Majordomo: Mailing lists’ basic use

Instructions for e-mail list administrators can be found here. 

Helpdesk has recently received notifications that messages sent through, for example, Majordomo lists have for some users been mistaken as junk mail.

You can avoid this by adding the list addresses you want in the Safe Recipients list in OWA so that messages received through them are definitely delivered to your Inbox.

Microsoft guide

Subscribing and unsubscribing

Actions related to managing mailing lists, such as subscribing and unsubscribing, are made by sending e-mail commands to the Majordomo list server in majordomo@helsinki.fi.

  • Subscribe with the command
    subscribe list-name jane.doe@helsinki.fi
  • Unsubscribe with the command
    unsubscribe list-name jane.doe@helsinki.fi
  • The administrator (owner) of a list can be contacted at
    list-name-owner@helsinki.fi

Majordomo is very specific with the form of address. The addresses for subscribing and unsubscribing must be identical. 

Please note that in some cases, the list administrator has chosen to use an additional confirmation for registration. In this case, the subscription to the list must be confirmed separately with a reply message. Follow the instructions provided in the message.

Sending commands to the list server

The command is entered in the text section of the e-mail. The list server cannot process the subject field of an e-mail. Majordomo tries to interpret all text in the e-mails, such as your signature, as commands, so please check the e-mail before sending it.

Majordomo cannot read messages in HTML. Check from the e-mail program settings that the message is sent as plain text.

You can send several commands in the same message, one command per row. If the command is longer than one row, you can break it with a backslash (\), e.g.

subscribe reallylong-listname \
even-longer.emailaddress@helsinki.fi

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