Mailing list software

June 15, 2005 3:07 PM

Can you recommend good mailing list management software that has a web front end and integrates with Outlook?

I found MailList King through Google and it looks like it would meet my needs, but I'm looking for either people's experience with MailList King or suggestions for alternatives.

posted by kirkaracha to computers & internet (3 comments total)

Mailman seems to be the de facto standard these days. Great web front end. Much, much better than any other list processor I've dealt with. I'm not sure what "integrates with Outlook" means, but it should work with Outlook as well as any other mailer.
posted by grouse at 3:30 PM on June 15, 2005

I agree mailman is the standard, but it's got some problems. It's end-user interface is not consumer friendly. The only support discussion forum is aimed at sys-admins not list-admins (I am the latter, not the former).

The implementation at my ISP seems problematic - I don't know if it's them or mailman, but for example, the moderate-by-replying-to-the-message and inserting a header or whatever does not work.

It does automated bounce processing, but it's unclear how it works - the instructions are complex, and you can't tell what's going on with any subscribers until mailman decides to act and spit stuff back to you. So if you've configured it to be too forgiving, you won't know.

The admin message contain the details of who has subbed/unsubbed in the BODY not in the subject (like majordomo) so going through a bunch of email messages for historical purposes is more burdensome.

It may be our implementation, but I haven't be able to have a proper demimed message go out since switching from majordomo over a year ago.

Again, I'm not a sysadmin so much of this may be possible and beyond me. I don't know.
posted by stevil at 4:49 AM on June 16, 2005

This is how MailKing integrates with Outlook. There's a web-based form to subscribe and unsubscribe, but the list management is in Outlook. This is more important than having the list manager be web-based. Maybe it's a silly requirement but it's what's wanted.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:25 AM on June 16, 2005