Available as a Newsgroup

This setting determines whether this mailing list will be available as a newsgroup.

ListManager is capable of feeding your mailing list as a secure, private newsgroup.

If your users have Netscape or Internet Explorer 4 (or newer) they can access the newsgroup with the URL news://server-name/listname. Alternatively, they can get a list of mailing lists and choose the lists they want to use by going to news://server-name. The "server-name" is the Internet machine name of the machine running ListManager, typically the same machine name users receive email from.

If your users do not have Netscape or Internet Explorer 4 (or newer) they can access your group by defining your ListManager as their default Newsgroup server. For example, Forte "Agent" and Internet Explorer 3 use this method.

Note: ListManager implements all the same security for newsgroups as apply to mailing lists. Thus, if your list is set to "allow visitors", then non-members will be able to read your newsgroup without joining. If your list is set to not allow visitors, only members will be allowed to read.

If a user is using Netscape and they try to access a group which does not allow visitors, Netscape will automatically prompt the user for their name (which is their email address) and their password (if they have one). ListManager will then determine if they are a valid user and if they are allowed to read the group. If they are not, they will not get any further access to the group. If they are, ListManager will determine for which groups this name/password combination is valid and allow them access to these groups. If they try to access a group they are not authenticated for, Netscape will again prompt them for a name and password.

Most News browsers do not ask for a name or password as needed, but rather ask for this information as part of the static configuration of the News browser. Agent and Internet Explorer 3 work this way. If they are using one of these browsers they will need to enter their email address as their Newsgroup name and their list password into their News browser then, ListManager will let them in. One problem with these browsers is that if the user has different passwords on different lists, ListManager will only let the user into the lists for which their name/password combination is valid. Netscape is the only browser we know of which will ask for name/passwords as needed. We recommend that most users use Netscape 4 for accessing ListManager newsgroups, as this is currently the only Newsgroup browser that supports the latest security, multi-server and full text searching features in the NNTP protocol.

ListManager also allows posting via a news browser. Postings via News browsers are treated exactly as if they came in via email. They are subject to all the same moderation, membership and security requirements that normal email is subject to. If a posting via a News browser is rejected, the poster will receive notification of this via an email message.

ListManager also supports Newsgroup full text searching. At current time, only Netscape 4 supports this feature. To use it, right-click on the Newsgroup name, and choose "search". You will be able to build a complex boolean search with multiple terms and NOT terms as well. ListManager will execute your search extremely quickly, thanks to its full text index.

Note: The "ListManager" program includes a demonstration version of the Newsgroups support. Long messages will be truncated and each message viewed through the Newsgroups interface will have a disclaimer footer appended to it. If you decide that you want to have the full ListManager Newsgroups support, you can upgrade to ListManager with Multiview. The upgrade only requires a new serial number -- no reinstallation is necessary.