Joining and Updating Multiple List Servers
Providing a single web page for your members to join multiple list servers
and change settings in multiple list servers enhances list server value.
The one list at a time, standard web user interface for list servers is
awkward and discourages member use.
The standard Lyris web user interface provides a list entry
page. Current members enter their email address and optional
password to enter the lists. If the list is defined as public
in Lyris, a join button will be on the entry page. A visit
button may appear if the list is configured to allow visitors.
You can make a list "public" but turn off the ability to join
it via email commands. You can also set the list so it will
not show in listings of lists on that Lyris server and set it
so that the list will not appear in Lyris' universal list of
public lists. By also making the web page, which is now the
only way that an Internet user can find the list, a private
password protected page, you in effect make a self maintaining
private list. The one piece that is missing is the automated
removal of those no longer eligible which must be custom
programmed as described in Dealing
With Lapsed Members.
Using the standard Lyris user interface, you click on
"Join" from the entry page, fill in your information and
click on submit and see a confirmation or sometimes an
error page. If an organization has enough lists, as ATLA
does, to categorize lists, the result is a two level menu
with broad classes of lists at one level and individual
lists at the next. Updating your list settings is a different
option available from the standard Lyris entry screen and takes the
same number of clicks as joining a list. Thus to join
or maintain multiple lists, requires a minimum of four
mouse clicks after you complete one list to move to the
next. One using site navigation to go to the lists main
page; two to go to the correct list subset page; three to
select the list and four to get the join or update page.
Using a browsers back button requires five clicks: one to
return to the list join or update page, two to return to
the list entry page; three to return to the list subset
menu page; four to select the next list and five to see
the join or update page.
It only takes a few lists for this to become very tedious.
After providing automated email updates and dealing with
lapsed members, the next enhancement in integrating Lyris
with ATLA's web site was to provide a single page that
showed all lists a member was eligible to join as a check off
list in a form with those the member was already a member of,
pre-checked.
Common list options were provided as radio buttons. When
used for the first time the radio buttons were set to
standard defaults. If the member was already in one or more
lists, the first list found was used to set the radio
button default. The member could join and remove lists
simply by checking and un checking boxes. The list options
applied to all checked lists.
In addition to joining and leaving lists and updating list
settings, the page processed email updates. When the
multiple list join page was first developed, the only time
or place in the web site that had all the necessary
information was at the end of the online registration process.
This made it extremely easy for new ATLA NET users to join
any list(s) they were interested in when they finished
registering for the site. It also made it unnecessarily
awkward for current users to use the multi list join page
because they had to go through the four page registration
process which served no function other than it was the only
way to get to the multi list join page. If a user wanted
to make changes to four or more lists it was probably worth
the trouble but surely not for one or two.
Much later, actually as part of another project, I finally
had the opportunity to develop the necessary data structures
and additional logic to allow the multi list join page to
be run as a standalone script. With this page now available
as a link from several pages related to list servers or as a
bookmark, users could easily add or change list options,
email address and add or leave multiple lists in a single
operation.
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