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Mailing list management software FAQ
Section - 3.12 SmartList [v. 3.10]

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Depending in large part on the intelligence of the (wonderful) Procmail local
delivery agent for Unix, SmartList is a surprisingly small package that does
many nice and unique things.  It also does those things in a unique way, with
a unique user interface -- specifically, from the user's perspective it looks
more like a manually-maintained list (the kind with a human being at
"listname-request"), than it does like the "machine at a server" model of
most packages, as pioneered by LISTSERV.  SmartList is specifically designed
to do what users expect without imposing any particular syntax on them.  It
imposes no strict format on subscribe and unsubscribe messages, accepting all
common formats including commands in the Subject line and most requests in
"plain English."  It also does fuzzy matching on addresses (as described in
the "user features" section), which can be important in processing
unsubscribe requests and bounces.

Administration of SmartList lists is easiest for users who have accounts on
the server system.  Limited administration can also be done by mail; however,
commands are sent in the message *header*, instead of the body, which limits
the MUA's a remote administrator can use (most PC packages are right out).

Beyond the "philosophy" issues described above, which can be either an
advantage or a disadvantage depending on your biases, SmartList offers these
advantages: it imposes a low load on your system yet offers high performance
in delivery, thus it is suited to run fairly large lists; it handles bounced
mail better than any other package; and it probably already runs on your Unix
system.  Its primary disadvantage, for some sites anyway (again excluding
philosophy issues) is that users don't get a unified view of the lists on
your server: each "-request" address stands alone.

Stephen R. van den Berg ("AKA BuGless"), who writes both Procmail and
SmartList, provides quick and friendly support on their discussion lists.

To run SmartList, you also need Procmail.  Get the sources for both at:
<ftp://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/packages/Procmail/>
and
<ftp://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/packages/Procmail/>
   (replace ".gz" with ".Z" if you don't have the GNU gzip package)

Discussion lists: subscribe to Procmail@informatik.rwth-aachen.de and/or
SmartList@informatik.rwth-aachen.de by writing a subscribe message (any
format, even plain English) to Procmail-request@informatik.rwth-aachen.de
or SmartList-request@informatik.rwth-aachen.de, as appropriate.

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Top Document: Mailing list management software FAQ
Previous Document: 3.11 MXSERV (MX/MLF, part of the Message Exchange system) [v. 4.1]
Next Document: 3.13 Smof Listserver for DOS/KA9Q. [v. 05l]

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Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM