I seriously need help from smart people.

Post by **Dale** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 11:35 am

I am in mailing list hell.

Let me apologize, first of all, for the recent disruptions in the formerly smooth operation of Subscription Services as well as Newsletter Delivery Systems for Chiff & Fipple. I have spoken to my lawyers who have suggested I use the following language regarding exactly where the responsibility lies for this debacle.

“Dale Wisely has totally screwed this up.”

Let me say, also, that I approved this message.

There is a long and ridiculous story about how this has all happened. Has to do with changes I’ve made in my computer. Efforts I’ve made to respond to problems with yahoogroups, real and imagined. Medications I have taken and, yes, failed to take. Here’s a greatly abbreviated version.

Almost 3 years ago, yahoogroups made some changes in their privacy policy. They aren’t terribly unusual changes, but they were handled rather clumsily and they ended up changing subscriber’s privacy settings, and then providing subscribers with the option to change them back. This irritated some people. So, I began keeping a private list and would send newsletters both to yahoogroups and to newer subscribers, who were mostly on the lists I maintained myself. I developed a system for maintaining those. It worked ok.

However, due to some software problems and other issues regarding my time, I have not been able to find an adequate software/hardware system to allow me to continue to manage the subscriber list as I have in the past.

In addition, my privately-sent list is increasingly being dealt with as SPAM at various levels along the path. Sometimes at my outgoing level and sometimes on your incoming level. When you are sending out 3400 identical emails, it looks like you are really inviting people to, I don’t know, refinance their penises or something.

The long and short is that I have inadvertently reversed myself on this in the last couple of weeks more quickly than your average candidate for public office. Mistakes were made. I feel your pain. You deserve better. I blame myself. I didn’t inhale.

I need help. I am hoping someone will have some suggestions. Here's what I need to make the c&f mass-emailings work.

I need.....

- to be able to import 3400 email addresses into whatever new system I use.

-I need people to be able to unsubscribe by email.

- I need new subscribers to be able to subscribe by email.

- I need for new subscriptions and un-subs to be acknowledged automoatically.

Then, I need....

-Some system for sending out identical email messages (a newsletter) to 3000-4000 subscribers. After years of steady and inexplicable growth, subscriptions have finally stabilized at about 3300-3400 email addresses. At any given time, though, 100-200 of these seem to be invalid.

-ideally, a system that will deal with invalid email addresses and bounces and so on.

-It would be nice if we could figure out away around this tendency for the newsletters to get interpreted as spam.

I have tried several email clients. Outlook 2003, Courier, Eudora. All have encountered various problems.

A lot of people have had suggestions, but they tend to come from people who have hypothetical solutions that are untested or with which they are not even that familiar. And, of course, there's the "get a Mac" thing.

I confess to being nostalgic for yahoogroups. But lots of people refuse to use it as subscribers.

The newsletter I sent out this a.m. went out to about half of the list. I still can't figure out what happened or even who did and didn't get it. Too bad because it was brilliant, even though I didn't talk about myself enough.

If anyone has experience in this area or can help me do the research, I'd be very grateful. And, if someone with a lot of experience and expertise wants to take it over, I'll pass on to you both the salary I've been making AND my eternal gratitude.

Thanks.

Dale

fancypiper · Post by **fancypiper** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 12:50 pm

Does your ISP offer cgi? You could install a perl script mailing list manager on your webspace if so, but they are really cautious about any e-mail nowadays.

FreeScripts

Policies, etc won't change if you serve your mailing list from your own computer, rather than some flaky free service.

I would suggest that you look for your operating system ports of GNU/Linux software and manage it from your on computer.

Source Forge
Fresh Meat

Post by **Dale** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 1:47 pm

fancypiper wrote:Does your ISP offer cgi? You could install a perl script mailing list manager on your webspace if so, but they are really cautious about any e-mail nowadays.

FreeScripts

Policies, etc won't change if you serve your mailing list from your own computer, rather than some flaky free service.

I would suggest that you look for your operating system ports of GNU/Linux software and manage it from your on computer.

Source Forge
Fresh Meat

Thanks. But, see, that's the tough thing about asking for help from smart people. You get it. I don't have any idea what you are talking about. But, I'll try to learn!

Dale

SwtCaro · Post by **SwtCaro** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 1:54 pm

I subscribe to www.flylady.net to help me get my housework done. She uses yahoogroups and has over 100,000 members. She sends out probably 20+ identical emails a day. You can subscribe and unsubscribe by email, etc. I'm not sure if they just have it set up differently than you, or if they have somebody watching over things full time, or what.

Probably not too much help.

SwtCaro

buddhu · Post by **buddhu** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 1:55 pm

Hmm... perhaps PHP rather than Perl CGI, but a purpose-built mail/newsletter manager installed in your webspace is probably a good solution. The most popular setup these days is probably something scripted in PHP and maybe backended by a MySQL database. As you're running phpBB for your forums it looks like you have access to both PHP and MySQL.

I'd suggest checking out the PHP mailing manager scripts available from Hotscripts.com to see if there's anything that suits yr requirements. Go to http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_a ... index.html
and take a look.

buddhu · Post by **buddhu** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 2:00 pm

Ah, Dale... I just saw yr reply to fancypiper. I dare say my post made little sense too. Sorry about that.

Learning is probably a good idea. Provided you know how to FTP and set CHMOD permissions you could probably find a script that feature an easy installation process. If you find something that sounds like it will fit your needs I'm sure we'll all be happy to offer what advice and assistance we can to help get things up and running.

ErikT · Post by **ErikT** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 2:00 pm

Hi Dale,

First, I thought that the Oscar Edition of the C&F newsletter was particularly hilarious. I actually laughed out loud - I didn't just type LOL and not really mean it.

Second, here is the hosting service that I use. http://www.olm.com/ . They have a mailing list system set up that you can manage. It is broadcast from your own e-mail service. I have my domains parked there and have had very pleasant dealings with them. I don't use the e-mail system much, so I can't tell you whether it does everything that you described, but I'm sure that they would be more than happy to help you. They have very good customer service.

Erik

p.s. Are you ignoring me? Do you want this poetry book, or what?

fancypiper · Post by **fancypiper** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 2:30 pm

buddhu wrote:Hmm... perhaps PHP rather than Perl CGI

<snip>

I'd suggest checking out the PHP mailing manager scripts available from Hotscripts.com to see if there's anything that suits yr requirements. Go to http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_a ... index.html
and take a look.

Yes, php is better than perl, I am showing my age.

My setting up our band's website and learning how *nix servers worked led me to abandon Windows and actually learn a little of what's "under the hood" of my computer. As a result, I tossed out some junk winmodem and turned off built in mobo stuff and got some good hardware (sound card, especially as I am a music nut) and set it up in Linux. Community support is great in Linux, too.

As I am sort of out in the sticks and there is little or no computer support locally, I have become the local "shade tree mechanic" but I am slowly forgetting how to do stuff in Windows. I have yet to convert anybody to Linux, though, even new computer users.

Linux is logical, with Windows, I wonder what's behind the green curtain that I am supposed to pay absolutely no attention to..

I will never understand the dedicated Windows user/advocate after being on the internet long enough to catch a 'dose worm/virus.

buddhu · Post by **buddhu** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 2:48 pm

And I'm showing my laziness by admitting to being a Windows user!

Linux would be my platform of choice - I used to run it on my old HP desktop machine. Sadly, when I got the Sony laptop a couple of years ago I couldn't find a distro that didn't laugh derisively at this Intel graphics chipset

If Dale is using ISP webspace then there is a good chance that it's a nice solid Linux/Apache server

fancypiper · Post by **fancypiper** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 2:57 pm

buddhu wrote: Linux would be my platform of choice - I used to run it on my old HP desktop machine. Sadly, when I got the Sony laptop a couple of years ago I couldn't find a distro that didn't laugh derisively at this Intel graphics chipset

If you had researched with Linux in mind, the consensus is the IBM laptop is the best choice for easiest Linux and Windows compatibility.

There have been tremendous strides (2.6 kernel) and more video drivers relased since you tried last, perhaps you should try again. Stick a KNOPPIX Linux Live CD in and boot with it and see what happens.

# Cheap CDs
AlmostFreeLinux
Discount Linux CDs
Linux Central
Cheapbytes
TuxCDs
ComputerHelperGuy
CheapISO
Os Heaven

Hiro Ringo · Post by **Hiro Ringo** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 7:37 pm

buddhu wrote:Yes, php is better than perl, I am showing my age.

Better than perl?!

Now I starts to understand what the heck is php and my age....

fancypiper · Post by **fancypiper** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 8:02 pm

You aren't talking about using oysters for perl, are you?

php, python, bash, perl

So many scripting languages to learn, so few brain cells

or should I worry about things this way:

So many tunes, so few brain cells left

Old age poem
I can stand my arthritis
My dentures fit me fine
I like my bi-focals
But, I sure miss my mind!

mrosenlof · Post by **mrosenlof** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 8:10 pm

Majordomo has been managing mailing lists for a very long time.

I've never managed one, but I've used many. Here's where to find a lot of info

http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/

You'll probably need cooperation or permission from your ISP to use this system. But that's just a guess on my part.

Azalin · Post by **Azalin** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 3:40 pm

Dale,

What type of emails are you sending for your newsletter? Text, HTML, attachments? I few days ago I did a newsletter system for a client of mine, using PHP/MySQL... It's really peace of cake, you need one page to "add" an email to the newsletter, and one link that will unsubscribe the given email. The page you would be using would have a subject/body/from section, you'd copy/paste the HTML code in the body field, and press "send". That's about it.

Anyway, all you need is your webserver to have MySQL and PHP, FTP access. The server also has to have a valid mail server attached to it, so you'd be using the host's mail server. If you have access to all of this, I wouldnt mind uploading the scripts, we could test for a bit, see if it can work, and use it if it does. I'd leave the HTML stuff to you, I would take care of the coding (pretty much cope paste what I did already).

First thing not to do to be "blocked" for spam is to send a message to MANY different addresses in one single operation. My script starts a new operation (opens a new socket) for every mail sent. It takes more time that way, but is less risky to get caught by anti-spam software.

Post by **Dale** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 7:11 am

Azalin wrote:Dale,

What type of emails are you sending for your newsletter? Text, HTML, attachments? I few days ago I did a newsletter system for a client of mine, using PHP/MySQL... It's really peace of cake, you need one page to "add" an email to the newsletter, and one link that will unsubscribe the given email. The page you would be using would have a subject/body/from section, you'd copy/paste the HTML code in the body field, and press "send". That's about it.

Anyway, all you need is your webserver to have MySQL and PHP, FTP access. The server also has to have a valid mail server attached to it, so you'd be using the host's mail server. If you have access to all of this, I wouldnt mind uploading the scripts, we could test for a bit, see if it can work, and use it if it does. I'd leave the HTML stuff to you, I would take care of the coding (pretty much cope paste what I did already).

First thing not to do to be "blocked" for spam is to send a message to MANY different addresses in one single operation. My script starts a new operation (opens a new socket) for every mail sent. It takes more time that way, but is less risky to get caught by anti-spam software.

Thanks. Very helpful. I'm sure my server (pair.com) uses MySQL and PHP. WOuld appreciate your help.