Using the Mailing Lists
Mailing lists were one of the first many-to-many communication tools available on the internet and are still very popular today. They allow a group of people (the list members) to communicate by sending emails to the list address. Each email that arrives is distributed to all the list members (also known as subscribers) and then typically archived to keep a record of discussions that take place.
Community projects currently use the GNU Mailing List Manager application Mailman to manage their mailing lists.
From the main page you can see all of the lists currently available. Clicking on a list name takes you to its details page where you can view the archived emails and subscribe or unsubscribe. Once subscribed you can also change your subscription options. To read the page in a different language simply make a selection from the drop-down box in the right-hand corner and and press the 'View this page in' button.
Welcome email
Mailing lists can be configured to send a generic welcome email to new subscribers. This contains the details of the list they've subscribed to, their password and a set of URLs they can use to manage their subscription. A custom welcome message can also be added if necessary to explain how the list is configured or maybe just to give a seasonal greeting!
Goodbye email
A generic goodbye email can also be sent to members who unsubscribe. A custom goodbye message can be added if necessary to thank the member for their participation or wish them well for the future.
Password reminders
When you subscribe to a mailing list you are requested to either enter a password or have one generated for you. This is done to prevent other people from accessing your subscription without your permission. Whilst you are subscribed your password will be emailed to you once a month as a reminder.
Multiple language support
When you subscribe to a mailing list you can choose which language you would like to receive automatically generated messages in. Unfortunately this translation capability does not extend to messages written by list members. The convention is to write messages in English.
Daily Batch Delivery
Instead of receiving a copy of each email sent to the mailing list, you can choose to receive one email per day containing all messages sent over the past 24 hours. This can help to prevent you becoming overloaded with email when the list activity is high.
Mailing lists
Any community project can apply to have some or all of the following lists setup:
| Description | List address |
|---|---|
| Announcements | <projectName>-announce@lists.jboss.org |
| SVN/CVS Commits | <projectName>-commits@lists.jboss.org |
| Issue Tracking | <projectName>-issues@lists.jboss.org |
| Developer Discussions | <projectName>-dev@lists.jboss.org |
| User Discussions | <projectName>-users@lists.jboss.org |
For example the JBoss Cache project has:
jbosscache-announce@lists.jboss.org
jbosscache-commits@lists.jboss.org
jbosscache-issues@lists.jboss.org
jbosscache-dev@lists.jboss.org
jbosscache-users@lists.jboss.org
If you need to set up lists for a project then please contact us with the following information:
- The project name.
- The lists that you need from the above table.
- The administrators for each list. Usually the project lead will be an administrator.
For historical reasons there are 6 lists that don't follow the above pattern:
| Description | List address |
|---|---|
| Developer Forums discussion archive | jboss-dev-forums@lists.jboss.org |
| JBoss SVN Commits | jboss-svn-commits@lists.jboss.org |
| JBoss CVS Commits | jboss-cvs-commits@lists.jboss.org |
| JBoss JIRA notifications | jboss-jira@lists.jboss.org |
| JBoss development list | jboss-development@lists.jboss.org |
| JBoss user list | jboss-user@lists.jboss.org |
These were originally used for the JBoss AS project before any of the other projects started.
List administrators
Each mailing list has one or more administrators. These people can add and remove members from the list and choose to accept or reject subscription requests if they wish. List administrators can also perform moderation of the lists if necessary by holding onto postings before approving or rejecting them. Usually list members can post directly to the list without prior approval but postings from non-members are moderated. This helps to prevent spam from people who find out the list address.
List members
In order to protect the privacy of members and to prevent them from being targeted for spam, only the Site Administrators and List Administrators can view the member lists.