Discussion Lists

Discussion lists are a way to have group conversations or discussions via email. Sending an email to the discussion list automatically sends that email out to each of the list's subscribers. By hosting a discussion list, people from across the world can communicate with each-other about topics of mutual interest. This not only provides your site's visitors with a way to communicate beyond the confines of your site itself, but provides you with another way to keep people interested in what you have to say and offer. In short, a discussion list is a common email address (say, 'mycoollist@mydomain.com') that is shared with list subscribers.

Creating a discussion list
Setting up a basic discussion list is pretty simple. First, go to the Mail -> Discussion Lists section of your DreamHost panel.

Once there, you'll be given a list of already created discussion lists (if any), as well as a link to create your own discussion list. To create one, click on the 'Create New Discussion List' link now.

On the screen that appears, you'll be asked for some basic information about your discussion list:


 * List Name
 * Type in the name of your discussion list. For example, if your list is for German Shepherd dog owners, it could be named "GermanShepherdTalk" or something similar. This will be the name part of the list's email address, ex listname@lists.yourdomain.com.


 * Owner E-Mail Address
 * This is the email address belonging to the list owner. Usually, you'll want to put your own email address here.


 * Password & Confirm Password
 * Enter the password you wish to use when managing your list, the password for the list's Administrator area. Note that this password is completely unrelated to your password for the web panel or your FTP/Telnet account.


 * Domain
 * Select the domain name you wish for the list to be hosted under. Discussion lists are all put on a subdomain specifically created for discussion lists, the default is 'lists'. If the domain already has a discussion list that subdomain will already be set. That subdomain (ie. "lists.yourdomain.com") is also a website that you would go in the future to manage the finer details of your mailing list.


 * Convenience Addresses
 * You're also given the option to automatically create the email addresses associated with the discussion list. We suggest that you do so (leaving the checkbox checked). See below for more details on these "convenience addresses".

That's it! There's a lot more you can do to further tune your mailing list - our panel only helps in their creation and basic management, but additional options are available if you need them. These lists are powered by the Mailman discussion list software.

All of the additional list management options are a bit beyond the scope of this document, but you can read more about them at the URL above and change them at the URL you gave for your list (usually in the form 'lists.yourdomain.com').

Managing Current Lists
From the Mail -> Discussion Lists page of the DreamHost panel, you can manage or delete current lists.

To delete a list, simply click on the 'Destroy' link to it's right (What can we say? Our developers have a flair for the dramatic!). You'll be asked to confirm the deletion, as well as any archived postings or email addresses associated with the list. Check which items you wish to delete, then click on the confirm button.

To manage a list instead, click on the 'Admin' link to it's right (in the listing). You'll be brought to the list's management screen at the sub-domain created for the list, for example, http://lists.example.com/, where "lists.example.com" is the domain chosen when setting up the list. Note that this screen is not a part of the web panel, but is rather provided by the Mailman mailing list software that powers our discussion list feature.

Discussion list archives are controlled from the list's Administrator area. They are enabled by default, and can be set to private (accessible only to list subscribers) or public (anyone can see them). The discussion lists and the archives are stored not on your web server but on a separate server dedicated to discussion lists, so any time you need something removed from the archives you will need to contact DreamHost Support.

The Automatic Password Reminder setting is normally used to send list subscribers a monthly reminder of their list password (used to access private archives and adjust subscription settings). This setting is turned off globally by Dreamhost. From Dreamhost support, Sept 2007 - "We turned off the password reminders because they were mostly annoying and unnecessary to customers, plus they took extra server resources."

from_is_list setting
Mailman has a "from_is_list" setting that can help address some bounced emails. The setting is configured in the list's Administrator area, in the General Settings.

The default setting for this option is "no", do nothing unusual, perform the old normal actions. The other two options are:
 * Rewrite (Munge) the From: header, so the email is sent 'from' the sender's name with the email address of the discussion list.
 * Wrap the message, similar to forwarding an email - the email sent to the list is enclosed in a new email sent from the list and the list's email address is the sender.

Your list may benefit from using this if some of your list members have mail service from domains or providers that use DMARC, domain-keys, or other ways of signing and authenticating emails. When an email from those senders is sent back out from a discussion list, those authentication methods may fail verification checks and can make the email appear to be fake or spoofed.

Email Addresses For List Actions
Each discussion list has a set of email addresses automatically setup for it, to send email to the list subscribers and perform some other actions. The email addresses are not listed in the panel's Manage Email page, but they all are created for every discussion list.


 * listname@lists.yourdomain.com
 * Main email address for the discussion list, send email to this address to have it sent out to the list's subscribers.


 * listname-admin@lists.yourdomain.com
 * An alias for the listname-bounces@lists.yourdomain.com address. Obsolete, but kept for backwards compatibility.  Supposedly formerly used to reach list administrators.


 * listname-bounces@lists.yourdomain.com
 * The listname-bounces@lists.yourdomain.com address is the recipient for bounced messages on the mailing list, and is generally listed as the sender for emails sent out from the discussion list. Emails sent directly to listname-bounces@lists.yourdomain.com are generally treated as an unrecognized bounce.  Bounced messages may be forwarded to listname-owner@lists.yourdomain.com if you've set the corresponding options under "Bounce processing > Notifications", though these notifications may come from mailman-bounces@lists.yourdomain.com.


 * listname-confirm@lists.yourdomain.com
 * The listname-confirm@lists.yourdomain.com address is only used as the recipient for confirmation messages. Actions that may require confirmation include subscribe and unsubscribe.


 * listname-join@lists.yourdomain.com
 * An alias for the listname-subscribe@lists.yourdomain.com address.


 * listname-leave@lists.yourdomain.com
 * An alias for the listname-unsubscribe@lists.yourdomain.com address.


 * listname-owner@lists.yourdomain.com
 * Email sent to listname-owner@lists.yourdomain.com will be sent to all addresses in both the "owner" and "moderator" fields (General Options > General list personality).


 * listname-request@lists.yourdomain.com
 * The listname-request@lists.yourdomain.com address allows commands to be executed on the mailing list via email by sending the commands as the email body to the listname-request@lists.yourdomain.com address. Send just the word 'help' in the body to receive all the valid commands and their usage.


 * listname-subscribe@lists.yourdomain.com
 * Email sent to listname-subscribe@lists.yourdomain.com will trigger a subscribe action for the sender. Depending on your mailing list subscription policy (Privacy options... > Subscription rules > Subscribing > subscribe_policy), a subscribe request must be confirmed by the sender, approved by a list administrator/moderator, or both.


 * listname-unsubscribe@lists.yourdomain.com
 * Email sent to listname-unsubscribe@lists.yourdomain.com will trigger an unsubscribe action for the sender. Depending on your mailing list unsubscription policy (Privacy options... > Subscription rules > Subscribing > unsubscribe_policy), an unsubscribe request may need to be approved by a list administrator/moderator.

Convenience Addresses
These are email addresses that can be set up so that your list users can use "listname@yourdomain.com" for the list, rather than "listname@lists.yourdomain.com". Each listname-action@lists.yourdomain.com has two forward-only convenience addresses listname-action@yourdomain.com and listname-yourdomain.com-action@lists.yourdomain.com.

Convenience addresses are listed as forward-only addresses in the panel's Manage Email page. However, they should only be created or removed using the "Add/Delete convenience email addresses set up for this list" checkbox in the panel's Discussion List page. Editing the convenience addresses using the Manage Email page may cause problems that only DreamHost support can correct.