Group email question

[sinful1]

Hi all...

I have a question about sending emails to a group and want to know if and how it's possible to do this.

I'm setting up a site and would like to run an email list. Meaning, I would like to have a single email address that when people write to that email address, it automatically distributes that email to all the other people of the group/list.

This will be used on a car club site I am hosting. So, we usually communicate through email lists (the site is currently being handled by AOL). I would like for everyone to be able to email to a single email address and then that email address would distribute that message to all the members of the club.

Is this possible? How would I go about setting this up? Would I use a "forwarding" function??? or how would I accomplish this.

I checked under "email lists" in the control panel, but it just says for me to create one but doesn't say how it works. Plus, when I did try to create one, it says it was created, but I'm past my limit and it really never creates one. Plus, there are no other ones in there, so I don't understand that. But I was wondering if the "forward" function would work??? Is that possible?

I really would appreciate anyone's assistance.

Regards,
Mat / Sinful One RS

[Mr. Popularity]

Yes, you can do this, it's called spamming. lol ok, really, you can go to www.hotscripts.com or www.scriptsearch.com and search for mailing list scripts. for morality reasons, just make sure that the people getting the emails actually subscribed to them, cause one complaint of unsolicited email is frowned upon :)

[sinful1]

Mr. Popularity,

Hey, thanks. I'll have to check those scripts out. However, considering it's a "script", wouldn't that only work for stuff in HTML format or something? or will it actually work off the email client? I used Outlook for my email client, but I'm sure everyone that is in the club doesn't. I've never heard of using a "script" with email. Not saying it's not possible though. :-)

Thanks for the info and I'll ONLY be using this for people consigned to my list. They will have to email me anyway to be put on "the list". I CAN'T STAND spam mail...so I wouldn't do it to someone else. But thanks for the tip and info. :-)

Mat / Sinful One RS

[Mr. Popularity]

depends on what type of script you get

[sinful1]

Mr. Popularity,

Well, I'm a bit confused. I am looking at those two sites that you sent to me for an "email list management" script. Only problem is they all seem to say they are Unix based. I run Windows at home. How am I to use these? Do, I have to try and find one for Windows so I can load it onto my machine? or (since I believe Hostrocket uses Unix) does it have to be loaded on the server that my hosting is using for my site? If that is true, how the heck do I get HostRocket to put this/these programs up on their servers??? Or do I not have to do it that way? Any help would be appreciated and I appreciate your patience. :o)

Mat

[Mr. Popularity]

not at all, you can send email from your home :) You can setup Outlook Express or Outlook 2002 to do it. If you want a mailing list that people signup for on your site, then you'll probably want the unix based management system, and I'm sure those have some type of administration php pages as well, maybe even one that will compile it in an Outlook compatible format. ya gotta search, which is something I hate doing :) Also, again, make no mistake. mailing lists are a good thing, but most people get screwed doing that becasue there are bots out there that actually scan public files on webservers for email addresses. The people who run these bots have absolutely no life, no business ethics, and most likely, if they have to steal email addresses from the web to get leads for something, they work at McDonalds for a living :) haha So just be careful if you plan to keep an email list on the servers, cause, theoretically, it can come back to haunt you. :)

[sinful1]

Thanks...I'll have to try and go see what I can find. I mean, if it's something that I can set up and place in my cgi-bin, then that's cool (looking under Perl applications now). I found one called Mojo Mail and it looks fairly simple. I'm just reading through everything and will see what goes. Seems simple enough where they say I customize the web pages and put them up on my site. I definitely can do that. It's just the backend work I'm worried about. If it's a script or something I can place up in the cgi-bin and make it link to the web pages for people to hook up to the list, then that is what I'm looking for. Basically I want it where someone checks the web page and asks to be added to the list. I get the email and authorize them (set them up) to the list. After that everyone emails to say "fake@fake.com" and then that email from the person authorized on the list goes out to everyone on that list so they can download it with their email client (I use Outlook Express 5, personally). Then if they want to respond, they send their response to "fake@fake.com" and it goes out to everyone on the list again. That's what I'm looking for. Of course the email addresses I just posted are fake, but I'm using them as an example. That's what I'm looking for this "mail manager" to do. I will be careful about putting them on the servers. I just want to make sure I go about this the right way and set it up correctly prior to "releasing" the list to the real world. :o)

Mat / Sinful One RS

[Mr. Popularity]

if you're super-serious about this, and you dont mind spending a little doe, set your email list up on a secure server. You'll have to pay for the certs and pay HR some change to set it up, but there's NO WAY any bots are getting in there and getting your email lists :)

[sinful1]

Mr. Poplularity,

Ok, here is the deal. I got the Mojo Mail in and working. Now that's cool. Now I'm trying to set up their mojo_send.pl file which will make it so that I can make it a group email list, instead of an announce only list.

It's requesting that I make an alias email that will write to a file. How do I do that? In the instructions that I have, it shows the guy's setup for Qmail. Do you know what HostRocket runs? Is it Qmail? Or is it Sendmail? How do I set up an alias email that will write to a file? I guess I need to do this so this email management program works correctly.

I understand some of the information he provides, but then some of it is fuzzy on how I make this "file" and what exactly to put into it and where it gets posted.

Any help with this would be appreciated. I feel I'm sooo close on this, yet I just have to get this one detail straightened out first.

Thanks!
Mat / Sinful One RS

[Mr. Popularity]

its sendmail, which you need to point the scripts to usr/lib/sendmail

Also, is this one of those programs that uses ONE catch-all email box for a bunch of users?? If so, those are a high security risk. give me the URL to this site and I'll read the docs

[sinful1]

I really appreciate this help...

Here is the website that I have been reviewing and downloaded the stuff from:

http://mojo.skazat.com/

Please let me know what you find out. I'm just trying to figure how to finally finish this off so that everything works right. :)

Mat/Sinful One RS

[allnice]

I got to the same point, but dont know if it is possible to set up without root access. Anyone?

-dan