[Mailman-Users] RE: How does Mailman compare with YahooGroups?

[prodos at prodos.com]

From: Prodos (Melbourne, Australia)
To: texas critter & list

Dear texas critter,

Good morning. Thanks for your reply ....


[Prodos:] 
> > Or, if you are an ex-YahooGroups user, say why you changed
> > to Mailman?
> 


[texas critter:]
> Because Mailman *works*.  Any large free service is bound to 
> have a level of unreliability and with Mailman, I have reliability,
> fast delivery of emails, the ability to save the archives all in 
> one plain text mbox file to my local hard drive.
> 

Okay.


> I never use the web features of Yahoogroups much, I mainly run mailing
> lists.  

Me too.


> And with v2.1, Mailman has the most important features of
> Yahoogroups, moderating new members, moderating individual members,
> stripping html and/or attachments and searching the member list.
> 

Okay.


> And there's no advertising! :)  And less spam on my own 
> domains than at Yahoogroups.
> 

Okay.


[Prodos:]
> > I've been using YahooGroups (previously eGroups) for my various
> > discussion and bulletin lists for years. I think they are very good.
> > But I'm now looking around for alternatives.


[texas critter:]
> I still run some Yahoogroups and in some cases, I have
> duplicate lists, people can choose to join the YG group 
> or the Mailman list.

Really? May I ask why do you provide such an option?
Do some of your members prefer - feel more comfortable
with - YahooGroups? Why would that be the case? Do you know?


>  But I still prefer my Mailman lists over Yahoogroups.  
> Yahoogroups is free, but you get what you pay for, so I 
> expect it to not work reliably and to break from
> time to time (and Yahoo usually fulfills my expectations ;)).

Okay.


>  But my
> Mailman lists just keep going like the energizer bunny.
> 

I think the earlier Energizer adverts featured an Aussie
footballer called "Jacko". The guy who used to say "Oy!"
Just thought I'd throw that in since McDonalds is now
also run by an Aussie. As is Coca Cola. And Fox media.  :-)


> Since I moved to my own server, I'm discovering all 
> the things I can do with root access to Mailman.
> 

Okay. Do you mean that you use "Python" to alter the
functions of your Mailman list?


> If you like and use the Yahoogroups web features, you might find
> bulletin boards/forums like PhpBB or Invision boards to be an easier
> transition, it's web based but boards can send email notices 
> of new posts in threads or boards so that keeps people involved
> and checking in at the website.
> 

Thanks for that information.


> It all depends on what your lists and the membership use and like the
> most.
> 

My lists are mainly moderated discussion lists: Physics, 
pro-Capitalism philosophy and politics, creative thinking tutorials, etc.


> (and I loved eGroups and Onelist before that, I still miss them! 
> and the great people that used to work there before Yahoo 
> chased them all away.)
> 

That's a pity.


> > And what about Majordomo? How does that compare with Mailman?
> 
> I haven't used Majordomo in years but I happened to look at the
> Majordomo site recently, v1 (which I used at one time for a couple
> years) is straight mailing lists, all admin is thru email commands,
> no web interface, no archives.
> 

Okay.


> v2 is supposed to really good and with the MajorCool web interface,
> similar to Mailman v2.  But from what I could see, there's not a lot of
> development going on with Majordomo.  I prefer using something 
> that is still being developed and improved.
> 

That makes sense. Okay.

The two main concerns I have with Mailman are:

1. That it doesn't allow the moderator to edit the subject 
line and body of a message.

I've found there is a patch which can provide this function @

https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=644129&group_id=103&atid=300103

... but I wonder how well tested this is.

2. I'm concerned about how easy it will be for a not-very-technical
fellow like me to set it up and run. YahooGroups is a breeze to operate.
Will I need to learn a language like Python to operate Mailman?
(Sorry if my questions are astoundingly dumb.)

If you or other [mailman-users] members have any comments on these
concerns I would value your thoughts. Thanks.

> hth,

Very much so! Thanks!  :-)


Best Wishes,

PRODOS

"The rich get richer. The poor get richer. Imagine ... Capitalism!"

http://CelebrateCapitalism.ORG