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<title>2.1.1 General list personality</title>
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<h3><a name="SECTION002211000000000000000">
2.1.1 General list personality</a>
</h3>
<p>
These variables, grouped under the general list personality section,
control some public information about the mailing list.
<p>
<dl>
<dt><strong>real_name</strong></dt>
<dd>Every mailing list has both a <em>posting name</em> and a <em>real
name</em>. The posting name shows up in urls and in email addresses,
e.g. the <code>mylist</code> in <code>mylist@example.com</code>. The posting
name is always presented in lower case, with alphanumeric
characters and no spaces. The list's real name is used in some
public information and email responses, such as in the general
list overview. The real name can differ from the posting name by
case only. For example, if the posting name is <code>mylist</code>, the
real name can be <code>Posting</code>.
<p>
</dd>
<dt><strong>owner</strong></dt>
<dd>This variable contains a list of email addresses, one address per
line, of the list owners. These addresses are used whenever the
list owners need to be contacted, either by the system or by end
users. Often, these addresses are used in combination with the
<code>moderator</code> addresses (see below).
<p>
</dd>
<dt><strong>moderator</strong></dt>
<dd>This variable contains a list of email addresses, one address per
line, of the list moderators. These addresses are often used in
combination with the <code>owner</code> addresses. For example, when
you email <code>mylist-owner@example.com</code>, both the owner and
moderator addresses will receive a copy of the message.
<p>
</dd>
<dt><strong>description</strong></dt>
<dd>In the general list overview page, which shows you every available
mailing list, each list is displayed with a short description.
The contents of this variable is that description. Note that in
emails from the mailing list, this description is also used in the
comment section of the <span class="mailheader">To:</span> address. This text should
be relatively short and no longer than one line.
<p>
</dd>
<dt><strong>info</strong></dt>
<dd>This variable contains a longer description of the mailing list.
It is included at the top of the list's information page, and it
can contain HTML. However, blank lines will be automatically
converted into paragraph breaks. Preview your HTML though,
because unclosed or invalid HTML can prevent display of parts of
the list information page.
<p>
</dd>
<dt><strong>subject_prefix</strong></dt>
<dd>This is a string that will be prepended to the
<span class="mailheader">Subject:</span> header of any message posted to the list.
For example, if a message is posted to the list with a
<span class="mailheader">Subject:</span> like:
<p>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
Subject: This is a message
</pre></div>
<p>
and the <code>subject_prefix</code> is <code>[My List] </code> (note the
trailing space!), then the message will be received like so:
<p>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
Subject: [My List] This is a message
</pre></div>
<p>
If you leave <code>subject_prefix</code> empty, no prefix will be added
to the <span class="mailheader">Subject:</span>. Mailman is careful not to add a
prefix when the header already has one, as is the case in replies
for example. The prefix can also contain characters in the list's
preferred language. In this case, because of vagarities of the
email standards, you may or may not want to add a trailing space.
<p>
</dd>
<dt><strong>anonymous_list</strong></dt>
<dd>This variable allows you to turn on some simple anonymizing
features of Mailman. When you set this option to <em>Yes</em>,
Mailman will remove or replace the <span class="mailheader">From:</span>,
<span class="mailheader">Sender:</span>, and <span class="mailheader">Reply-To:</span> fields of any
message posted to the list.
<p>
Note that this option is simply an aid for anonymization, it
doesn't guarantee it. For example, a poster's identity could be
evident in their signature, or in other mail headers, or even in
the style of the content of the message. There's little Mailman
can do about this kind of identity leakage.
</dd>
</dl>
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<span class="release-info">Release 2.1, documentation updated on December 14, 2009.</span>
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