Mailman

Mailman is a powerful, web-based mailing list management platform. It enables list owners to create and manage email distribution lists, discussion groups, and announcement lists through a web-based interface.

While Outlook can send messages to groups, Mailman provides centralized list administration, member management, moderation tools, and archive capabilities that are specifically designed for mailing list communications.

• Centralized Management: Mailman provides a single point of control for list administrators. You can easily add or remove members, moderate messages, and configure list settings through a web interface, which is far more efficient than managing a long list of email addresses in your personal address book.
• Member Self-Service: With Mailman, members can subscribe or unsubscribe themselves from lists, update their subscription options, and view message archives—all without needing to contact the list owner. This greatly reduces the administrative burden on list managers.
• Enhanced Features: Mailman includes features specifically designed for mailing lists, such as:
  • Spam and Virus Filtering: Built-in tools help protect your list from unwanted spam and malicious content.
  • Message Archiving: Lists can be configured to maintain message archives. Access to archives depends on the list's settings and permissions. Public archives should not be used for university data. Mailman is approved only for S1 data.
  • Message Moderation: List owners can review messages before they are sent to the entire list, ensuring that conversations remain on-topic and respectful.
  • Digest Mode: Members can choose to receive a single email containing a compilation of all messages sent to the list over a specific period, reducing inbox clutter.
  • List Moderation: Lists can be configured with moderation and posting controls that help reduce unwanted messages.
• Scalability: Mailman is built to handle lists of any size, from a small team to thousands of subscribers. Outlook is not designed to manage and send emails to such a large number of recipients, which can lead to performance issues and potential delivery failures.
• Login: Users sign in to Mailman using the Microsoft Login option and their Ohio State lastname.# account. Shared administrator and moderator accounts are NOT supported; each administrator or moderator must be added individually.