Setting up basic mailing list

[Rebekah Smith]

Hi,

I'm going around in circles trying to figure out something that is probably simple. Any help to point me in the right direction would be appreciated.

Can Nabble be used as a mailing list? I'm thinking of a one-directional weekly update sent from admin to subscribers. It is not a discussion group. Subscribers can't reply. At the moment, I am trying the forum format and restricting the ability for subscribers to reply. I suspect that this might be the wrong approach as, I'm having a couple of problems:

1. The subscription invitation that is emailed includes the message:

"...With your subscription, updates will be sent directly to your email address and you can reply to them to participate in the discussion. Your subscription works the same as a mailing list."

As I explained, in my case, this isn't true. I don't want this to be a discussion list, but just a subscription to a weekly update. Is it possible to edit the message that is sent with invitations? Ditto for the message that appears when the "subscribe by email" option is selected on the forum's website.

2. Messages posted are not appearing in my Yahoo account (listed under "All" and "Registered Users"). However, they are appearing in my Gmail account (listed under "All Users"). I get the subscription invitation and personal messages that are sent from the forum to the Yahoo account. But, I am not seeing the posted messages in my in box even though I have it set to send me a message for every post. I've checked my SPAM and trash folders. I don't see anything. How can I be assured that other users will not have a similar problem? I don't want to have to wonder if people are getting the updates.

Perhaps Nabble isn't supposed to be used for this purpose?

I also have a related forum where people can post topics.

Links to both forums can be found under "Communication with Other Gardeners" at https://sites.google.com/site/merriamstation/message-board

After an initial test, I thought we were good to go, but now I'm not so sure this is the right tool for us. I hope that I am missing something obvious.

Thanks for your help.

Rebekah

[GregChapman]

Hi Rebekah,

Rebekah Smith wrote

1. The subscription invitation that is emailed includes the message:

"...With your subscription, updates will be sent directly to your email address and you can reply to them to participate in the discussion. Your subscription works the same as a mailing list."

Is it possible to edit the message that is sent with invitations? Ditto for the message that appears when the "subscribe by email" option is selected on the forum's website.

You can edit that text so it is more appropriate to your case by editing the two NAML macros:

send_subscription_confirmation
or
send_subscription_invite

Take care to edit both the plain text and HTML portions of the message that will be generated by Nabble.

CAUTION: It depends on how users are subscribed as to which message will be issued. You may not have provided enough sample text from the message for me to have found all relevant macros.

2. Messages posted are not appearing in my Yahoo account (listed under "All" and "Registered Users"). However, they are appearing in my Gmail account (listed under "All Users"). I get the subscription invitation and personal messages that are sent from the forum to the Yahoo account. But, I am not seeing the posted messages in my in box even though I have it set to send me a message for every post. I've checked my SPAM and trash folders. I don't see anything. How can I be assured that other users will not have a similar problem? I don't want to have to wonder if people are getting the updates.

I think you are describing the same issue I raised in my post at:
http://support.nabble.com/Convert-Forum-to-Mail-List-tp7580384p7580459.html
where the Nabble default is NOT to send you a copy of a message sent to one of their "mail lists" if you send a message from your email program. You'll see that the answer, provided by Hugo, is to edit another of the macros.

Perhaps Nabble isn't supposed to be used for this purpose?

I do understand your concern. While Nabble's "universal back-end" is capable of delivering what you want, it does appear that the standard product is very much more focussed on web-based users and Nabble has not fully thought through what is required for those working primarily with mail programs. However, the great benefit of Nabble's applications is that they can be very heavily customised and they should be able to meet your needs.