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lists.waldo.net provides free mailing lists for Charlottesville-area
non-profits, community groups and government agencies. Both announcement
and discussion lists are available.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What does having a mailing list mean? What do I get?
A. You'll be provided with a web-based interface where you can add and delete
list users, accept or reject messages to the group, send messages, etc. See
Mailman's feature list for more
information. You will be expected to perform all tasks to maintain and interact
with your list; lists.waldo.net merely hosts the list and takes care of the
background technical requirements. For information on this, read the
GNU
Mailman List Management Guide and the
Quick
Reference Card.
Q. Can my list be private?
A. It's up to you whether you want to accept particular individuals to your list, or if
you want to let anybody subscribe that wants to. It is strongly encouraged that
all mail be archived on this site to be publicly-readable by anybody,
but we have and will make exceptions for organizations where privacy is important (ie,
support groups.)
Q. Can I set up a mailing list on lists.waldo.net?
A. To set up a mailing list, you must meet the following criteria:
- Located in Charlottesville or the surrounding counties.
- One of these:
- 501(c)x organization
- State, county, or city government agency
- Club or interest group
That's it.
Q. I'm not a non-profit or any of those other things. Can I
set up a list?
A. No. Lists are not available for groups of friends, individuals,
corporations, or announcements of block parties and the like. If
you're still not sure if you can set up a list,
ask.
Q. What's the catch?
A. No catch. There are no ads, no fees, no nothing.
Q. I don't understand. How does this happen?
A. Through the magic of free, open-source software. lists.waldo.net
is hosted on a Dell Dimension P100t. That's a 100MHz Pentium with
a whopping 32MB of RAM and 1.9GB of storage. The machine runs
the Linux operating system,
Sendmail as the MTA, the
Apache web server, and the
Mailman mailing list manager. As a result, this server cost $0 to set up and $0/month to run.
But, hey, if you happen to be a large ISP, or have some nicer
hardware to spare, give a holler. (Our thanks to
Pann McCuaig for donating
one of the hard drives, a 1.4 gigger, in the process of repairing an
existing broken drive.)
Q. How do I sign up?
A. Just fill out the form.
Q. I have a domain name. Can I have a mailing list that uses my domain?
A. No, you can only have it run @lists.waldo.net.
Send questions or comments to mailman-owner@lists.waldo.net.