[Mailman-Users] Is Mailman right for my app?

[Simon White]

29-Jan-03 at 11:43, Bobby and Denise (bobby-denise at nova1.net) wrote :
> 	The reason I don't need the list after one message is that a merketing
> company, my client, manages many sub-lists, say sublists 1-10, and for any
> given mailer they may want to use a combination of lists 1,4, and 5, or
> lists 2 and 8, etc, so my final list is only useful for the one mailer.
> Also, they do not want me to manage the list membership-- they use these
> lists for other purposes and want to manage them themselves.  My question
> is:
> 
> 	Will there be any problem if I do NOT want to offer Mailman's web support
> to list members?  I can't allow them to choose options, etc. since I don't
> manage the lists-- i.e. can I turn the web page off?  Also, can I provide an
> opt-out (unsubscribe) link that points to a different server (the client's
> server) rather than my mail server?
> 
> Thanks for your time.  I really appreciate it.

Please reply to the list, others can benefit too, and chip in when they
have something to say.

Your issue is going to be what you state in para 1: each mailing will be
to an entirely different set of people. However, if you can have each of
the sublists 1-10 mirrored at your place, then you can send out to
list1, cc: list2, list4, etc (even bcc if you want, you have to set it
explicitly in mailman though).

This way you will start to get useful bounce info which you can
re-synchronise with them.

I'd really rather be in a position to sell the list management to this
company, go to see them and preach the benefits of managed mailman or
something. 

But it's a little complex for you it seems. You'll be jumping through
hoops to use Mailman properly in the current scenario you depicted, and
if you don't, you'll still be jumping through hoops if you have to do
any bounce management.

Other notes:

You don't have to open Mailman web interface to the public. Just access
it locally for your convenience / don't install it at all (but then
list config is a bit more of a pain). 

Unsubscribe links to another place shouldn't be too hard to do, you can
edit the footer of each page / email and tailor it entirely to
requirements.

Conclusion: Mailman for one-off mailings isn't that useful, but could at
least provide some kind of bounce management if you hack it enough
(you'll have to make up your own heuristics based on those available)
and will be friendlier to your upstream MTA - a big list of Bcc:
recipients is definitely somewhere you don't want to go.

-- 
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