|
|
|
|
| Shamash Home ° About ° Create a list ° Help ° Mailing Lists ° Jewish News ° Links ° Search ° Staff | |||
| Kosher Database ° Tanach/Bible ° Holocaust ° Jewish Books ° Israel ° Software/Graphics ° Donate | |||
|
|
|
|
|
| Shamash Home ° About ° Create a list ° Help ° Mailing Lists ° Jewish News ° Links ° Search ° Staff | |||
| Kosher Database ° Tanach/Bible ° Holocaust ° Jewish Books ° Israel ° Software/Graphics ° Donate | |||
|
Shamash is pleased to announce our upgrade from ListProc, to
ListServ Classic.
Shamash has used ListProc software since the early 1990’s, but this product was not updated to meet the needs of our users and to reflect changes in the way email is sent in 2004. Many users had problems sending HTML messages and dealing with attachments. Most list owners had to manually remove errant addresses from their lists, and the staff at Shamash had to continually create new filters to deal with increasing problems of spam and viruses. We are very pleased to announce that we are upgrading our software by migrating to ListServ, a modern software package that has been used by industry, universities and government agencies since 1994. It is updated regularly by programmers to adapt to the modern Internet and it addresses the major problems we had with ListProc. ListServ has many features including:
Shamash supports over 650 mailing lists, and has spent almost a year planning and implementing this upgrade. Migrating this many lists from one system to another will always require some fine tuning. We expect most lists should have a seamless transition. The Shamash staff is here to help resolve any problems with this transition and to help all the list owners make this transition as smooth as possible. We are upgrading our software because Shamash is committed to providing you with modern mailing list software that is easy to use and will continue to benefit from upgrades into the future. We know that our users will enjoy the benefits of this modern mailing list software. |
Frequently Asked Questions:
All list subscribers, list subscriber settings, info and welcome files have been migrated to the new system. All list configurations were migrated to their correlates on ListServ. The archives will be migrated fully once all lists have been migrated to the new system. List aliases were not migrated, since they are not supported in ListServ. See below for directions on what you can do to adjust for this.
This will be transparent to most users, the important thing for an average user to know is:
Changes to expect when moving to the new system:
With ListProc, our old system, you had a different password for each list. If you were a subscriber on 6 lists and a list owner on another 4 lists, you had to keep track of 10 passwords, some of which were created by the software. List owners had to share a list password also.
With ListServ, our new system, forget about your multiple passwords. Follow these simple steps to set up a new single password that will enable you to access all the lists you manage and are subscribed to via an intuitive web interface:
Please go to http://listserv.shamash.org/archives/ then click on your list. If you don’t see your list name, then type out http://listserv.shamash.org/archives/yourlist.html but replace “yourlist” with the name of your mailing list. For example, the jewish-announce mailing list, would use the web address http://listserv.shamash.org/archives/jewish-announce.html
Our web interface makes it much easier for you to control your list, without memorizing commands or sending lots of emails to our computer system. Just follow the directions and helpful hints on that web page to configure your list. The WIZARD section allows you to easily make changes to your list configurations. The SUBSCRIBERS section allows you to make changes in your subscribers. The BULK section lets you update your subscriber information en masse. The TEMPLATES section lets you customize what messages ListServ sends under different situations. (the WELCOME and INFO messages are the most important for you to update).
Archives from Feb 2004 to the present have not yet been migrated to the new system. They will be moved after all lists have been migrated.
If you'd like more information, feel free to download the list owner’s manuals from LSoft, the company which makes our ListServ software. The list owner's manual is located directly at http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8e/ownerindex.stm
Feel free to review other manuals by going to http://www.lsoft.com and clicking on SUPPORT and then DOCUMENTATION.
ListServ does not support aliases in the same way as ListProc. We suggest you add each email address to the list that you want to be able to post to the list. If people have multiple addresses on the list, set some of them to NOMAIL so that they do not get copies of the list messages on that address. Thus, they will be subscribed to the list at each of their addresses, and allowed to post to the list from each of their addresses, but they will only get mail sent to the one address which is not set to NOMAIL. If you would like a list of your old aliases file, contact us at help@shamash.org and provide your lists’ name and request the old aliases file.
The software offers 6 different types of digests, in order to create a digest which works best with *your* email software:
| Digest type | Command | Explanation |
| Regular | NODIGEST | Get individual messages. |
| Digest (traditional) | NOMIME DIGEST | Show the text and all hidden characters ( good for old, text-based email programs. ) NOT recommended. |
| Digest (MIME format) | NOHTML MIME DIGEST | Show text, but interpret the hidden characters and attachments ( good for modern email program. s) Recommended. |
| Digest (HTML format) | HTML DIGEST | Show colorized text, web graphics, and interpret the hidden characters and attachments. ( good for modern email programs ) Recommended for the fanciest looking email. |
| Index (traditional) | NOHTML INDEX | Get a list of the subjects covered, but not the messages. You may read the messages from the Web Interface. |
| Index (HTML format) | HTML INDEX | Get am index of subject covered in colorized text with web graphics, but not the messages. You may click on the subject, and the message will appear in the Web Interface. |
If you get mail in a "once-a-day" digest, please log into the web interface, and select the digest option you like the best. You may want to try a few different ones until you find the one you like the best. Shamash picked the digest format that was most similar to the format you used on their old software, but if this does not work well for you, please change your digest format to one that works the best for you.
We encourage everyone to use the web interface to change their options, but if you need to know the email commands, especially for your cgis, here is the conversion information. Because our old software did not handle MIME correctly, many users selected the ListProc DIGEST-NOMIME format for digests. ListServ, our new software, does handle MIME correctly, so we urge you to try the "DIGEST NOHTML MIME" mail mode.
|
The old ListProc command was: |
The new ListServ command is: |
|
set listname mail digest |
set listname digest nohtml mime |
|
set listname mail digest-nomime |
set listname digest nomime |
|
set listname mail postpone |
set listname nomail |
|
set listname mail ack |
set listname ack |
|
set listname mail noack |
set listname noack |
Better yet, have the users log into the web interface, and let them pick among the many different mail options that listserv has, so they can experiment and see what works best for them, including "INDEX", "INDEX HTML", and "DIGEST HTML" options, described above.
While you may provide your subscribers with whatever information you deem appropriate, Shamash suggests you tell your subscribers something like this (Replace listname with the name of your list):
Shamash, the Jewish Network is upgrading their mailing list software. This will make our list, listname, easier to use for you and easier for me to operate. You will notice that email attachments, graphics and other HTML can now show up more easily. Also, digests (when configured correctly for your email program) will not have those extra annoying charachters that you have seen in the past. Shamash is upgrading to ListServ software, which is a modern, updated, mailing list software used by industry, universities, and government agencies since 1994. The new software has many features, including archives, that you can see through the web interface, at http://listserv.shamash.org/archives/listname.html To send mail to the mailing list, you will still send it to: listname@shamash.org There will be a few changes: |
|
 Tax Deductible |
[ Search
| Help ]
|