Remember listservs?
Back in the 80s, 90s, and even on into the early 2000s, before social media platforms came to dominate the digital landscape, email was king, and listservs were where the action happened. Technically speaking “LISTSERV” (all caps) was the name of the software originally developed by Éric Thomas in 1986, which itself was an adaptation of BITNIC LISTSERV developed by Ira Fuchs, Daniel Oberst, and Ricky Hernandez in 1984. It has since become commercialized and is a registered trademark owned by a company called L-Soft, who have moved away from its free and open-source roots.
During their peak, “listserv” became a common term used to describe email lists in general. A bit like how “Xerox” was used as a general term for copiers, “Scotch tape” for all brands of pressure-sensitive adhesive tape, and “Kleenex” for household facial tissues.
What we are talking about here (for those not familiar) is a distributed email list that is not just a one-way broadcast system (those are newsletters), but functions as a discussion list. People subscribe to the list. There is a list email address. When a subscriber sends an email to that address, all other members of the list receive that email, can reply in kind, and everyone on the list sees all the messages sent to it. Subscriptions are frequently self-managed. A user can join a list or remove themselves from a list, typically through an online portal and/or from a subscribe/unsubscribe button or link made readily available to them (such as in the footer of every message). There is usually an archive of all messages maintained as well, which only subscribers (if the list is private) or subscribers and the general public (if the list is public) can read. It is a simple and elegant idea. It may seem passé to those who are mostly familiar with multi-media platforms such as Facebook/Meta, Twitter/X, Instagram, Discord, TikTok, or a host of other applications that are popular today. For many, outside of their work environments, email has faded into the background, being replaced by memes, photos, short-form posts, and two minute video reels.
Social Media is Not Great for Discussions
It is not uncommon for people in my age group (or older), those who might fondly remember email lists as a place where they shared engaging discussions with others about topics of mutual interest, to mourn the loss of such spaces. While social media platforms like Facebook/Meta have their place, I’ve found that in the context of having any kind of sustained and nuanced dialogue, they have failed miserably. There are several reasons for this that seem apparent to me: the distraction of a never ending stream of content to scroll…scroll…scroll, being bombarded with advertisements, algorithms pulling and pushing in directions this way and that. All converge to generate an experience of frustration, drive-by comments with no real follow up, contentious arguments, and shallow exchanges.
I Found a Gold Mine in My Archives
This was recently brought into focus for me when I set up a mail client on my personal laptop and added several of my web-based email accounts to pull down into my local client. Included in that message history were emails from several email lists I used to be subscribed to years ago. In reviewing some of those messages, it was striking how different the types of exchanges were compared to my average experience today on social media platforms. There was nuance. There was detail. There were thoughtful and engaging threads that went on for more than just a few comments. People took the time to compose a response. They read what came before, and added to the conversation. Yes, there were the occasional flame wars. People will be people. No system is perfect and I’m not trying to present a false image here. But overall, without a doubt, real, authentic, meaningful dialogue was taking place. How often can you say that about your Facebook page?
This experience of reading through past email list archives sent me down a path toward setting up an email list today. I happen to be in a scenario where this would be a useful tool. A small, private group based around a topic of shared interest where the members are geographically distant from one another, but where we want to share information and engage in meaningful conversations on a semi-regular basis. This was precisely where email lists shined. I decided to set one up and offer it to the group.
Retro-Tech Still Has Its Uses
For the purpose of this series of articles, the specific topic of the list is not important. What I aim to share here is my experience of installing, configuring, and testing the platform I chose from a technical perspective. Yet I thought the above background might give some context as to why someone in 2026 would even want to set up a technology that has been out of favor for decades now. In some cases, retro-tech might be worth revisiting. Or even exploring for the first time for those who have never used it. I would argue that email lists are an example of that.
Choosing the Platform
Deciding that I definitely wanted to set up an email list was promptly followed by the question of which platform I wanted to use. In fact, I wasn’t sure if any of them were still around. I knew right off the bat that I did not want to use a third-party platform like Google Groups (or Yahoo Groups, for those who remember). I wanted something that I had more control over. No advertisements. No data-scraping. A platform that is not attached to a giant tech conglomerate. One that I could configure to suit the needs of the group, and – most importantly – where I could implement privacy settings to protect the subscribers’ data from being sold to marketers or being used to build a digital footprint that could be used for…whatever reason.
I also wanted the platform to be free and open-source. I didn’t want to have to pay recurring subscription fees, and I support the open-source philosophy of having access to the source code and being able to fork or port off of the original software if desired.
My initial search returned several software companies that offer paid subscriptions. It’s become the standard these days, most likely patterned after the streaming service business model that has (sadly) replaced physical media (for movies, music, and games). In any case, I recalled that there used to be a couple of solid platforms that were free and open-source back in the day: Mailman and Majordomo.
Turns out, they are both still around. However, Majordomo hasn’t had a new release since January, 2000. Twenty-six years ago. Obviously it is no longer being maintained. That left me with Mailman. I was initially encouraged, as Mailman is not only still around, but it is actively being developed. Its latest stable release was in 2024. That was a good sign. However, when I started to dig into the documentation, I discovered that Mailman required root access to the server it is being hosted on to be able to install it. That’s not a knock on Mailman, but for my particular scenario, that wouldn’t work. My backend is a shared hosting account, which does not give me root access. I do have access to cPanel, and can configure all sorts of things on the server-side, but because I’m using a shared hosting account, root access is prohibited. I understand why. If every administrator in a shared environment had root access, it would mean they could make changes that affect not only their own services, but all the services that are hosted on that server. Which would be a nightmare. So, Mailman was out, unless I wanted to change my hosting to something like a Virtual Private Server (VPS), where I’d have full root access, or build and maintain my own server. Neither of which work for me right now.
I looked into a few other options; one of them being phpList. That was free (check), and open-source (check), and available to install right away on my shared hosting account (check), but…phpList did not have email discussion list capabilities. It is entirely based around a one-way mailing list (i.e., it is an email newsletter program). I could send newsletters to subscribers, but they couldn’t reply back. It’s basically like an open-source version of Mailchimp. Not what I was looking for.
The Search Continued
Eventually, I discovered a program called Dada Mail. It was open-source. There was a free version, with some limitations, such as total number of subscribers and how many lists you can create. Yet those limitations were not a problem for my current needs. Our list is small, and I don’t plan on building several lists. Most important of all, even though it seemed to primarily be used for its newsletter capabilities, it had email list functionality as well. Next, I read through the installation documentation and discovered that it would work in my shared hosting environment. No need for root access. This was the platform for me. I got to work setting it up.
Next in the Series:
Part 2 – Installing and Configuring Dada Mail. A walk-through of the installation process and the initial configuration settings I used.
Part 3 – Configuring Dada Mail as an Email Discussion List. A default installation of Dada Mail sets it up as a newsletter. This is how I configured it to be an email discussion list.
Part 4 – Testing Dada Mail. A description of the testing procedures I ran, some issues I encountered, and what I did to resolve them.
Part 5 – Going Live. Some final thoughts about Dada Mail and email lists in general, now that everything is up and running.