WF Exodus: Mailman mailing lists

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.

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?

sean

diginized Sympa is similar to Mailman in that it's sort of tightly integrated with the MTA running on the mail server. Managing this type of integration on our platform is one of the hurdles that's holding up Mailman.

Thanks for letting me know more about your use case!

thirdjal

@sean, I'm trying to follow your Dada Mail suggestion and hit my first snag: I don't see an option to create an Apache+PHP+CGI application. I created an Apache+PHP instead, but that doesn't give me access to Apache configs (that I can find).

Using your recommendation of adding a cgi-handler to an .htaccess file worked...sort of. I was able to run the uncompress script, but I fail running the installer Do I need to have a similar file for each and every directory that Dada Mail uses?

`Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator at [no address given] to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.`

sean

thirdjal Apache apps are CGI apps: see HOWTO run CGI scripts on Opalstack - Opalstack Community Forum

You should not need .htaccess at every level.

Your error log is at ~/logs/apps/appname/apache_error.txt, check there for anything related to the internal server error.

brianemwd

I have been discussing with some folks from Opalstack (Klynton via email) about referring Mailman 2 refugees to my services. I was told they would but there is no mention of Mailmanhost.com in this thread. Harmony Lists offers Mailman 2 and 3 hosting. We can also migrate Mailman 2 lists to Mailman 3 for those who wish to upgrade. Even better, we have developed two modern interfaces for Mailman 3: Affinity (admin) and Empathy (forum/archiver).

aa11

Maybe: Groups.io.

↪ https://community.opalstack.com/d/140-mailman-hosting-recommendation/3

ptgolden

This summer, my university will be abandoning its mailing list infrastructure in favor of Microsoft Teams. Before I sign up for one of the external services listed here, @sean, do you think this feature might be available in 3-4 months' time?

sean

ptgolden do you think this feature might be available in 3-4 months' time?

No, I don't think we'll be offering Mailman within 3-4 months.

The overall demand for Mailman (based on the number of requests we've had for it across out entire customer base) has been very low, so there aren't any active plans to proceed with an implementation at this time.

If that changes I'll be sure to post something here.

ptgolden

sean Thank you for the update. And to belatedly answer your question from late November-- Mailman is not a necessity for our use case, any mailing list solution would be great. But we will plan on an external service for the foreseeable future.

sean

dcd I wasn't able to get DaDa mail working myself when I tried last December. I'll give it another go at my next opportunity but I'm not sure when that will be.

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