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Managing a Listserve

Electronic discussion lists enable groups of people to have ongoing discussions on a common topic via email. Members of a list will receive email messages from other members and may also send contributions to the list. Some lists generate lots of messages while others are not as busy. Some are moderated, where the messages are reviewed for relevance to the list topic, and some are not. Some can be archived on the web, while others are not.

return to topSetting up your Listserve

To set up a listserve of your own:

  1. Go to the UWEC Listserve Request Form

  2. Enter the desired listserve name in the Listserve Name text box

  3. Students: You need a faculty advisor's approval to create a list.
    Enter your advisors email name in the Faculty advisor email name text box

  4. Select the appropriate Moderation and Archiving options

  5. In the Purpose of Listserve text box, enter a brief description of the purpose of the dialog box

  6. Click PROCESS REQUEST
    Your listserve will be created by 10am the next business day.
    You will receive confirmation that your listserve has been created and information on managing your listserve.

return to topListserve Controls

In order to have more control of your listserve, you may want to moderate the listserve. You can control who can send messages to the listserve or who joins and leaves the listserve. You can choose if you would like anyone to be able to submit to the listserve, or if you would like only subscribed members to be able to submit to the listserve. If you decide to control the members, you will receive the requests for subscription and will have to send messages to the list to subscribe or unsubscribe each members.

Setting your listserve to be moderated

You can set your listserve to be moderated when you are creating your listserve. To do this:

  1. Go to the UWEC Listserve Request Form

  2. If you want only members to be able to submit to the listserve, by Do you want only listserve members sending email to the listserve?, select Yes

  3. If you want to monitor the members, by Do you want to control who joins and leaves your listserve?, select Yes

  4. Complete the request form as appropriate

Subscribing and Unsubscribing Members

Once you set up your listserve, people may begin to send you emails requesting to be subscribed. To subscribe a member to a listserve called, for example, "news@listserve.uwec.edu":

  1. Address an email to: news-request@listserve.uwec.edu

  2. In the body of the message, include: SUBSCRIBE < listname > username@uwec.edu
    The person will now be a member of the list.

If a member requests to be unsubscribed or you need to remove a member from the list for any reason:

  1. Address an email to: news-request@listserve.uwec.edu

  2. In the body of the message, include: UNSUBSCRIBE < listname > username@uwec.edu
    The person will no longer be a member of the list. 

Changing the Moderation Settings

You may decide after using your listserve for some time that you want to change the moderation settings. To change the moderation settings:

  1. Address an email to: postmaster@uwec.edu

  2. In the body of the message, include the listserve that you would like to change the settings for, and the setting you would like changed.

return to topArchiving Messages to the Web

In order for the readers to easily access messages from the listserve, you may want to archive the messages on the web. This way, the subscribers will not have to keep all the old messages and will still be able to access the messages as needed. This will also organize the messages by thread, which is helpful when searching for messages on a certain topic.

  1. Go to the UWEC Listserve Request Form

  2. By Do you want all messages sent to your listserve archived to web, select Yes

  3. Complete the request form as appropriate
    After the first message is sent to the listserve, the archive will appear at http://listserve.uwec.edu/<listname>.

Changing the Archiving Settings

You may decide after using your listserve for some time that you would like to change the archiving settings. To change the archiving settings:

  1. Address an email to: postmaster@uwec.edu

  2. In the body of the message, include the listserve that you would like to change the settings for, and the setting you would like changed.

return to topCanceling your Listserve

When your use for the listserve has ended, you may want to cancel the listserve. To cancel your listserve:

  1. Address an email to: postmaster@uwec.edu

  2. In the body of the message, tell the postmaster that you would like to delete your listserve, and include the name of the listserve

return to topViewing your Subscribers

In some cases, you may want to see who is subscribed to your list. In order to see who is on your list:

  1. Address an email to: <listname>-request@listserve.uwec.edu

  2. In the body of the email, enter REVIEW

  3. A list of subscribers to the listserve will be sent to you

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