The Command Address: Command@

Email Address: command@

Examples: purge@, unhold@, help@, info@

Purpose: An alternate address for sending ListManager commands that do not apply to a particular list. The commands purge, unhold, help, info, which are available in this way.

For example, sending mail to purge@clio.lyris.net will unsubscribe you from any mailing lists you are on at the ListManager server running at clio.lyris.net.

Unsubscribe and Purge

The unsubscribe and purge command addresses are slightly more sophisticated than the other commands.

The unsubscribe and purge addresses are customized for every recipient.

By default, ListManager uses the mail merge tag %%email.unsub%% in the default footer defined for a new mailing list. This mail merge tag gets rewritten for each recipient, so that they see an unsubscribe address customized for them.

For example, if a member belongs to a list called "jazztalk" and happens to be member #1234, their unsubscribe address might look like this: unsubscribe-jazztalk-1234Y@clio.lyris.net

The -1234Y portion of the unsubscribe address uniquely identifies the recipient, so that when they send email to it, ListManager will know exactly who is unsubscribing, no matter what email address they sent the unsubscribe request from.

This feature is known as "failsafe unsubscribing" because it always works no matter what email address the original message was sent from. This is a great advantage that ListManager has over other list managers, as most list managers have great problems unsubscribing people when they have changed their email address or a message is forwarded to a new email address: they cannot determine what their original subscriber address was.

The "Y" at the end of "1234" is a "check character" that ListManager inserts, to ensure that the "1234" number was typed correctly. This prevents people from accidentally mistyping their unsubscribe address, and thus unsubscribing the wrong person. For example, if someone mistyped their address as "unsubscribe-jazztalk-12344Y@clio.lyris.net" (by adding an extra 4), ListManager will detect that the number is not typed correctly, and ignore the "12344" number, instead unsubscribing the person who wrote the message, as determined by the From: line.