UNOFFICAL · LISTOWNER · Manual
 
cheat-sheet For Commonly Used LISTSERV® ListOwner & Subscriber Commands

These are not all the commands available to Listowners and Subscribers .. just those used most often for a quick reference. There is often more than one way to send a command and get the desired results .. this is our way, tried and tested. If a command works and does no harm to the listserv, don't let anyone tell you it's "wrong"

Listowner/Subscriber Commands Quick Reference Page

All of these commands are to be sent to the listserv address. If you have validate=yes in your list's header you will need to include PW=YourPassword in most if not all commands, BUT it will not hurt if you append any of these Listowner commands with PW=YourPassword.

LISTOWNER SET COMMANDS: Used to Change subscriber's subscription options:

The use of the word "QUIET" preceding a set command makes it so the subscriber and any co-listowners will not receive notification of the subscription change. IE:

Also, you can use wildcards * with all of these commands .. ie:

With that in mind.. follows are a run down on subscriber subscription change commands:

  1. SET LISTNAME REVIEW FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) posts to the list go to the listowner(s)/moderator(s) for approval before they can go through the list
  2. SET LISTNAME NOREVIEW FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) on REVIEW are no longer on REVIEW and their posts go directly to the list
  3. SET LISTNAME NOMAIL FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) get nomail from the list, but do stay subscribed. [They can still post to the list]
  4. SET LISTNAME MAIL FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) on NOMAIL get Mail from the list again.
  5. SET LISTNAME DIGEST FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) get all of a day's posts from the List in one email [also see MIME and NOMIME]
  6. SET LISTNAME NODIGEST FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) get each of a day's posts from the List as individual Emails
  7. SET LISTNAME MIME FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) get DIGESTS in MIME format and will not affect those not set to DIGEST or the archives - if they have an email program able to use MIME, this is super! If they don't, the digests come with a lot of garbage. YOU MUST HAVE EITHER SubjectHDR or FullHDR in your list's header's default options for this to work. ShortHDR strips necessary information from the header.
  8. SET LISTNAME NOMIME FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) get DIGESTS without MIME formatting
  9. SET LISTNAME NOPOST FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) can not send posts to the list, but can still receive posts from the list
  10. SET LISTNAME POST FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) set to NOPOST can send posts to the list
  11. SET LISTNAME CONCEAL FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) names and email addresses can not be seen via the REVIEW LISTNAME command [if list's header has review=owners, then no one but owners can see subscriber's name and email addresses
  12. SET LISTNAME NOCONCEAL FOR person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Set subscription(s) so subscriber(s) set to CONCEAL so that their names and email addresses can be seen via the REVIEW COMMAND [if review=owners no in list's header]
SUBSCRIBER SET COMMANDS: subscriber's change their own subscription options:

  1. SET LISTNAME NOMAIL
  2. SET LISTNAME MAIL
  3. SET LISTNAME DIGEST
  4. SET LISTNAME NODIGEST
  5. SET LISTNAME MIME
  6. SET LISTNAME NOMIME
  7. SET LISTNAME CONCEAL
  8. SET LISTNAME NOCONCEAL
LISTOWNER ADD (Subscribe)/DELETE (unsubscribe) COMMANDS:

You can use wildcards * with the DEL command:

  1. ADD LISTNAME person@that.com FirstName LastName PW=XXXXX
    Notification sent to co-listowners and to new subscriber
  2. QUIET ADD LISTNAME person@that.com FirstName LastName PW=XXXXX
    Notification only sent to listowner sending command
  3. DEL LISTNAME person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Notification sent to co-listowners and to new subscriber
  4. QUIET DEL LISTNAME person@that.com PW=XXXXX
    Notification only sent to listowner sending command
Also, with the new 1.8d version of LISTSERV There is a BRIEF option that can be specified which is good when you don't want a long list of "userid@host has been deleted from list xxxx" messages, one for each user deleted. Use of the BRIEF option tells LISTSERV to return only a count of the users that were deleted.

SUBSCRIBER SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE COMMANDS:

  1. SUB LISTNAME FirstName LastName
  2. SUBSCRIBE LISTNAME FirstName LastName
  3. UNSUB LISTNAME
  4. SIGNOFF LISTNAME
  5. UNSUBSCRIBE LISTNAME

    OR .. good with LISTSERV version 1.8d:

  6. Send an email to: LISTNAME-SIGNOFF-REQUEST@LISTSERV.HOST with nothing in the Subject: line or message body and the List's name replacing "LISTNAME" and the host's domain replacing LISTSERV.HOST
LISTOWNER SEARCH/FIND COMMANDS:

  1. Q LISTNAME WITH NOMAIL FOR *@*
    Will find all subscribers set to NOMAIL
  2. Q LISTNAME WITH MAIL FOR *@*
    Will find all subscribers set to MAIL
  3. Q LISTNAME WITH NOPOST FOR *@*
    Will find all subscribers set to NOPOST
  4. Q LISTNAME WITH POST FOR *@*
    Will find all subscribers set to POST
  5. Q LISTNAME WITH DIGEST FOR *@*
    Will find all subscribers set to DIGEST
  6. Q LISTNAME WITH REVIEW FOR *@*
    Will find all subscribers set to REVIEW
  7. Q LISTNAME WITH CONCEAL FOR *@*
    Will find all subscribers set to CONCEAL
  8. REVIEW LISTNAME
    Will send the list's header plus the names and addresses of all subscribers and a count of the number of people subscribed to the list.
  9. REVIEW LISTNAME (NOH SHORT
    Will send only the number of people subscribed to the list
  10. REVIEW LISTNAME (NOH BY NAME
    Will send only a list of subscribers indexed by their names and the number of people subscribed to the list.
  11. REVIEW LISTNAME (NOH BY COUNTRY
    Will send only a list of subscribers indexed by country and the number of people subscribed to the list.
  12. REVIEW LISTNAME (NOH BY USERID
    Will send only a list of subscribers indexed by their userids and the number of people subscribed to the list.
  13. SCAN LISTNAME text
    searches the list's subscriber information for any incidence of the text in name or email address. ie: Scan ListName anne will find all references to "anne" in the subscriber info, including such things as anneK@that.com, person@anne.com, Anne Johns person@that.com.
SUBSCRIBER SUBCRIPTION/LIST INFORMATION COMMANDS:

  1. QUERY LISTNAME
    Will tell the subscriber what his/her subscription options are for the list
  2. REVIEW LISTNAME
    If the list is not a "Confidential" List this command will send the list's header plus names and email addresses of all non-concealed subscribers unless the list's header has "review=owners". If the list's header has "review=owners" then the command will only send the list's header.
LISTOWNER SUBCRIPTION ADDRESS CHANGE COMMAND - Changes a subscriber's present subscription email address to a new email address:

  1. CHANGE LISTNAME Old@that.com New@this.com
    Changes subscriber's email address and sends notification of the change to active co-listowners and the subscriber's old address and new address.
  2. QUIET CHANGE LISTNAME Old@that.com New@this.com
    Changes subscriber's email address and sends notification Only to the Listowner sending the command.

SUBSCRIBER SUBCRIPTION ADDRESS CHANGE COMMAND - Changes a subscriber's present subscription email address to a new email address:

OTHER OFT USED LISTOWNER COMMANDS:

  1. PW ADD newpassword
    get new personal LISTSERV password [for both listowners and subscribers] - requires confirmation
  2. PW RESET
    to remove your LISTSERV password altogether [for both listowners and subscribers] - requires confirmation
  3. PW CHANGE newpassword PW=oldpassword or PW CHANGE newpassword
    to change your LISTSERV password [for both listowners and subscribers] - without PW=oldpassword, requires confirmation.
  4. GET LISTNAME (HEADER NOLOCK
    "Gets" the list's header without locking the list.
  5. UNLOCK LISTNAME
    Unlocks a list that has been locked.
  6. FREE LISTNAME
    Frees a list that has been held because more than the allowed daily number of posts to a list [set in the header: Daily-Threshold=xx] is exceeded.
  7. THANKS
    Anyone, subscriber, listowner, non-subscriber can send this to a listserv host to see if the server is online and working. If the server is online and working, the sender should get a nice "You're Welcome!" in reply.
  8. LISTS
    Send this to see what lists you own or co-own on a listserv host
  9. LISTS GLOBAL SearchTerm
    find a listserv list. IE: LISTS GLOBAL CHEM will return all lists whose name or topic contains the string "CHEM"

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