WF Exodus: Mailman mailing lists

sean

MrMartian I've tried doing a user install of Mailman a few times here and I don't think it's possible due to the degree to which Mailman integrates with the MTA on the mail server. We're still looking at how best to host Mailman on our platform and hope to have a managed setup in place soon.

You'll definitely need to get your Mailman archives from WF if you want them to be available here once Mailman is avaiilable. You'll also need them to export your Mailman config and your subscriber list.

Regarding the rolling 24-hour mail limit, we can raise that for you upon request, just email support and we'll get to it right away.

MrMartian

Great! Any info on ETAs for mailing lists (and not too close to doomsday) would help us WebFaction refugees a lot... I personally would be OK with any type of mailing list, Mailman is just what I know.

johns

MrMartian As soon as we can. Hopefully the next few weeks. I personally use PHPList which I host here but it is for a different kind of mailing list. Mailman is the best option for that kind of mailing list, and we plan on adding it as soon as we can.

MrMartian

johns I've looked at PHPList and I think it's not what I need: I don't have a discussion list, just a mailinglist; but all the posts are submitted by the members (and approved/rejected unaltered, by mods). OK, I'll hold my breath!

thirdjal

+1 here from a WebFaction customer who relies on the mailing lists feature and is slightly panicked about a surprise December 9 time bomb.

sean

Hey gang, we do want to provide Mailman for you and will work to make it available before WF goes dark but at this point we can't provide any ETA.

If your need is urgent/critical then please check out this 3rd-party recommendation: https://community.opalstack.com/d/140-mailman-hosting-recommendation

I've not looked at their service myself, and we reaaaaaallly don't want you to have to look to other providers to get what you had at WF - but we also don't want you to be left without Mailman in the interim.

Hope it helps some of you 🙂

elena

We also need Mailman support. When you provide Mailman, will it be included in the service as it was in Webfaction or will we have to pay for it as an extra service?

Thanks :-)

sean

elena We hope to be able to include it as a standard feature of our service.

Really sorry that we have no ETA yet but we'll let you all know when we do.

davidlh

sean Hi, I'm also looking forward to Mailman support.

Signed up with OS yesterday and have already migrated my first site (and email) from WF. Very happy so far!

thirdjal

sean Do you have any updates on when mailing lists might be available? I'm most of the way towards migrating my sites off of WebFaction to Opalstack, but email is going to be a huge blocker for me.

giampiero

Hi everybody, hi Sean. I open 5 accounts with OS now in order to transfer all my site from WF. I have to say it was very easy and so far I didn't have any issue. Bravi! O yeah, of course, Mailman would be terrific! Thank You!

sean

thirdjal no ETA yet, sorry.

elena

Hello, any news about Mailman? Do you thing we will have this done by December 8th or do you recommend looking for an mailman hosting service? Thank you very much for your help.

sean

I'm still holding on to hope for Mailman here but the chances to have it here by Dec 8 are starting to look slim.

Everyone on this thread: is it necessarily Mailman that you need or would you be happy with some other mailing list solution?

elena

I need Mailman, and I need to export an import settings... If it is not going to be available by Dec 8, then I think I will have to go to htps://www.mailmanlists.net/en

Thanks

giampiero

Please, please let us have it. On the other hand, some other solution would be fine for me.

Mikko

I too need to migrate my WebFaction mailing lists somewhere before Dec 8. Any mailing list solution would be fine for me. =)

MrMartian

I've got another account on a webhost with have allowance (bandwidth, domain and storage), which also has MailMan; so I'm in the luxury position that I can wait while WF-deadline passes and temporarily host my mailing list there. Conversely I'd love to stick with MailMan as it works for me.

My mailing list needs are for many users (a few hundreds) to submit messages that get mailed after approval --- so not "Mailchimp-like" messages-from-management-only.

dcd

We run ~ 6 maillists, all need something similar in functionality to Mailman:

posts from subscribers and non-subscibers (community discussion)
user-facing UI for subscribing / managing own subscription
subscription and message moderation (and option for unmoderated)
optional digest format (not a deal breaker)

Have migrated 4 clients from WF to OS -- all went very smoothly thanks to amazing support staff, API, and migration scripts! Mailman lists are the last thing still lingering at WF... totally understand if you can't this going in time, but hope you'll support it eventually. In the meantime... 5 days till lights off !! I better get cracking to find another host for our lists.

sean

Hi all, sorry there hasn't been more movement on this.

The alternative that I was/am considering is DaDa Mail: https://dadamailproject.com

The website promotes it as a marketing newsletter tool but it's also capable of running mailing lists: https://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-11_12_2/features-public_and_private_lists.pod.html

I've not had time to test it myself but I do recall a couple of people at WebFaction were using it, so it should run here without too much undue fuss.

If you'd like to try a self-install:

Create a MariaDB or PostgreSQL database and user and make a note of the db name and password.
Create a mail user and make a note of the name and password.
Create and Apache+PHP-CGI app and attach it to a site.
Follow the instructions at https://dadamailproject.com/support/documentation-11_12_2/install_dada_mail.pod.html using your app directory as the installation location.

If the CGI functionality doesn't seem to work then edit the app's .htaccess to include: AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

If you need to provide mail server info see: https://help.opalstack.com/article/103/email-client-configuration

Really sorry again that we haven't made more progress on this.

diginized

sean
Thanks for this suggestion. I'll probably give that a try today and see how it works if you suggest it's going to be one of the more compatible options with OpalStack.

To answer your earlier question, in my case a simple listserv-like functionality will do the trick. I also discovered https://www.sympa.org/ and thought maybe that would work, but I admit that mailing list functionality is something I don't know a lot about.

My use case: neighborhood/community that needs an easy way to send notices/announcements to each other, where many of the users are not very tech savvy and need a very simple way to interact (ie. email). infrequent and usually brief messages or conversations like "trash service will be delayed this week" or "does anyone know who is in my parking space" or "would anyone like to do a neighborhood bonfire on Friday?"

Thanks!

dcd

sean Anyone had any luck with Dada Mail: https://dadamailproject.com ?
I have 7 mailman lists still running back on Webfaction server that are going to turn into pumpkins shortly. Was hoping for a solution, but none seems forthcoming :-(
These lists are for small non-profit community organizations so even a $4/month/list charge puts the tech. out of budget for them. Hoping someone can share experience running DaDa mail on Opalstack as an alternative?