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WVU LISTSERV FAQ

This page provides answers to frequently asked questions pertaining to LISTSERV. It contains sections pertaining to background information, using LISTSERV, and troubleshooting. If you have additional questions regarding use of this technology at WVU, please contact the OIT help desk by e-mailing oithelp@mail.wvu.edu or calling 304-293-4444.

Background Information

Using LISTSERV

Troubleshooting

Background Information

What is LISTSERV?

LISTSERV is a professional-grade solution that is customizable and extends capabilities beyond those of traditional e-mail. It is a product of L-Soft international, Inc. that WVU licenses. The OIT Systems group maintains the environment this application resides upon and the OIT Technical Support Services group provides administrative and end user support for this application to the WVU community. The LISTSERV application allows for great flexibility when dealing with e-mail communications. It is well suited for allowing messages to be sent to large numbers of recipients, for collaboration purposes, and a multitude of other scenarios where central management of a recipient list and other managed aspects may be desirable.

When should LISTSERV be used as opposed conventional to e-mail address books?

In the context of West Virginia University, there are a number of possible reasons to consider using this approach over address books in applications such as in GroupWise. Some examples of these include the following:

  • Messages can be sent in mass with less concern of being perceived as spam by receiving service providers
  • Communications submitted to the list can be moderated if so desired
  • List management roles can be shared and disseminated
  • Addresses on the list can be centrally managed and kept current
  • Individuals outside of the University can be authorized to post to the list
  • Individuals interacting with the list can send / reply to a single address and have the message automatically distributed to all subscribers.
  • List subscribers can specify options to receive posts individually, or periodically in a consolidated digest form.
  • List subscribers can temporarily suspend subscriptions if they will be away

Using LISTSERV

How do I go about requesting that a list be created?

WVU Faculty and Staff have the ability to request that lists be created. Requests for new lists are handled through the OIT help desk. The OIT help desk can be contacted by e-mailing oithelp@mail.wvu.edu or by calling 304-293-4444.

What things need to be considered when requesting a new list?

When requesting creation of a new list, there are a number of things that should be considered to aid in facilitating your list being optimally configured as OIT creates it. Some aspects to consider when requesting a new list be created include the following.

Preferred name for the list

Name should address the following criteria:

  • Brief and descriptive of the organization or associated topic
  • Provides enough detail to be easily discernable from other lists
  • Abbreviations are suggested where possible
  • Cannot contain spaces, but can contain underscores or dashes
  • Should only contain “WVU” if it involves recipients outside of the university
Examples:
    Good: HRE_MA_STUDENTS
    Bad: STUDENT_MAILING_LIST

Description of list and its intended purpose
This is expected to be one or two sentences that give basic background on the purpose of the list.

Role assignments
For anyone being assigned to a role, their e-mail address is needed as is their real-life name. Roles are explained more in greater detail in the “What are Roles and how do they pertain to lists?” section of this FAQ.

  • Non-quiet Owner(s) – Must have at least 1
  • Quiet Owner(s) - Optional
  • Moderator(s) - Optional
  • Editor(s) - Optional

Who can post to the list
Generally lists allow for subscribers to post messages. When a list is for announcement purposes only, editors are the only ones who can post.

Will the list be moderated
While many lists are not moderated, if this functionality is desired, all messages will be queued up after being sent to the system until someone in a moderator role approves and releases it to the subscribers.

Where replies will be sent
This specifies when a subscriber replies to a message, whether their reply will be addressed to the entire list, or the individual who posted the message they are sending a reply to.

Should an archive of the list be kept
While most lists are not archived, it is possible to have the system keep a copy of all list postings. This can sometimes be useful for reference, or if a newer subscriber wishes to look at postings that occurred prior to their joining.

List visibility
This option determines whether anyone browsing the LISTSERV system can see the name of the list. Most lists are set to not be visible.

Who can review the subscriber list
This option determines who has the ability to potentially view the list of all subscribers. This is generally set to be owners, but can be set to include all subscribers too.

Subscribers
Optionally, the list can be pre-populated with an initial list of intended subscribers at the time it is requested. If you wish to have this done, please include a list of e-mail addresses and corresponding names in your e-mail request to have the list established. Place entries one to a line with the e-mail address, followed by a blank space and then their actual name. Example containing two entries: gpomegra@fruit.org Grover Pomegranate sstudent@mix.wvu.edu Sally Student List owners have the ability to change configurations of various attributes at any point after the list is initially created by OIT. If you feel that you may wish to change configuration settings on your new list, it may be best to wait to populate the list yourself as the changed attributes may not be inherited by the list members.

What are Roles and how do they pertain to lists?

LISTSERV lists are centrally managed and have roles associated with them which are assigned to individuals. The way in which a list is to be used and administered will dictate what roles will need to be assigned. This technology can be very flexible, and having an understanding of the associated roles and possible configuration scenarios can aid in making necessary decisions prior to requesting that a list be created. Some roles are optional and some are required. An individual may have more than one role assigned to them for a given list. If after reviewing this description you find that you would like to discuss your particular scenario, please feel free to contact the OIT help desk: 304-293-4444 or oithelp@mail.wvu.edu

The following are descriptions of roles associated with lists:

Owners
Those designated in this role oversee regular operations of the list such as adding and removing users, pursuing resolution to message delivery errors, and possibly configuration changes. It is possible to have more than one owner designated to a given list. Owners fall into the categories of either being “non-quiet” or “quiet”. Under the non-quiet designation, owners receive e-mail notifications of all delivery errors stemming from unreachable addresses. There must be at least one non-quiet owner. Conversely, quiet owners have all the abilities of non-quiet owners, but do not receive e-mails from the system that report error message information. An example where it might be desirable to designate a quiet owner would be where an individual needs the ability to do administrative tasks, such as adding and removing users from the list, but does not need to see routine delivery error messages as they are to be handled by another individual who is a non-quiet owner.

Subscribers
Anyone who is to receive messages sent to the list needs to be designated as a subscriber. This includes individuals that may already have other established roles pertaining to the list such as owners.

Moderators (Optional)
If the list is geared towards discussion among the subscribers, it may be desirable in some cases to have it moderated. Individuals in this role have all messages submitted to the list sent to them for approval prior to being distributed to all subscribers. While this can potentially slow the time it takes for a message to be distributed by those who are posting, it can be useful to help ensure what goes out to the list is on topic and appropriate.

Editors (Optional)
If the list being created is intended for distribution of announcements only, individuals who may post can be designated by granting them the role of editor. When this is used, it is generally a small number of individuals that are set up to post. An example of this would be when a large group of students needs to periodically have information sent to them, but it would not be desirable to have a student send a reply, or create a new message that would be sent to all list subscribers. The established editors would be the only ones with the authority to send messages to the list.

Troubleshooting

Why am I not receiving messages from a list that I should be subscribed to?

There can be a variety of reasons for this and it may require some light detective work to resolve. Please go through the scenarios below to attempt to identify a solution:

  1. Do you know of others subscribed to the list who have received postings during times that you have not? Sometimes the volume of traffic on a given list can simply subside.
  2. If you have never received messages from the list, or have ceased to receive posts, it may be that you are not subscribed to it. If you know who oversees the list, you may wish to contact the individual or department directly to make inquiry as to your status.
  3. If the list in question is WVU E-News, it could be for one of the following reasons:
    • To receive this list directly, individuals must be classified as being faculty or full-time staff members. If you are not in one of these roles, you may request that someone receiving posts to this list forward to them to you either manually or by their creating a GroupWise rule to do so. Much of the information included on this list is also posted on the WVU Intranet site which can be accessed from on-campus computers at this URL: http://intranet.wvu.edu/
    • New employees should allow up to one month to be subscribed to this list. The amount of time it takes to be added is based on when the e-mail address is added to the WVU directory and which list maintenance cycle this event coincides with. Subscribers to this list are generally updated twice a month.
    • If you are a faculty or full-time staff member who has been at WVU for more than a month and are not receiving E-News posts, you may want to verify your entry in the WVU online directory. If it does not have your correct e-mail address listed, please contact Employee Data Services to have them evaluate your entry for correctness: EDS@mail.wvu.edu
  4. It may be that entries added to your GroupWise Junk Mail Handling are intercepting delivery of list postings. Follow these steps to investigate:
    • Look in your GroupWise “Junk E-mail” folder to see if any list postings appear there. If so, it may be due to an inadvertent entry in your Junk List.
    • Check for and remove possible conflicting entries in your Junk List and Block List: Click Tools, select Junk Mail Handling and evaluate any entries under the “Junk List” and “Block List” tabs.
    • Add the “wvu.edu” domain to the GroupWise Trust List to circumvent other incidental possibilities of filtering: In the “Junk Mail Handling” area, select the Trust List tab. Click New and enter the following in the “New Address or Domain” box: wvu.edu Select OK twice.
  5. Do you know if any configuration changes may have been made to your subscription? It’s possible that either the subscriber or list owner changed the account settings to “NOMail” or “DIGest” modes. The first mode suspends delivery of postings until this setting is removed. It is intended for subscribers who may being going on vacation and wish to suspend delivery temporarily. The latter setting will accumulate postings until a threshold time or quantity is met and will then deliver them in consolidated form.

Why am I not able to post messages to a list?

There can be a number of potential reasons for this, but in most cases, LISTSERV will send a message back giving some form of feedback as to what the status or problem may be:

  1. Some lists are not configured to allow subscribers to make posts. These lists are generally ones that are for announcement purposes only and require individuals to be designated to the role of Editor to be able to post.
  2. Some lists may be moderated and require intervention of someone in the Moderator role to approve the submission to be posted to the list.
  3. If you are attempting to post from an e-mail address that is different than the one the list has you associated with, it may be rejected. To resolve this issue, either log into the account the list has you associated with and post from it, or contact the list owner to see if your alternate address can used for your subscription.
  4. Depending on the configuration of the list, a subscriber may not see posts that they create, while others in the list will see these posts. The list also may or may not be configured to provide feedback for postings. If the ACK (acknowledgment) attribute has been enabled, the poster should receive a confirmation message that their posting has been received. If the REPro (reproduction) attribute has been enabled, the poster should receive a copy of the message they sent as they others in the list do. These options can be set and modified by the list owner.

What should I do if my question is not addressed in the FAQ?

If the information included in this document did not address your concerns, you can contact the OIT help desk by e-mail at oithelp@mail.wvu.edu or by calling 304-293-4444.

Additional information can also be found in the WVU LISTSERV List Owner’s Guide and in the L-Soft LISTSERV guide document that can be found on the WVU LISTSERV page at this URL: http://oit.wvu.edu/listserv

 

Updated October 23, 2007