Technical Manual for Moderating
an Alliance Forum with Sympa Software

by Marina Urquidi marina@alliance21.org 

A common system has been set up to run Alliance forums:

All the forums are hosted by the same server. All the Alliance forums therefore have a name starting with http://www.alliance21.org/forums/. 

The forums are run by Sympa software, with which you can set up a forum and specify its technical features, subscribe and unsubscribe participants, moderate the messages, keep them in an archive, etc. One of the advantages of the Sympa software is that you can use it in two ways:

•	from your e-mail message manager, by sending specifically coded commands to Sympa via e‑mail

•	directly on the Web site where all Alliance forums are hosted, in the section reserved for your forum: www.alliance21.org/forums

1. Accessing the Sympa page

The first time you open the page on www.alliance21.org/forums, if it is not in English, scroll down to the bottom of the page, then click on the menu in the lower left-hand corner and select “english.” Then, for the software to know whether you have special rights, click on “Login” in the upper left-hand corner, then on “Send me a password,” enter your e-mail address, then click again on “Send me a password.” Copy the password which will have been sent to your address into the appropriate field, then click on “Login.” You can then go to “Preferences” to change your password. 

If you click on “Your subscriptions,” you will be able to access the list for which you are moderator. 

2. Technical Moderation of Your List

Subscribers

To manage subscriptions to your forum, you can work either: 
* from your e-mail message manager
* from the Web page offered by Sympa 

Please note: In the first case, it is imperative to be extremely precise when writing the commands. The list server will not recognize commands unless they are written exactly as it can understand them (if there is a typo or one space too many, the server will reject/not execute the command).

Following are a series of tables summing up the procedures needed for the different operations in both cases, whether you are working out of your e-mail message manager or out of the Web site. 

 Make sure that any command you send by e-mail is in Text Only format (check that the default option for sending mail from your message manager, which must be set at Text Only, not html) and that there is no automatic signature added to your messages, for the command in that case will be neither understood, nor executed by the Sympa system.

* Subscriptions

from the Web site	* from your message manager	
1. Log in.

2. Click on “Your subscriptions,” then on the “admin” button to the left of the address of your forum 

3. Click on “Subscribers”

4. Click on “Multiple add”

5. Enter your first subscription in the following format: 
e-mail address Firstname LASTNAME, e.g.:
john.smith@hotmail.com John SMITH

Make sure there is no more than one space between the e-mail address, the first name, and the last.

6. Enter the following subscriptions in the same format, each on a separate line.

7. Delete the dotted line at the end.

8. Click on “Add subscribers” at the bottom of the screen.

9. “quiet” option
checked = the participant will not receive the welcome message
not checked = the participant will receive the welcome message
(this message is mandatory, except, for instance, if a subscriber asks you to subscribe him or her under a second address and he or she has already received the welcome message at his or her first subscription)	Send the following message to sympa@forums.alliance21.org
having first replaced the text between square brackets: 

ADD [name of the list] [e-mail address] [Firstname LASTNAME]

Example: 
ADD work john.smith@hotmail.com John SMITH

You can make as many subscriptions in the same message, in the same format, each on a separate line.

Important: Make sure there is nothing else in the message body, for instance an “automatic signature” that might be added to your message. 

Leave the “Subject” field empty and send.

	

* Unsubscriptions

from the Web site	* from your message manager	
1. Log in.

2. Click on “Your subscriptions,” then on the “admin” button to the left of the address of your forum.

3. Click on “Subscribers”

4. In the list of subscribers, check the name(s) of the participant(s) you wish to unsubscribe.

5. Click on “Delete selected email addresses”

6. “quiet” option
checked = the participant will not receive the unsubscription message
not checked = the participant will receive the unsubscription message (as for subscriptions, for special cases)	Send the following message to sympa@forums.alliance21.org
having first replaced the text between square brackets: 

DEL [name of the list] [e-mail address] [Firstname LASTNAME]

Example: 
DEL work john.smith@hotmail.com John SMITH

You can unsubscribe as many people as you wish to in the same message, in the same format, each on a separate line.

Important: Make sure there is nothing else in the message body, for instance an “automatic signature” that might be added to your message. 

Leave the “Subject” field empty and send.	

* Review the list of participants

from the Web site	from your message manager	
1. Log in.

2. Click on “Your subscriptions,” then on the “admin” button to the left of the address of your forum.

3. Click on “Subscribers”	Send the following message to sympa@forums.alliance21.org 
having first replaced the text between square brackets:  

REVIEW [name of the list] 
Example: REVIEW work 

You can request the list of subscribers to more than one list in the same message (same format, each on a separate line).

Important: Make sure there is nothing else in the message body, for instance an “automatic signature” that might be added to your message. 

Leave the “Subject” field empty and send.

You will receive the list of subscribers to your forum by e-mail.	

* Change (or add) the name of a participant or change his or her e-mail address

You can have someone subscribed to your forum with just his or her e-mail address but without the name and find out his or her name later; you can have made a mistake in his or her name; or a participant may wish you to change his subscription to a different e-mail address.

If you are working from your message manager, this kind of operation requires that you unsubscribe the subscriber and re-subscribe him or her with the correct name or address.

It is easier to do from the Web site: 

1. Log in.

2. Click on “Your subscriptions,” then on the “admin” button to the left of the address of your forum.

3. Click on “Subscribers” 

4. Click on the address of the subscriber.

5. Change his or her name or e-mail address.

6. Click on “Update.”

Moderating messages

 However, the function offered by Sympa (“Moderate” under “List admin”) only allows the moderator to approve or reject the messages, but not to modify them before they are approved. And you will always have to modify them, i.e., lay them out differently and provide their translation(s). We therefore have a special page, at http://www.alliance21.org/approve/, to approve and send modified messages.

To moderate messages, you have to first obtain the “cookie” (a chain of characters such as e3dc1ad2e553e2722e2a34288d24578d). This makes it possible to modify a message and keep the identity of the “From” field, so that the author of the message, not the moderator’s name, appears.  

Please note: your forum’s cookie must remain confidential (it can be changed from time to time if necessary). Anyone knowing it can send messages directly to the forum.
Marina Urquidi or Patrick Mevzek will send you the cookie for your list after you request it in the a message to the forum facilitation@forums.alliance21.org , to which you will be subscribed once you are a facilitator-moderator-translator for a mailing or discussion list (see below).

Every message sent to the forum will be received by the moderator at his or her address, from 
“[name of the list]-request@forums.alliance21.org”, for example, 
“work-request@forums.alliance21.org”, with the Subject “Article to be approved for [name of the list]”, for example, “Article to be approved for work”. 

* To distribute the message as it is without changing it, click, as indicated, on:
mailto :sympa@forums.alliance21.org ?subject=DISTRIBUTE%20work%20ac6944e26816d34ffe6c2a89e8da7g38
(see note at the end of this document)

* To reject a message as it is, click, as indicated, on:
mailto :sympa@forums.alliance21.org ?subject=REJECT%20work%20ac6944e26816d34ffe6c2a89e8da7g38  (see note at the end of this document)

* If you wish to make any changes (add translations, change layout, for instance), copy and paste the content of the message in a Word file to format and translate it (check title, write abstract, check spelling, layout, etc., then add the machine translation, post-edited for mistranslation).

From the Web site

Go to http://www.alliance21.org/approve/, fill out all the fields, then click on “Envoyer” at the bottom of the screen. You will find your forum’s address in the menu for the field called “Nom de la liste.”

From your message manager

Address a message to approve@forums.alliance21.org. 
The sender (From) makes no difference.
Leave the “Subject” field empty. 

In the body of the message, there will be two parts:
1. a first block of 5 lines followed by an empty line
2. the participant’s message

In the first block, you have to write, exactly, the following headings:

From:	Enter here the message author’s name and, between < >, his or her e-mail address	
To:	Enter the address of the list This is just an e-mail address, no text / comments, no other sign, no < >.	
Subject:	Write the subject of the message (something that will make the participants want to open it) Please note: Even though it is now advised to use accents and other diacritic signs in the message body, do not ever use any in the “Subject” line, here or in any other instance. This field remains extremely susceptible to mis- or non-interpret such signs or accents, and the message recipients will receive a message with an unreadable Subject. 	
Approved:	Enter the e-mail address of one of the declared moderators for the list. No name, no < >, just the e-mail address.	
Cookie:	Enter the cookie (see above) that you will have been sent and which identifies you as a moderator.	

The very first line must be the “From” line. There should be no empty line above it.
You can write in lower or upper case and there can be spaces at the beginning or the end of a line, but never a space before the colon “ : ”.

Example:

From: John SMITH <john.smith@hotmail.com>
To: work@forums.alliance21.org
Subject: Procedure for moderating messages
Approved: marina@alliance21.org
Cookie: e3dc1ad2e553e2722e2a34288d24578d

ENGLISH--> FRANÇAIS 
===================

** Title: Procedure for approving messages: follow instructions carefully **
by Marina Urquidi <marina@alliance21.org>

°°° Abstract: Reformatting messages ... etc. °°°

As forum moderator, .... etc.

========
FRANÇAIS (traduction automatique révisée uniquement pour enlever les contresens)
========

** Titre : ....

etc, etc.

PLEASE NOTE: This forum format only accepts Text Only format. No attached files, no html, no rich formatting (bold, italics, colors, etc.). Don’t forget to make sure your message manager is set to send messages in Text Only. 

The message thus approved will be sent directly to the list, i.e., to all the addresses of persons subscribed to your forum. Be sure to review it before you send it.

If you have approved a message through the direct e-mail command (for messages “as is”) you will receive the following message from sympa@forums.alliance21.org: 

Le message bad3776abe5170934629f9d6b9a6fa30 pour la liste work a été distribué.

Please note:  With certain message software, clicking on mailto:sympa@forums.alliance21.org ?subject=DISTRIBUTE%20work%20bad3776abe5170934629f9d6b9a6fa30 
or on
mailto :sympa@forums.alliance21.org ?subject=REJECT%20work%20ac6944e26816d34ffe6c2a89e8da7g38 
may not work. 
In that case, follow the following instructions in the message, i.e., send a message to sympa@forums.alliance21.org and put in the “Subject” line, the command as indicated, for instance: 
DISTRIBUTE work bad3776abe5170934629f9d6b9a6fa30
Leave the message body field empty.

3. Questions or Problems

As moderator, translator or facilitator of an Alliance forum, you are required to subscribe to the “facilitation” forum. You can subscribe at
 http://www.alliance21.org/forums/info/facilitation or ask 
Marina Urquidi marina@alliance21.org to do it for you. 

This forum is the place to ask your questions and to explain any problem that you may meet. It is also here that we provide all forum moderators with any useful information, in particular, every time they can download newly updated dictionaries for the translation software. The members of this forum, which you will join, can also help each other out in finding solutions to any problem – technical, translation, facilitation.