[Mailman-Users] How to send messages out to only a portion of themembers?

[Alan McConnell]

On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 09:27:47AM -0800, Mark Sapiro wrote:
>
> <blush>
	Good!

> >That duty done, to my question:  I should like to be able to
> >send messages to a selected partion of a membership and automate
> >this procedure if possible.  Example: to send members whose
> >dues elapse in month N a reminder in month N - 1.   I am thinking:
> >a database of members, paralleling the one kept by mailman, but
> >with e.g. subscription information kept in it.
> >
> >How can this be achieved in mailman?
> 
> As Paul Tomblin suggests, you may be able to do this with Topics, but I
> think it might be cumbersome especially if there were other subsets
> split in different ways. Plus, it relies on the list admin (or some
> automated process) maintaining the members' topic subscriptions, and
> this is designed to be a member option, not an admin function.
	That cuts that out.

> For what it's worth, I do something similar for my cycling club and
> don't use Mailman at all. I just use a Python script that is run by
> cron, and which accesses the club's membership database directly and
> generates emails based on conditions in the member data.
	I have an idea, but not the Mailman/Python skills to implement
	it.  It is as follows:
Every month, create(automatically if possible) a new temporary  mailman
E-list(*).   Copy(automatically if possible) the members -- and data --
of the members to be reminded -- to this new temporary List.  Blast out
the warning.(Blast out a second time if deemed necessary).  Destroy
this temporary List.
(*)  If the regular List is called AbracaDabra, the new temporary
List can be called AbracaDabra-Remind, thus alerting AbracaDabra
members that here is an E-mail related to AbracaDabra, and should
be paid attention to.

	Is there anything in the above suggestion that is impossible?
	If not, how much effort -- Python writing, etc -- would be
	needed?  It would seem to me that such a capability would be
	very useful for all kinds of groups and a multitude of purposes.

I hope that some experts will respond<g>.

Best wishes,

Alan

-- 
Alan McConnell :  http://patriot.net/users/alan
      A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, 
      and yet be forced to surrender.(Thomas Browne)