Guidelines for Pop and List Administrators
for the MetroWest Chess Clufb
These directions are for the Imail Server
 hosted on the AppliedI.net web host provider.
05/04/23

This page is designed to act as a reference page for people who have taken on the task of managing a POP or List associated with this web site.
   
Important things to know when reading this page
When you see username used, it means that you should substitute in your user name.  For example, in   Webmaster@MetroWestChess.org    Webmaster is the user name.
General information
Only the Web Master may create user names.
Creating a user name is the same thing as creating a POP.  
When you log in with a particular user name, you are logging into the POP, which has the same name.
The address of the pop is    username@MetroWestChess.org 
Each Pop/User has a password.  
The Web Master may or may not allow you, the user, to be able to change the password you use to log in with.
   
How to Log in
Obtain a User ID and Password from the Web Master.
Guard the password well and never transmit it anywhere, not even to yourself by email unless it is strongly encrypted.  We recommend PGP for encryption.  If you suspect your password may be compromised, change/obtain a new one.
Normally you should be able to go to     http://mail.MetroWestChess.org:8080/   to log in.   
If for some reason the above URL does not take you to the AppliedI email log in screen, use the general login URL of
     http://mail9.ai-hosting.com:8080
User names are case sensitive.  The Web Master as a general rule will always make user names all lower case.
   
After you Log in
In the upper right hand corner of the screen you will see a pull down menu.  Use this to move between the various areas of your POP to do administration.
The First time you log in you should decide if you wish to always have to log in to view email sent to your address (we recommend you don't) or if you want any email addressed to your user name to be forwarded to some other email account (we recommend you DO).
If you want email to be forwarded, go to the pull down and select Email Forwarding.  
You may enter any number of email addresses to have the mail forwarded to.
To enter more than one email address, you must separate them with a semi-colon which you see here ;
If you are going to forward to more than one person, we recommend that you create a list specifically for the purpose of forwarding to.  This way you may use the features of list administration rather than fooling around with editing the long string of addresses in the forwarding edit box.
      
Tips on setting up and using your lists.
We strongly recommend that you do NOT use email to approve messages.  This sends your password information out on the net in an unsecured manner and could be intercepted.
If you have a lot of emails to add or remove from a list, the Web Master can provide you with the text file in which all the addresses are kept so that you can make your modifications and then send the file back to replace the existing file.  This is a good way to get your list initialized if you already know who is to be on it.  There are rules regarding the formatting of this file and are detailed later in this document.
Select the names of your lists wisely.  See what other lists exist on the domain first by issuing a list command.  (Refer to the  Help command information Page for this operation).  
If you decide to change the name of your list later, there is no way to rename it, you will have to transfer your addresses to a new list and then delete the old.   See the tip on getting the list file from and to the Web Master.
Make the names of your lists easily recognizable as being associated with your POP.
Distinguish the fact that it is a list so users will realize that their responses are going to a list and not just one address. 
We recommend that you use the convention of   _list as a suffix to your list name.
Fill in the Help message for each list with at least the contents of the Help command information Page
Enable the header and trailer messages and fill them in.
Enable the subject line text and use the name of the list so that users can quickly identify, find or sort by subject all the messages from your list.  Remember, they may be on a lot of other lists as well.  This will help them find your information.
Decide the rules you want about who can subscribe, post, see the addresses on your list and set them accordingly.
If you choose a moderated list, only the list owner will be able to send messages out to the list.
Put yourself on your lists so you can keep an eye on what's going on with people submitting messages.
If you create the list with all lower case letters, you can use capital letters in it when you send to it.  It is not known if any other upper/lower case situations work or not.
You should keep a local copy of your greeting, help, header and trailer messages in the event you create a new list or delete an existing list before creating a new one.  This will save you much time and create greater consistency across your lists.
Cautions on Lists
A common mistake is to change something on the main page of the List administration page and then forgetting to scroll down and hit the submit button.
If an email name is somehow entered into the list and does not have angle brackets enclosing it, those addresses will receive email from the list but will not be able to send to the list.  This is a bug and not a feature.  Do not rely on this.  Correct all addresses to have the angle brackets around it.
Hyphens are a special character used by the system for other purposes when used in a name.   DO NOT use a hyphen in any list names.
There are several bugs regarding the format of the files associated with the lists.
The specification of users.lst states that there is to be one email address per line (no delimiters).
The specification of users.txt states that addresses must be enclosed by angle brackets and may have descriptive text on the line.
Both of these are currently flawed in Imail Server version 6. 
The users.lst is the file that is used to display the addresses in the control panel.  See the caution about not having angle brackets explained elsewhere in this section.  You should always have < > surrounding each email.
The users.txt is what should be seen when a user does a List command to see who's on the list.  This does not work.  In fact, the file does not even get updated when a user subscribes even though they are forced to provide some text in order to subscribe.  At this time, you may disregard maintaining this file if you wish.