Explore Email List Service Ownership Basics

The TU Email List Service allows you to participate in electronic discussion groups on many different topics. Faculty, staff and student organizations may request the creation of new lists. There are significant differences between a simple distribution list and this service:

  • These lists can be set up to allow members to subscribe or unsubscribe on their own.
  • Owners of these lists have full and easy control over the list of subscribers.
  • These lists allow people not a part of the TU community to participate in discussion groups.
  • These lists can allow a moderator to choose which messages are approved to be sent to the rest of the list's members.

More information on TU’s Email List Service is available at http://lists.towson.edu. Select the Support link.

Navigating the List Service web interface

  1. Login to https://lists.towson.edu by selecting the "Login" button at the top right and entering your TU email address and password.
  2. Select "My Lists" on the bottom menu bar. You will see all lists you are subscribed to and all lists you are an owner of.
  3. Click on a list you are an owner of to perform administrative functions.
     

List configuration

The List Configuration section allows you to perform various admin functions on your list.

Section Casual Administration
Edit List Config Adjusts configurable settings for the list, such as the list subject, who can send to the list, and the owners and moderators of the list. Links will appear under the Edit List Config link after clicking it; each of these links contain some of the List Config options.
Manage Subscribers Shows the current list of subscribers. Also used to manually subscribe and unsubscribe individuals from the list. Use the Multiple add button to perform mass subscriptions.
Blocklist Allows you to maintain an email blacklist. Messages from blacklisted addresses will be ignored; they will not be processed nor distributed to lists. Can use an asterisk as a wildcard to match addresses (e.g.,*@spamdomain.com would block any email addresses from spamdomain.com).
Manage Archives Allows you to download or delete monthly list archives.
Bounces A bounce occurs when a remote mail system is unable to deliver mail to a particular email address and a message is sent back to the TU Email List Service, indicating a problem with delivery. Rather than list owners receiving these bounce backs directly, they can be seen from the Bounce screen. Causes for bouncebacks include incorrect or out-of- date email addresses, and email “over quota” issues. This screen allows you to identify and remove problematic email addresses from your list of subscribers.
Logs Allows an owner to view and search for recent events occurring on the list. Some of the logged events include administrative actions such as modifying the list configuration, adding or removing subscribers, and email posts to the list.

Subscribe and unsubscribe list members

One of your most common tasks as a list owner will be to manage your subscribers. Upon list creation, list owners are not automatically set to be list subscribers; owner(s) must specifically subscribe themselves to the list to receive email from the list. There are two common methods for adding or removing subscribers:

List members subscribe and unsubscribe themselves

List members can subscribe themselves to a list (using the Subscribe and Unsubscribe buttons on the mailing list information page) only if a list is configured to allow self-subscription:

  • The list info page must be set to be viewable by non-subscribers – the Who can view list information setting must be set to open. This is the default setting.
  • The Who can subscribe to the list and who can unsubscribe settings must be set to allow users to subscribe/unsubscribe themselves. It is also possible to require a list owner to approve the subscription request. This is the default setting.

Owners manage member subscriptions

A list owner can directly modify the list membership at any time.

  1. Click on "Manage Subscribers".
  2. You will see a list of all subscribers in your list, including the user’s email address and when they were subscribed. If messages to a particular user are bouncing, the word Bouncing will appear, indicating that the user is not receiving messages.

Add an individual subscriber

  1. Fill in the appropriate email address in the Add an user box at the top of the screen and click Add.

Add a group of subscribers at once

  1. Click the Multiple add button.
  2. Type or paste in the list of email addresses and names you wish to subscribe (one per line).
  3. When the list is complete, click the Add subscribers button. If desired, check quiet at the bottom to prevent all of these addresses from receiving a welcome message.

Remove one or more subscribers

  1. Find the particular user in the list of subscribers and place a check in the checkbox for that row.
  2. When you’ve selected all the users you wish to unsubscribe, click the Delete selected email addresses button. If the quiet checkbox is selected, no notification will be sent to the removed subscribers. Otherwise they will receive an email indicating their removal from the list.
     
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