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Question: I have several small lists that I want to subscribe to a single large list. How can I do that and how will it work?

Answer:

There are some occasions where it is helpful to have multiple lists subscribed to a single "umbrella" list. For example, the professor of a large lecture class may want to have individual lists for each of the individual sections of his class but also have a single list for the entire class. Rather than maintaining separate memberships for both the large lecture lists as well as the individual section lists, it is easier to make the lecture list an "umbrella" list.

"Umbrella" lists have other lists as their subscribers rather than individual people. To create one, create a list as you normally would by requesting one at

http://www.washington.edu/computing/forms/mailman/
Once the list is created, subscribe the "sub" lists to it. For example, let's say you want an "umbrella" list called "weave101" for your basket weaving class and that you already have the following section lists created:

weave_aa
weave_ab
weave_ac

The section lists should all have individual people as the subscribers. The weave101 list, however, will have the following subscribers:

weave_aa@u.washington.edu
weave_ab@u.washington.edu
weave_ac@u.washington.edu

You'll want to configure the weave101 list to send password reminders to the "-owner" address rather than individual subscribers. This setting can be found on the list's administration page at:

http://mailman.u.washington.edu/mailman/admin/listname
where "listname" is replaced with the actual name of your list. In this example, the URL would be:
http://mailman.u.washington.edu/mailman/admin/weave101
To access this page, you will need to log in with your UW NetID.

In the "General Options" section, look for the "umbrella_list" option and set it to "Yes."

One thing to note is that if a single subscriber is subscribed to more than one of the "sub" lists, they will receive multiple copies of any messages posted to the "umbrella" list. They will need to use a local mail filter to avoid multiple copies of the same post.

Date: 07/2002 Author: R. Skiver Thompson