General Lists

General Lists are ideal for departments, groups, and student organizations that need to communicate with a large number of people on a regular basis via e-mail.

Contents

1. Who Can Get a General List?

2. Requesting a General List
3. Managing a List
4. Additional Documentation

Who Can Get a General List?

Faculty, staff, registered student organizations, and official university functions can request a General List. All requests are reviewed to ensure eligibility. If you or your organization would like a recreational list (for example, for discussions concerning hobbies), there are many free, web-based services available.

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Requesting a General List

You can use a simple online form to request a General List. After about 2 to 3 business days, you will receive an e-mail response notifying you that your list has been created. This e-mail will also contain help on getting started with your new list. If the list you requested already exists, you will be notified by e-mail.

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Managing a List

For a full explanation of the following procedures, view the List Owners Manual.

Adding and Deleting Users

Address e-mail to listserv@listserv.vt.edu. Place the following message in the body:

To add someone:
[quiet] add listname email-address Firstname Lastname

To delete someone:
[quiet] del listname email-address

Where:
[quiet] = an optional parameter that instructs LISTSERV to not send a note to this user telling them they have been added or deleted. The quiet command is recommended for removing someone from your list that is reported as an "unknown user" (do not include the square brackets).
listname = the name of your list
email-address = the e-mail address of the person you wish to add or delete
Firstname = the first name of the person being added (required)
Lastname = the last name of the person being added (required)

Send the message. You should shortly receive a confirmation notice from the LISTSERV if the command was successful.

Setting List Options

To modify list options, you must modify a file called the list header. To get your list's header:

1. Address an e-mail message to listserv@listserv.vt.edu
2. Type the following command in the body of the message:
   get [listname] (header
   Where: [listname] = the name of your list (do not include the squarebrackets)
3. Send the message. You will receive two messages from LISTSERV. One message is a confirmation of your request to send the list header. It tells you that the header has been mailed separately. The other message is the actual list header.
4. Open the piece of mail containing the list header. Cut and paste the contents of the list header into a new message addressed to listserv@listserv.vt.edu.
5. Change any of the list header keywords to any valid option that you wish to use. The valid options are listed in the "List Header Keywords" document. You can receive this document by sending a message to listserv@listserv.vt.edu with the words info keywords in the body.
6. Send the message. You will receive confirmation mail from LISTSERV saying that the "list has been successfully stored."

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Additional Documentation

Additional documentation on managing a list is available via e-mail and online.

E-mail

Send an e-mail to listserv@listserv.vt.edu with the following message in the body:

info

If you are new to managing a list, it is highly recommended that you read the following introductory guides by sending the following requests:

info present

info genintro

Online

The complete List Owners Manual is available online. This document details all of the features and functionality of a General List.

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