E-Mail-Verteilerlisten für Wissenschaft und Forschung

Administrators Frequently Asked Questions

A subscriber does not receive the list messages

To find the cause of the problem, do as follows:

1. Check that the user is really subscribed to the list on the 'Manage subscribers' page.
2. Check the subscriber's message delivery mode; the page about the subscriber is available by clicking on their email address from the members list. When the delivery mode is the 'Digest' mode, it is no rmal that the subscriber does not receive messages as soon as they are sent.
3. Check that the subscriber's email address is not bouncing on the 'Bounces' page. A subscriber email address is considered to be bouncing when messages sent to it generate error logs (called "bounces") . These errors can be temporary (inbox full, mail server unavailable) or permanent (no email account for the user). In any case, the mailing list server automatically manages the deletion of addresses generating too many errors.
4. Try and send a message yourself to the subscriber in order to check if he/she receives it.
5. As a last resort, contact the listmaster, who will check the mail server logs in order to find the cause of the problem.
6. Optimize email deliverability: Activate DMARC protection
   To ensure that emails reach all subscribers in a list reliably, we recommend setting the „Protection modes“ parameter under „DMARC protection“ to „all“ for existing lists.
   This:
   • replaces the from address of the original sender with the list address
   • adds a valid DKIM signature for the @listserv.dfn.de domain.
   Advantages:
   1. Better deliverability
   2. DKIM-signature: Many mail servers only accept emails with a valid DKIM signature. Without this, emails could be rejected or moved to quarantine.
   How to configure DMARC protection:
   
   1. Log in to https://www.listserv.dfn.de
   2. Open the administration page of the relevant list
   3. Under "Edit list configuration " (in the red bar), click on "DKIM/DMARC/ARC".
   4. Under "DMARC protection" -> "Protection modes" select the value "all" and click on "Apply modifications" at the bottom of the page.
   Notes:
   • The Reply-To address remains unchanged. For lists with “From address” as reply-to address, replies are still sent to the original sender.
   • For digitally signed emails, warning messages may appear as the sender and signer data do not match.
   For new lists:
   This setting is the default for newly created lists based on templates. For lists that are created by copying existing lists, the value of the original list is adopted.
   

Privacy compliant configuration of mailing lists

When administering your mailing list, please note that the list is configured in such a way that it complies with the provisions of the German Data Protection Ordinance (DSGVO). Especially for mailing lists that are used as newsletters, it is important that the users agree to the subscription to the mailing list and that no personal data is visible publicly.

Some important points for a privacy compliant mailing list are the following:

A mailing list that is used as a newsletter must be configured so that subscribing is only possible with double opt-in.
This means that the participant actively enters his/her name in the list and the identity is subsequently verified by a confirmation e-mail.
If the participant was already authenticated on the website, the second step is not necessary because the identity has already been confirmed.

The e-mail addresses of the subscribers must not be publicly visible and should only be visible to the owners of the list in the case of newsletters.

The mailing list archives must not be publicly visible.

Unsubscribing from the list must be possible for every user.

A newsletter must contain a footer that contains information on how to leave the lists.
For unsigned e-mails, the template for the footer can be edited on the website of the mailing list, which is then automatically attached to the reply.
In the case of signed e-mails, the text of the footer must, for technical reasons, be attached directly to the text of the e-mail by the user himself before the e-mail is sent.

If the recipients have already consented to the receipt of a newsletter before the DSGVO became effective, this consent continues to exist. You can therefore continue to use the mailing list. It is important that the persons concerned are not unintentionally added to the list.

Assigning send permissions via address lists

On the DFN mailing list server, in addition to the “Who can send messages” parameter, it is also possible to assign send authorizations via the address lists “Blocked senders”, “Moderated senders” and “Allowed senders”.

You can use the “Blocked senders” address list to prevent unwanted senders from sending emails to a mailing list.
You can use the “Moderated senders” address list to ensure that emails from certain senders are always moderated.
The “Allowed senders” address list is useful for mailing lists in which only subscribers have write permission and you can use it to assign dedicated write permission for email addresses that are not subscribers to the mailing list.

To make entries in these address lists as the owner of a mailing list, go to the administration page of the relevant mailing list.
On this page, you will find a vertical selection list “Sender lists” in the horizontal red navigation bar.
In this selection list, you can select “Blocked senders”, “Moderated senders” or “Allowed senders” to access the corresponding address list.

In case that an e-mail address is entered in several address lists, the “Blocked senders” address list has the highest priority, followed by the address list with the “Moderated senders” and the “Allowed senders”.
All 3 address lists have a higher priority than the parameter entered in the mailing list configuration in the “Sending/Receiving settings” under “Who can send messages”.

As the “Allowed senders” and “Moderated senders” functions are currently only available as a plug-in to the Sympa software and are not an official part of the software, these functions are unfortunately not quite ideal in terms of the website and functionality.
For example, after entering users in the “Moderated senders” and “Allowed senders” address lists, you have to go back to the administration page of the list in order to display the horizontal navigation bar again.
In addition, there is no way for senders included in the “Allowed senders” list to receive feedback if their email has been distributed via a list.

Adding a footer to the emails of a mailing list

If you want to add a footer to a mailing list, it is important to know that the Sympa mailing list server only adds the footer to non-signed emails.
The reason for this is that adding a footer changes the original message and the signature would no longer be valid.

To add a footer, click on "List templates" under "Edit list configuration" on the administration page of the list. On this page, click on the word "Edit" to the left of "Message footer".
On the following page, enter the text for the message footer and then click on "Save" at the bottom.

If you want to insert a personalized link to unsubscribe from the list, it can look like this:

To unsubscribe from this list, please click here: [% wwsympa_url %]/auto_signoff/[% listname %]/[% user.escaped_email %].

Attention: You must activate the merge feature for a personalized link. To do this, go to "Send/receive settings" under "Edit list configuration" and select "Enabled (on)" under "Message personalization (merge feature)".

The default setting for adding a footer or header is for the footer to be attached to the email as a mime attachment. In some e-mail clients (e.g. Outlook), the footer is then not displayed at the end of the text but in the e-mail attachment. If you want the footer to be attached directly to the text, go to "Send/Receive settings" under "Edit list configuration" and select "Append to message body (append)" under "Attachment type (footer_type)". However, this may only work for emails in "plain/text" format.