Mailing list administration
From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki
This page is a help guide for admins on the Wikimedia mailing lists. For a list of admins and more information about the lists, see Mailing list.
Contents |
[edit] Duties of list administrators
List administrators' primary responsibility is helping people get subscribed to the list, as not everyone is comfortable with the tricky web interface. Same with helping people unsubscribe.
Mundane chores include deciding whether to pass on posts from people who are not subscribed to the list, or inviting them to join the list instead. Occasionally people will ask for information or wish to send complaints (such as for copyright infringement) who do not want to subscribe.
Note that these must be distinguished from SPAM, which should be deleted. DO NOT send spammers any messages, such as asking them to subscribe in order to post, because their software will interpret that as "please put me on your sucker list" and make your job ten times harder!
Optional tasks include:
- cross-posting messages that pertain to other lists, such as Wikitech or other language Wikipedia mailing lists
- gently suggesting that contributors keep on topic and/or avoid flaming each other (note that strictly speaking this is a "moderator" function, and that the admin is not a moderator)
List admins (also known as list owners) have the possibility to change specific options on their mailing lists and to edit the moderation queue. The admin interface is reachable by using the link http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/admin/ , followed by the name of the list (wikipedia-l, for example).
[edit] Configure options
[edit] General options
Generally, there are no special tasks needed. If the list is new, you may want to change the public name and the description of it. Use the General list personality section to edit these options.
[edit] Passwords
Use this site to change the list owner(s) or list moderator(s) password.
[edit] Language options
Use this page to change the language to adjust it to the wiki the mailing list was created for. It will change all the interfaces (public, subscribers, owners) to the language you have chosen.
[edit] Membership management
Use this page to have an overview of the members and their options. You can unsubscribe a user, set him as moderated (his message will be held in the moderation queue), set him as a user who wants to be registered without receiving mails, etc). Use the link above the member overview to get a legend of the possible options. You usually don't need to edit the page.
[edit] Privacy options
These pages allow you to add people to different filters. It allows you to set individual e-mail addresses of non-members to be auto-accepted, deleted, held, or rejected. Also, you can set what approval is needed if someone wants to subscribe to the list.
[edit] Archiving options
You can set here whether the archive of your list is private (so only members can see it) or public.
[edit] Other Administrative Activities
[edit] Tend to pending moderator requests
This is a very important page you should check regularly. This is the list of messages which have been held because they were stopped by a filter, or because they were posted by a non-member. If a message is spam, you should select "delete" as "Action to take on all these held messages" and select "delete" as "Add lloyd21roy@hotmail.com to one of these sender filters:". If a mail is not spam, you should select "accept" as the action. Don't forget to use the Submit button when you're finished.
If a moderation queue is too long for you, you can use the following:
- Add this to your bookmarks: javascript:var el=document.forms[0].elements;for (var i=0; i<el.length;i++) if (el[i].type=='radio' && el[i].value==3) void(el[i].checked=true);
- When you're in the moderation queue, only select accept for the non-spam messages and do not select anything for the spam messages.
- Select the javascript line you have added to your bookmarks.
- The "delete" action should be chosen for the non-spam messages now; you'll just have to use the Submit button.
If you have any other (specific) questions about the list configuration, just ask on the talk page.
