discussion list. Two, I have a record of
subscribes. This way if someone later on says that I am spamming them,
I can prove that they (or at least someone pretending to be them) did
indeed subscribe, and three, if someone did not use the correct string
to subscribe i.e. they sent a message with the words "Subscribe" in
the body of the message as opposed to the subject, you can just copy
their e-mail address to the clipboard, right click on the "IDL
Subscribers" folder, select "Create a new message" which will create a
new message with the "Subscription receipt" in it. All you have to do
is paste the subscribers e-mail address into the TO field and send it,
and of course manually add them to the address book group for your
subscribers.
*** NOTE: I have used text files for inclusion
into the templates for both "IDL Subscribes" (both filter and folder),
and "IDL Unsubscribes" (both filter and folder) that contain the
actual text or the Un/Subscribe. This way, if you make changes, you
can do it in one place and it updates both the filter and folder
versions. If you specified a different "Extract To" path in step 4 of
the "How to "import" the IDL account into The Bat!", then you will
need to change the directory path in all the templates (both folder
and filter) for IDL Un/Subscribes.
IDL Unsubscribers - Serves
the same function as the "IDL Subscribers", but is for unsubscribers.
If a subscriber messes up the unsubscription process i.e. puts the
words "Unsubscribe IDL" in the body as opposed to the subject, then
you can cut and paste their address into the "Create a new message"
option when you right click the "Unsubscribe IDL" folder, and then
manually remove them from the address book group.
There are actually two more folders (subfolders actually). One
is under IDL Subscribers-- called dupes, and the other is under IDL
Unsubscribers-- called failures. These two folders hold "bad"
subscribe and unsubscribe attempts that filters two and five
(respectively) take care of. I'll explain these two filters and what
they are for under the next section.
The Filtering
Sub-system
This is the area that will make or break your mailing
list.
- While the IDL account is highlighted, click "Account" and
select "Sorting office/filters"
- Click the "+" in front of "Incoming
messages"
Filter One -
Housekeeping
This filter is a housekeeping filter. Because we are changing
the TO header in the "Post" filter (See filter
six) to mailto:<list@idl.net> this
message is going to come back to you through the normal post e-mail
address. You've already processed this message, so you don't want to
send it back out to the subscribers again. This is one other reason we
are using the RETURN-PATH macro. It is our filter string, whose job it
is to move already processed (sent to the list subscribers) messages to
the "Moderated" folder (which by the way is where you should make your
replies to messages that subscribers have posted.) If you specified a
different "Extract To" path in step 4 of the "How to "import" the IDL
account into The Bat!", then you will need to change the directory path
in this filter to reflect the actual location of the "Moderated"
folder.
What we are actually doing with this filter is searching the
kludges for the string [RETURN-PATH:
ldgregory@pcwize.com]. This is something we have modified
in filter four to solve two problems: The first is bounce messages get
sent to the designated address, and two we can use it as our search
string, because it will only appear in messages we have
already processed.
Of course you could just send these messages to the trashcan,
but if you are going to participate in your own discussion list, it is
easier to reply to this message than cutting and pasting all their info
during the first time it comes through. Also, if you decide later on to
build a searchable message-base on a Web site, you will have the message
in its final, post filter-processed form.
Filter Two - Subscribe Duplicates
This filter's purpose is to catch instances where
someone is already subscribed and they try to subscribe again-- on
purpose or on accident. It sounds strange but I've had people do it.
Another instance is where someone gets impatient and sends another
subscribe request because they haven't received their confirmation back
from the first one.
What this filter does is to check to see if their
address already exists as a subscriber. If it does, then a message is
created saying that they are already a subscriber. If they aren't
already subscribed, then the filter does nothing. Messages that this
filter applies to are moved to the subfolder of IDL
Subscribers.
Filter Three - Subscribes
This filter is the subscription filter. You need to determine
what keywords you want to use for your filter string. The easiest, and
most logical keywords would be something like "Subscribe" and "IDL".
Because not all e-mail clients support the "%20" symbol when resolving a
mailto type URL, and also because some do not support actual space
characters, I like to use the underscore character between the keywords
i.e. "Subscribe_IDL". This is a good way to ensure that whatever e-mail
client your subscribers may be using, your URL will work. The added
benefit of using the underscore character is that it is almost totally
invisible in a URL, because they are almost always underlined. An
example of this URL that you would put on a Web pages or in the sig
portion of your e-mail messages would look something like
this:
To subscribe to the IDL mailing list, click here:
<mailto:list@idl.com?subject=Subscribe_IDL>
If you click on this link, The Bat! will create a new message
with the subject line filled in with "Subscribe_IDL", now all the
prospective subscriber has to do it click send.
After you have highlighted the filter named "Susbcribe_IDL" do
this:
- Change the filter name in the "Name" field to whatever you
wish to call it.
- Change the filter string in the field "Strings" to whatever
you will use as your subscribe filter string.
- Click the "Alternatives" tab.
What we
are going to do here is to try and idiot proof your list a little.
Believe me, no matter how hard you try, you will always have people
trying to subscribe/unsubscribe from your list using everything but
the correct keywords.
The alternatives
tab is for "ORing" your filter strings. For more information on
this, check the TB help file under "Mail Filtering (Sorting Office)"
"Signal Strings".
On this sheet, you will want
to change all the different variations of the subscribe signal string
to match your list needs.
- Click the "Actions" tab.
- Check the "Send Auto-Reply" checkbox.
- Click the "Template" button.
Here's
where you will tell the new subscriber about the list, what to expect,
what e-mail address to use to post messages, some rules (concerning
flaming, beating a dead horse etc), where to report problems etc. Take
some time to think out what you want to put in here. You can use or
modify the sample template to fit your needs.
If
you read the entire sample, you would have noticed at the bottom there
was a macro. It was like this:
%SUBJECT="IDL
Discussion List Subscription Receipt."
Because
this is a new message created by the filter, you should specify a
subject to be placed in the SUBJECT field. The TO field will have
whatever e-mail address is specified in the subscribers REPLY-TO
information. Here's something important to remember, this message will
contain in the FROM and REPLY-TO fields whatever information you have
specified in the account that calls this filter (In this case it's the
IDL account settings). This is why you should set up a separate
account in The Bat! when running a discussion list. You can specify
that your FROM information say something like mailto:IDL%20Discussion%20List%20Moderator%20<list@idl.net>
and your REPLY-TO info "Leif Gregory <list@idl.net>"
- Also on the "Actions" sheet, you'll see that I have checked
the "Add the sender's address to the address book" option. This option
allows new subscribers to be automatically added to your address book
group for the list. Make sure you change the name of the address book
group listed to the one you are using for the list.
Filter Four - Unsubscribes
The fourth filter is your unsubscribe filter. Eventually,
someone will want to unsubscribe, so set up this filter similar to the
subscribe filter. Of course, you will want to make changes so that it
reflects an unsubscribe command. I've included a sample template for you
to modify or use as your see fit.
Filter Five - Unsubscribe Failures
This filter attempts to intercept unsubscribe requests
from addresses that aren't subscribed. This is usually the case when
someone forgets what e-mail address they subscribed to your list under
and then later tries to unsubscribe under the wrong address. This filter
creates a message saying that the address they are trying to unsubscribe
with is not a valid one. Messages that this filter applies to are moved
to the subfolder of IDL Unsubscribers.
Filter Six - Posts
The sixth filter is the subscriber post filter. This is the
real meat of your filtering system, because it allows subscribers to
post messages to the rest of the subscribers. TB now includes the
capability to ensure that only messages from addresses listed in your
subscribers address book group can post to the list. This helps to cut
down considerably on SPAM attempts and people you've banned from
posting. This filter will be set up similar to the Un/Subscribe filters,
with the following differences:
Under the "Rule" tab, your first filter string should be: mailto:[list@thebat.net], select the
"Recipient" location, and presence is "Yes". This is a SPAM measure.
Most times when you receive SPAM, the recipient list has been
suppressed, meaning your e-mail address is not displayed along with all
the other unlucky recipients of the SPAM. So by specifying mailto:list@idl.net you will be
eliminating a huge majority of SPAM from making it to your
subscribers.
The second filter string should be: [Subscribe_IDL], select
the "Subject" location, and presence is "No". This will ensure that
Subscribe requests don't get sent to the rest of your
subscribers.
The third filter string should be: [Unsubscribe_IDL], select
the "Subject" location, and presence is "No". This will ensure that
unsubscribe requests also don't get sent.
Under the "Actions" tab scroll down till you see "Create a
message for", put your name and e-mail address here like this: "Leif
Gregory"<list@idl.net> Now click the template button. Here is what
the stuff in the template means:
The %TEXT is going to cut and paste the posters text into this
message. You don't want to use the %QUOTE macro, because that's not what
you want.
The three blank macros "TO, REPLYTO, and FROM" are an
undocumented feature in The Bat! What happens when you don't specify any
text between the quotes is that it blanks out the field (A NULL value.)
Remember when you put your name and e-mail address in the field under
the action "Create a message for"? Well, if you don't blank out this
field, that info will appear here in addition to the info placed there
by the second occurrence of "TO" in the above macro. This is a bad
thing. The REPLYTO and FROM fields will contain the information you
specified in the IDL account settings, so we want to blank these
out.
Ok, now on to the second occurrences of TO,
REPLYTO and FROM. When a subscriber posts a message, and the other
subscribers receive it, you want the TO, FROM and REPLYTO information to
reflect the person who posted the message. i.e. say Billy Bob <bbob@user.com> posts a message to the
list. When a subscriber receives the message, you want the TO field to
say "IDL Discussion List <list@idl.net>" (unless they were
replying to someone's message, then you would want it to have the
repliees address here.), you want the REPLYTO field to say "Billy Bob
<list@idl.net> (This is
extremely important! The REPLYTO header is the address that is used when
someone replies to a message. We want the replies to come back to the
list, so that they will get sent to all the other subscribers too. If
the replyer wants to send a private message to only Billy Bob, then they
should cut and paste the address in the FROM field), which brings up
what you want displayed in the FROM field. You want it to say "Billy Bob
<mailto:list@idl.net>" (You want
the subscribers real e-mail address here-- unless you are running a
closed list, then you would make the FROM field the same as the REPLY-TO
so that nobody on the list will ever see anyone else's true e-mail
address.) With that out of the way, let's dissect the
macros.
%TO="%OTONAME <list@idl.net>" Remember
when I said that you wanted the TO field to display "IDL Discussion
List" unless the post is a reply? Here's what happens in this macro.
%OTONAME takes all the text except the actual e-mail address i.e. "IDL
Discussion List", or in the case of a reply "Billy Bob" and puts it into
the TO field. We are then specifying that the e-mail address be <list@idl.net>. So the new TO address
will be "mailto:IDL%20Discussion%20List%20<list@idl.net>"
or in the case of a reply mailto:Billy%20Bob%20<list@idl.net>
.
%ReplyTo=%OFROMNAME <list@idl.net> When a subscriber
replies to a message, this is the actual e-mail address it will use. We
are taking the original posters name and changing the e-mail address so
that the reply gets sent to the list instead of the original poster
personally.
%From="%OFROMNAME <%OFROMADDR>" Here we are using all of
the original posters real information. Their real name and real e-mail
address.
%BCC="IDL <list>" This is your address book group entry.
Of course we do not want to show everyone on the list who else is also
subscribed to the list, so we put it in the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC)
field. This also help to prevent spamming of your subscribers.
Filter Seven - Move sent messages to
trash
This is a filter you can do without if you don't want it.
However, I would highly recommend it, otherwise the sent posts will
accumulate in your "sent" mail folder, and you would have to move them
to the trash manually.
Setting up the
digest version
Right now, this is one area when The Bat! is kind of weak. I
have asked RIT Labs to try and work on this area just a little more. I
would have included this section in the filters section, but I didn't
feel that it has the proper capability to really be used as a digest
generator. There is an option on the "Actions" tab for "Export message
to file". The problem is that you can either include
all of the kludges (really messy looking), or
none of the kludges (difficult to reply to people or to
see who wrote the message and it's subject.) I asked RIT Labs if they
could allow you to select which kludges to include in the exported
message. I think that these kludges are necessary (DATE, FROM, REPLYTO,
TO and SUBJECT,). If you wish to experiment around with the digest
generator anyway, do this:
- In the IDL filters, click the "+" in front of "Incoming
messages".
- Select "Move moderated incoming messages".
- Select the "Actions" tab.
- Scroll down till you see "Export message to file".
- Put a checkmark in the box.
- Click the "Browse" button to the right of the pathname
field.
- I have already selected the "TBDigest.TXT" file. I'd
suggest keeping a copy of all the digests you create for future use
(on a web site etc).
- If you specified a different "Extract To" path in step 4 of
the "How to "import" the IDL account into The Bat!", then you will
need to change the directory path to reflect your directories.
- Put a checkmark in the "Append to existing file" radio
button.
- Exit out of the filters dialog window.
- To send a digest to someone (You'll have to do this
manually, as there is no way currently to define to TB when to send
these digests out.) right click on the "Digest" folder, select "Create
a new message". You should be able to just click send from here.
- Remember to empty out the "TBDigest.TXT" after sending
it, because then you'll just append more messages to
the end.
- Also remember to set up an address book group called "IDL
Digest" (Or change it to whatever.)
Closing remarks and
how to contact me
Ok, we're done. You have all of the stuff necessary to start
your own discussion list. If you have any additional questions or find
any faults in this how-to, please e-mail me at:
mailto:Leif%20Gregory%20<ldgregory@pcwize.com>
I will be glad to answer any questions you may
have.
Troubleshooting
No matter how hard you try, there is always
something that didn't get covered. Here are the answers to some common
problems people using this how-to have come up against.
The RETURN-PATH doesn't seem to be
working / posts that have already been processed and sent out to the
list are being treated like new posts when they come back through the
system.
Most likely the SMTP or POP server you are using is
removing the RETURN-PATH statement from the header. Some are set up this
way, and you might be able to get the administrator of that server to
change that. If not, then you will most likely have to find a different
SMTP or POP server.
To determine which is actually the culprit, create
a new message from the IDL list, remove the addresses from the TO and
BCC fields (you might have to enable the viewing of these fields first
by clicking "View" in the message editor window and putting a check mark
next to them.) Once you have cleared out these addresses, put my address
<ldgregory@pcwize.com>
in the TO field and send it to me. Of course, please type something in
telling me why you are sending the message to me. I'll check the
headers, and if it is missing, then the culprit is your SMTP server. I
will then send you a reply that has a RETURN-PATH statement in it as
well, you check the headers to see if it is there. If not, then your POP
server is deleting them as well. |
