Distribution list on Beta

Berenburger · 10 Dec 2006, 01:14 AM

See under Options on http://www.fastmail.fm/beta

janusz · 10 Dec 2006, 01:49 AM

For enhanced users only.

MZRascoff · 10 Dec 2006, 01:50 PM

Cool. Great little feature.

rjlov · 11 Dec 2006, 09:10 AM

Hi.

I was just about to post something asking people to take a look at this on /beta, but it seems you've already discovered it!

This is one of the features that we need to do to get the small business / family accounts working.

The idea is that they are distribution lists rather than fully fledged mailing lists.

Membership is managed manually by the list owner, by adding addresses to an address book group.

A distribution list must use a virtual domain, which means this is only available to Enhanced users.

The alias that you create for the distribution list acts like a normal alias, so people can send to this address from outside Fastmail.

I'd like to hear any comments.

Cheers,
Richard.

David · 11 Dec 2006, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by rjlov

A distribution list must use a virtual domain, which means this is only available to Enhanced users.

Until the pesent time features of this nature have been available to all account holders. Enhanced customers have enjoyed extra storage and bandwidth and message sending capabilites (messages per hour etc) + privileges to do with aliases and personalities (address book entries etc) Basic features (to do with capabilities) have always been available to all account holders.

A year or so ago Full account holders were forced to give up the ability to host their own virtual domains and now this is only available to enhanced account customers. Now we see unique features being developed (for that level of customer) that the rest of Fastmail's user base are denied.

As a full account holder I feel that tactics that force me to upgrade when I am only using about 10 % of my current resources (storage and bandwidth wise) are misguided.

As a paid user I am not even allowed to create a proper distribution list! (which is basic function)

frankly I am disappointed.

robmueller · 11 Dec 2006, 12:09 PM

This isn't some great big conspiracy. It's two completely separate things that actually make sense:

1. Lots of people found the whole aliases/virtual domains pricing complex. And given that Full + Own domain + 1 virtual alias = $33.75 and an Enhanced account was $39.95 a year, it seemed a lot easier just to say "If you want your own domain, you need an Enhanced account" with a difference of about $6 per YEAR, eg 50 cents a month. Not to mention that Enhanced now get up to 50 domains, 200 virtual aliases, more space, etc. Anyway, this has all been discussed before and at the time. The reality is that this change has actually been liked by most people, and reduced all the complex support requests that had to do Full + virtual domains, which frees up more resources for other things

2. We had a choice internally about whether to make distribution lists be available in all FM domains, or only in virtual domains, the second being easier to implement. The reality is that distribution lists are mainly designed as a future feature for small business accounts, I don't actually think they're that useful for individual users. With that in mind, we decided that making them only available in a virtual domain was a reasonable action. As it is, we're releasing this feature for people to try now, though because of the virtual domain limitation it means it's for Enhanced accounts only.

Rob

David · 11 Dec 2006, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by robmueller

2. We had a choice internally about whether to make distribution lists be available in all FM domains, or only in virtual domains, the second being easier to implement. The reality is that distribution lists are mainly designed as a future feature for small business accounts, I don't actually think they're that useful for individual users.

Rob: Distribution lists are and have been available to many people for many years. Most people regard these as basic function. I am talking everyone (not just people who have paid accounts and virtual domains)

I feel that you are sacrificing the many (for the sake of a few) A nice Christmas present (for enhanced account holders only) methinks

robmueller · 11 Dec 2006, 01:10 PM

You can still send to a "group" easily on the compose screen, just create the group in your address book, and enter the group nickname on the To/Cc/Bcc line.

You can create a distribution list via aliases already, just add all the addresses you want to the Target side of the list.

All the Distribution Lists screen does is allow you to create a virtual alias where the target is an address book group, rather than just a list of email addresses. Basically there's nothing you couldn't already do, it just makes the work a bit easier.

Rob

David · 11 Dec 2006, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by robmueller
All the Distribution Lists screen does is allow you to create a virtual alias where the target is an address book group, rather than just a list of email addresses. Basically there's nothing you couldn't already do, it just makes the work a bit easier.

Okay Rob: Groups (as they are now) are a little bit (what I would call) clunky......

I had thought this to be a better (more sophisticated) type of group function, for enhanced account holders only.

My apologies for misunderstanding - if you don't have access (to look) you can't investigate further.

hadaso · 11 Dec 2006, 04:15 PM

I guess that this means that anyone in the list that sends to the list alias receives a copy of the sent mail. And I guess this is an implementation of "special targets" for aliases that Rob mentioned in an email and is now mentioned here on the wiki as "group:groupname".

I don't have the need right now for this (I have an idea where I can use it: a small mailing list for a small group of students, that don't generate eonough traffic to persuade them to regularly check their forum. But then an alias with multiple targets would be easier for a static list. A list with more than a few participants might become problematic if some sdiscussion heats up because of hourly quotas).

David · 12 Dec 2006, 05:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by hadaso
I guess that this means that anyone in the list that sends to the list alias receives a copy of the sent mail.

I guess if Rob wants to develop this further and build in some function like 'digest mode' 'archiving' etc, it will substitute as a fully fledged mailing list application

Riz Day · 12 Dec 2006, 06:23 AM

I love the idea but I although I own my domain I don't host it on Fastmail so can't use the service.

Is there any way it could be opened out to include non-hosted domains?

thanks

riz

hadaso · 12 Dec 2006, 03:35 PM

One disadvantage I see is that (if I understand correctly how it works) it relays the incoming email without spam filtering. If a spammer gets hold of the address (and sadly I see some spam coming to addresses that could only have been harvested from people's addressbooks) then I would be relaying the spam to the whole list. A solution can be to use another alias and use Sieve to redirect the email to the "group alias" based on spams-score. Another use is moderated list where another address is used to receive the mail by the moderator, and then the moderator can redirect it to the "group alias" (forwarding can be done to an addressbook group, but not redirection, which now becomes possible using the "group alias".

robmueller · 13 Dec 2006, 04:44 PM

The main use of a distribution list will be for small business/family accounts that want to maintain staff/department mailing lists. It'll be easier to add addresses to an address group in the global address list than editing an alias target each time.

hadaso, you are right, the fact it's before spam scanning is possibly annoying.

Rob

10 Dec 2006, 01:14 AM	#1
Berenburger The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,908	Distribution list on Beta See under Options on http://www.fastmail.fm/beta

10 Dec 2006, 01:49 AM	#2
janusz The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: EU Posts: 4,945	For enhanced users only.

10 Dec 2006, 01:50 PM	#3
MZRascoff Essential Contributor Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: New York Posts: 249	Cool. Great little feature.

11 Dec 2006, 09:10 AM	#4
rjlov Essential Contributor Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 282 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	Hi. I was just about to post something asking people to take a look at this on /beta, but it seems you've already discovered it! This is one of the features that we need to do to get the small business / family accounts working. The idea is that they are distribution lists rather than fully fledged mailing lists. Membership is managed manually by the list owner, by adding addresses to an address book group. A distribution list must use a virtual domain, which means this is only available to Enhanced users. The alias that you create for the distribution list acts like a normal alias, so people can send to this address from outside Fastmail. I'd like to hear any comments. Cheers, Richard.

11 Dec 2006, 12:09 PM	#6
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	This isn't some great big conspiracy. It's two completely separate things that actually make sense: 1. Lots of people found the whole aliases/virtual domains pricing complex. And given that Full + Own domain + 1 virtual alias = $33.75 and an Enhanced account was $39.95 a year, it seemed a lot easier just to say "If you want your own domain, you need an Enhanced account" with a difference of about $6 per YEAR, eg 50 cents a month. Not to mention that Enhanced now get up to 50 domains, 200 virtual aliases, more space, etc. Anyway, this has all been discussed before and at the time. The reality is that this change has actually been liked by most people, and reduced all the complex support requests that had to do Full + virtual domains, which frees up more resources for other things 2. We had a choice internally about whether to make distribution lists be available in all FM domains, or only in virtual domains, the second being easier to implement. The reality is that distribution lists are mainly designed as a future feature for small business accounts, I don't actually think they're that useful for individual users. With that in mind, we decided that making them only available in a virtual domain was a reasonable action. As it is, we're releasing this feature for people to try now, though because of the virtual domain limitation it means it's for Enhanced accounts only. Rob

11 Dec 2006, 01:10 PM	#8
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	You can still send to a "group" easily on the compose screen, just create the group in your address book, and enter the group nickname on the To/Cc/Bcc line. You can create a distribution list via aliases already, just add all the addresses you want to the Target side of the list. All the Distribution Lists screen does is allow you to create a virtual alias where the target is an address book group, rather than just a list of email addresses. Basically there's nothing you couldn't already do, it just makes the work a bit easier. Rob

11 Dec 2006, 04:15 PM	#10
hadaso The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holon, Israel. Posts: 4,856	I guess that this means that anyone in the list that sends to the list alias receives a copy of the sent mail. And I guess this is an implementation of "special targets" for aliases that Rob mentioned in an email and is now mentioned here on the wiki as "group:groupname". I don't have the need right now for this (I have an idea where I can use it: a small mailing list for a small group of students, that don't generate eonough traffic to persuade them to regularly check their forum. But then an alias with multiple targets would be easier for a static list. A list with more than a few participants might become problematic if some sdiscussion heats up because of hourly quotas).

12 Dec 2006, 06:23 AM	#12
Riz Day Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: London, UK Posts: 28	I love the idea but I although I own my domain I don't host it on Fastmail so can't use the service. Is there any way it could be opened out to include non-hosted domains? thanks riz

12 Dec 2006, 03:35 PM	#13
hadaso The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holon, Israel. Posts: 4,856	One disadvantage I see is that (if I understand correctly how it works) it relays the incoming email without spam filtering. If a spammer gets hold of the address (and sadly I see some spam coming to addresses that could only have been harvested from people's addressbooks) then I would be relaying the spam to the whole list. A solution can be to use another alias and use Sieve to redirect the email to the "group alias" based on spams-score. Another use is moderated list where another address is used to receive the mail by the moderator, and then the moderator can redirect it to the "group alias" (forwarding can be done to an addressbook group, but not redirection, which now becomes possible using the "group alias".

13 Dec 2006, 04:44 PM	#14
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	The main use of a distribution list will be for small business/family accounts that want to maintain staff/department mailing lists. It'll be easier to add addresses to an address group in the global address list than editing an alias target each time. hadaso, you are right, the fact it's before spam scanning is possibly annoying. Rob