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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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