About IMail Discussion Lists

IMail Server can create and maintain list-server (automated) discussion lists. When a list-server discussion list receives mail, it re-sends the mail to all subscribers on the list; re-sent mail can be sent one message at a time, or it can be accumulated for periodic sending (digest mode). List-server discussion lists are used widely on the Internet to share information about a topic.

Mail that is received by a list-server discussion list and re-sent to the list subscribers is "posted". Those who can post to a particular list are determined by the type of list. There are three types of basic lists.

Open lists (to which anyone can post a message; the poster need not even be subscribed to the list)
Subscriber lists (to which only subscribers can post)
Moderated lists (to which only the list owner can post)

In order for a user to get information about lists on a particular host, or to subscribe to lists on a particular host, the user must send a request addressed to imailsrv@sxu.edu. This e-mail address is a built-in IMail alias that lets users:

Get general help about the list-server
Get specific help about a particular list
Subscribe to or unsubscribe from a subscriber list

Once subscribed to a discussion list a user posts a message to the list by addressing the message to the name of the list-server discussion list. For example, to send a message to the "puppies" list on sxu.edu, the user would use:

To puppies@sxu.edu