[Mailman-Users] Need mail merge capability

[Norbert Bollow]

Barry wrote:

> Ah, let's try this FAQ entry:
> 
> Q. Can I put the user's address in the footer that Mailman adds to
>    each message?
> 
> A. No.  The reason is that, for efficiency, Mailman batches together
>    message delivery for many users at once.  Putting the user's
>    address in the footer would require Mailman to craft a unique
>    message for each recipient, and this would likely unacceptably bog
>    down your system.
> 
>    Some MTAs (e.g. Qmail) provide a facility known as VERP, which may

VERP means "variable envelope return path", which is useful for
reliable bounce-handling.  It is not the same thing as including
the recipient email address in the message header or body.

>    be used to accomplish this.  You'll need to investigate the
>    configuration options of your MTA for details.

As a matter of fact, it is not possible with an unpatched,
out-of-the-box qmail installation.  However there is a widely-used,
well-tested patch for qmail which makes this possible.

If you like I can put up a webpage which explains how to set
this so up that you can do something like Neil Cooler wants, who
wrote:

> It would be really sweet to be able to put a link at the bottom of a
> posting like:
> 
> -----------------------------------
> To Unsubscribe, Click below:
> http://lists.foo.com/mailman/options/listname/username@foo.com

Neil Cooler <ncooler at nandomedia.com> also asked:
> Can you do this with sendmail?

Based on my reading of sendmail source code (way back, before
I switched to qmail) I can tell you that because of the way in
which sendmail is desgined, there is no straightforward way to
hack this functionality into sendmail.

Greetings, Norbert.

-- 
Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland)
Tel +41 1 972 20 59     Fax +41 1 972 20 69      nb at freedevelopers.net