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Migrate your Mailing Lists Now!

  M. Marquina and A. Taddei CN/DCI

CERNVM is going to disappear very soon and you still have mailing lists on the mainframe. For example, you administer a mailing list with LISTSERV and/or you have lists in your NAMES file. If these lists are still useful you should migrate them now!

The first thing you have to decide is if you need your list to be served by an automatic program like the one used in the Listbox Service (the replacement of LISTSERV). If your list is short and/or is only used by you, creating a list with, for example, the list facility of the pine addressbook may be enough.

If you need a list to be served by Listbox (either because it is too long, or it is used by multiple people), you need to decide:

• Which kind of list you want:

  -

  automatically generated (all users in the group, the division);

  -

  updated by hand, arbitrarily (and in this case you should set up the initial members).

• Which policy you want (closed or open lists for subscription, posting, etc.).
• Which parameters you want to enable (monthly archives, etc.).

You should then complete the Listbox registration form which you find on the Web at: http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/dci/mail/listbox/doc/list-admins/reg_form

and send it to:

Listbox.Support@cern.ch

and we will enable your list with the specified configuration.

While you are migrating you should take the opportunity to clean and check the entries in your list. This is a very important task which can hardly be automated. The cleaner your list the safer its use will be. Indeed, if your data is not up to date you will probably have undeliverable messages and even worse could create loops without being aware of it which can cause a lot of load on the systems, on the people responsible for them and on yourself.

You are recommended to specify e-mail addresses of CERN users in their generic form:

firstname.familyname@cern.ch.

In this way you will not need to update your lists as people change their preferred e-mail address, which many people are doing these days. If you are unsure of an address you can check it through xwho or on the Web (the Directories link on the CERN home page).

For more information please consult:

General information:

http://consult.cern.ch/dci/mail/listbox

or contact: Listbox.Support@cern.ch