Can an email group be a chat group for some, and an announce-only group for others?

June 25, 2008 2:11 PM

Is there a way to make an email list announce-only for some recipients and unmoderated for others?

Lots of things in my life involve organizing email lists where I occasionally send announcements to small groups of subscribers (10-75 people, say).

My guess is that some people on these lists would like to be able to reply and chat with other recipients, and some people would like to just get the announcements.

I wonder if there's some way to arrange this? I can see how a service like google groups could offer this. As a group subscriber, you could choose to receive only messages from the moderator, or you could choose to receive all messages sent to the list address.

Do you know if there's a way to do this? A mailing-group service that supports this option?

I don't think having separate "announce" and "chat" lists will do what I want. It seems like too much thinking. I'd like people to just be able to reply to an announcement, and know that their reply will only go to people who want to get it.

posted by ManInSuit to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Why not? If they were just two different lists you could just send your initial email to the two addresses and be done with it. I mean, I'm sure there are services that would provide this for you, but if you're just setting up some standard lists I'd just go with the separation of purposes. Put a header at the bottom of each with a link to switch their subscription over to the other kind.

On a second reading, maybe you're thinking that the mere act of replying would put each person in "conversation" mode? That way lies complication for sure.
posted by rhizome at 3:08 PM on June 25, 2008

I do this with mailman. Just set all new users to moderate (theres a checkbox for it). Unmoderate those who apply. Bam -- announce only list with unmoderated access.
posted by SirStan at 3:49 PM on June 25, 2008

Best answer: Ah -- I actually read your entire question. Mailman allows a "reply to" address. You could make list a's reply to be list d. People can sign up for list a (announce) or list d (discuss).

So..

[e-mail] -- reply-to: [e-mail]
[e-mail] -- reply-to: .. [e-mail]

Now when someone replies to list-a, their email client should address the email to 'list-d'.
posted by SirStan at 3:51 PM on June 25, 2008

Best answer: You can do this with Yahoo Groups. Some people can choose to receive only administrator announcements (ie, the stuff you send) and other people can choose to receive all messages.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:34 PM on June 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks!!

jacquilynne - I looked a bunch at whether this could be done w. google groups (I don't think it can), but, dumbly, didn't look at yahoo groups.

SirStan - Oh! That's smart. I don't know if I have access to mailman anywhere, but I guess that ingenious strategy would work w. any mailing list that lets you specify a reply-to address...
posted by ManInSuit at 9:45 AM on June 26, 2008