FAU - IRM | E-mail Listservs

Our mailing lists are managed by individual list owners assisted by a program called Majordomo. This program distributes the e-mail sent to the mailing list, handles much of the routine subscribing to and unsubscribing from the list, and answers basic information requests about the list.

To subscribe to one of our mailing lists, first find out its name (see the "lists" command below). Then send e-mail to majordomo@wise.fau.edu. The subject should be blank, and the text should say subscribe listname. Substitute the name of the list for listname, for example, subscribe testing-list. Similarly, if later you want to unsubscribe to the list, send e-mail saying unsubscribe listname to majordomo@wise.fau.edu, again substituting the name of the list for listname. Whenever reference is made to listname in the document, substitute the name of the list; for address, substitute the appropriate e-mail address.

To send mail to be distributed through the mailing list, send the mail that you want to be distributed to listname@wise.fau.edu. Mail sent to that address will automatically be picked up by Majordomo and redistributed to the list of subscribers Majordomo has.

You can give other commands to Majordomo. It is important that all commands to Majordomo be phrased and spelled exactly the way they are given here; otherwise, Majordomo will not follow them.

Here's a list of the things you can tell Majordomo to do. Send these commands in an e-mail message to majordomo@wise.fau.edu; leave the subject line blank and include each command as a separate line of text. Caution: Do not send any of the following commands to listname@wise.fau.edu, which is a commonly made mistake.

The e-mail message says:: What Majordomo does when it receives the command. (Go to example, if applicable)
help: Majordomo replies with a list of acceptable Majordomo commands.
subscribe listname: Majordomo subscribes the sender to the named list.
subscribe listname address: Majordomo subscribes the address given to the named list.
unsubscribe listname: Majordomo unsubscribes the sender from the named list if the sender sent the mail from exactly the address he was subscribed to.
unsubscribe listname address: Majordomo unsubscribes the address from the named list.
lists: Majordomo sends back a catalogue of the mailing lists which Majordomo handles with a half-line description of each list.
info listname: Majordomo sends back summary information about the list.
who listname: Majordomo replies with a roster of the e-mail addresses that are subscribed to the named list.

end: Majordomo ignores anything in an e-mail message to Majordomo which comes after the command "end". This can be useful if you have a signature or other text at the end of your message, or if you want to include more than one Majordomo command.

Not all commands are necessarily usable for any given list because the list owner can turn them off. The command most frequently turned off is "subscribe". In this case, the list owner tells Majordomo to require a password to subscribe people to the list, and as a result Majordomo forwards the subscribe command it receives to the list owner. Similarly, Majordomo can be prevented from giving information about the list or distributing mail sent to listname@wise.fau.edu to list subscribers without the owner's approval. In each case, Majordomo forwards the request to the list owner, and the owner can then approve or deny the request.

If you need to contact the list owner directly, send mail to the to owner-listname@wise.fau.edu.