How to best send email to a low volume list?

[Benjamin M. A'Lee]

On Thu, Oct 25, 2007 at 04:47:51AM -0000, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:08:14 -0500, Shane Geiger wrote:
> 
> > A mailing list manager is really overkill for what he is trying to do
> > *IF* he is not maintaining a discussion list.
> 
> It's not overkill at all. Mailman is easy to install (at least on a Red 
> Hat based Linux system, your mileage may vary elsewhere) and easy to use 
> *and* for bonus marks it's written in Python.

There's very little that Mailman is not overkill for. Running as a
daemon and managing its own queue is completely unneccessary; that's
what the MTA is for.

Enemies of Carlotta is also written in Python, except it's written sanely.

http://liw.iki.fi/liw/eoc/ or 'enemies-of-carlotta' in Debian.

Alternatively, SmartList is written as a set of procmail filters;
available from http://procmail.org/ or 'smartlist' in Debian.

> > A "newsletter" list
> > doesn't sound like a discussion list, especially since he wants to hide
> > the email addresses of the other people.
> 
> There's more to running a mailing list than just sending emails. How do 
> you handle archives, the invariable complaints of missing newsletters, 
> requests for subscriptions, unsubscriptions, and temporary "I'll be on 
> holiday for a month, don't email me until I return" requests? And even if 
> it is not a discussion list, people expect to be able to write back to 
> the author/editor of the newsletter.

Being able to reply to the author/editor is something that has been
possible via email for 25+ years. You don't need a mailing list
manager for it.

-- 
Benjamin A'Lee :: bma at subvert.org.uk
http://subvert.org.uk/~bma/
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill
in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." - Voltaire
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