L Soft – What is LISTSERV?

l soft is a communication technology pioneer known for its pioneering email list management software and hosting services. Thousands of businesses, organizations and communities depend on the company’s solutions for dedicated communication channels, reliable information distribution, interactive knowledge exchange and opt-in email marketing campaigns.

The l soft technical team has decades of experience and is well known for responsive customer support. All positions require fluency in English.

LISTSERV

LISTSERV (pronounced list serve) is a program that allows you to create and manage group email discussion lists. It is often used by organizations to communicate with groups of people, such as employees or students at a university or in a neighborhood. It is also common for politicians and other public figures to use a listserv to stay in touch with their constituents.

LISTSERV is trademarked by the company that makes it, L-Soft International, but the name has become synonymous with all group email discussion lists. At their simplest, a LISTSERV is an email address that lets people send messages to the same email address, and then distribute those messages to everyone on the list. People can discuss any topic on the list, and their comments will be visible to everyone on the list.

There are five basic classifications of people who interact with LISTSERV:

List Owner

The list owner creates the lists and determines what policies and procedures will apply to them. The owner has access to all list administrative functions and can set up archives, archive directories, log files, and a web interface for the lists. The owner can also modify a list’s subscription settings, add new subscribers, and remove old ones.

Subscriber

The subscriber can receive the messages posted to the list, and read the archived versions of the messages that have been sent to the list. A subscriber can also post messages to the list, but the owner must approve those before they are sent.

Editor or Moderator

An editor or moderator is a person who has been designated by the list owner to perform editorial or managerial duties on behalf of the list. The editors or moderators can make decisions about which messages will be allowed to appear on the list and can filter out offensive material. They can also stop other list members from posting inappropriate messages to the list.

Administrator

The administrator of the list server maintains the hardware, software, and connections to the Internet that enable the lists to operate. The administrator also allocates disk space for the lists’ archives and folders, sets up the path and file locations of the list files, and helps owners configure their lists. The administrator oversees the operation of dozens or even hundreds of lists on the site, and he or she is the one who has the most knowledge about the content of each list.

Other Staff

Other staff at the site may be responsible for managing the list server or creating and maintaining the lists. These staff members are not usually considered part of the list administration team, but they can be granted permission to access the admin page by using the PW SET passwd command and providing the list password.

Generally, it is not recommended to hand-edit the production list files (the DBNAMES, DBINDEX, and DBRINDEX files, as well as the DIGEST and SUBJECTS files). Even under unix or Windows, there is always the possibility that the hand-edited file will contain sequences such as control characters or CR-LF combinations that will cause an operational error in the LISTSERV processor.

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