How to request a new email list

Before requesting a new list, think through how the proposed topics of discussion relate to the existing lists and the tradeoffs of fragmenting the discussion community on too many lists vs. the advantages of focused lists to concentrate discussion towards progress and archives towards usefulness.

Requesting a New List

1. Review the naming conventions below and select a name
2. Select answers to the Questions for new lists below
3. Create Jira case in the Jasig Infrastructure and Services project with Email list as the component. Put the answers to the questions in the body of the Jira issue. If you don't have a Jira account you can simply email your request to email-admin@jasig.org.
4. You can track progress of your list request in Jira. You can also follow up with email-admin@jasig.org. It may take a few days to get it created. The University of Wisconsin-Madison hosts the lists and Jim Helwig typically handles the requests. Contact him if you get really desperate.
5. Once this list is created, you should be notified by email.
6. Before announcing the list, you need to test it.
   1. Make sure it is documented correctly under Jasig Mailing Lists
   2. Test subscribing by email
   3. Test subscribing by web
   4. Test unsubscribing
   5. Test setting other preferences (password, subscription type)
   6. Send a message to the list and make sure it gets delivered. (The *@lists.jasig.org is simply an alias to the actual *@lists.wisc.edu list - but this should be relatively invisible to end users).
   7. Make sure the email footers are correct for a plain text message
   8. Make sure the email footers are correct for an HTML message
   9. Make sure the archives are accessible (public or members only, as the case may be)
   10. Make sure the RSS feed shows up on the wiki page, if appropriate.
7. Now you can announce your list.

(Email administrators responsible for actually creating/administering the lists can find detailed instructions at /wiki/spaces/JCH/pages/103735584.)

Naming Conventions

By convention, all lists will have an alias under lists.jasig.org. Notification lists that are private (i.e., have restricted membership and non-public archives) but allow non-members to post (e.g., board, infrastructure) should also have a public alias under jasig.org.

While the actual list implementation (under the lists.wisc.edu domain and never actually referenced by users) must be prefixed with "jasig-", aliases we use should only include the prefix if it is desirable to stress the scope of the list (e.g., jasig-discuss@lists.wisc.edu).

List Ownership

Each list has an owner. The owner typically has additional administrative privileges. For a general purpose discussion list (e.g., uportal-users), their responsibilities might include:

• Removing belligerent accounts

For lists with restricted membership (e.g., security) the responsibilities include:

• Adding/removing members

For announcement lists (e.g., jasig-announce) the responsibilities include:

• Approving messages

For notification lists that accept public input (e.g., board, infrastructure) the responsibilities include:

• Making sure submissions get an appropriate response (note that this does not necessarily require that the owner craft the message or send the message, just that they pick up the ball if no one else on the list does)
• Crafting 'official' messages from the list (unless they delegate this to someone else)

Questions for new lists:

1. What is the name of the list?
2. What is the description of the list?
3. Who is the list owner and administrator(s)?
4. Can subscribe requests be made via email? (generally yes)
5. Do subscription requests require approval? (generally no)
6. Who can post (admin, members, anyone)?
7. Is it moderated? (generally no)
8. Do you want messages archived? How long? (generally yes, forever)
9. Are the archives publicly accessible? (generally yes)
10. Should replies be sent to the list by default? (generally yes)
11. Should the list name be pre-pended to the subject? (generally yes)
12. Is there an initial list of members to pre-populate the list with?