STC Email List Training
How to use the Hold settings

There are many "correct" ways to use the hold settings. This document identifies the settings used by the Single Sourcing and Online SIGs, and gives the rationale.

Instructions for Hold settings

  1. Log in to the list.
  2. If someone has not already done so, create the Hold document: List Admin > Documents > Create Document > Complete the form > Save. The Type is ABOUT. A sample Hold document is in the next section of this training document.
  3. Navigate to List Admin > Select Members > Edit the records for each list administrator so that they can not be put on hold.
  4. From the List Admin menu, select List Info.
  5. In the Member Purging section, set the Purge Held days. the Single Sourcing SIG uses 60 so people have plenty of time to reactivate; the Online SIG uses Never Purge, and the list manager contacts members individually if they remain on Hold (do not respond to the notification to remove their account from Hold).
  6. in the Error Mail Handling section, select the settings as follows.

Hold users: Yes

Held Notify Interval: Every 2 days (Single Sourcing); every 5 days (Online) to limit the notifications for people who are away.

Held Notify Days: Notify for 7 days (Single Sourcing, for a total of 3 or 4 notices if held); 30 days (Online, to prevent someone's being removed if they are away for three weeks if the list is set to purge heold members after 30 days).

Held Document: SIGname_Hold, created via the Documents option on the List Admin menu.

Bounce Reset: 2 days (Single Sourcing; 1 did not work because the list does not have enough activity); 15 days (Online; Lyris counts calendar days, not days with list activity, so this allows for list inactivity of two weeks).

Bounce Limit (how many bounces before a member is placed on hold): 5 (Single Sourcing, as there are usually only a few messages on any one day; use the average number of messages for a two or three day interval to prevent too many hold notifications from being sent); 3 (Online, as the help indicates Lyris only counts one bounce per day for each member; if 10 messages bounce, that is counted as "one.")

Sample Hold document

Your membership in the STC Online SIG discussion list has been placed on
Hold, probably because your e-mail address is faulty. While on Hold, you
will receive no messages from the list. To start receiving messages again,
send an empty e-mail message to
unhold-stc_on@lists.stc.org

You can reach the list administrators by writing to
owner-stc_on@lists.stc.org

Acknowledgements

This training was developed by Michele Marques, manager of the STC Single Sourcing SIG and long time list manager for that SIG. Significant additions were made by John Wilcox, list manager of the Online SIG.