HL7 Email List setup

Oct 11, 2012

I have a gmail account (grahameg) and also health intersections email is hosted on GMail. in order to keep all my mail in one place, I forward everything from healthintersections.com.au to my main gmail account. But I use @healthintersections.com.au as my main presence - so set up GMail to set this as the reply-to address. But on my iPad, the standard Mail program doesn’t let me set the reply-to address. So if I answer an email from an HL7 list from my iPad, the response comes with a reply-to of my GMail address. Now on the HL7 List side, it only allows submissions from an email address that is subscribed to the list, and it bases this on the reply-to address (and worse, it doesn’t tell you that the mail wasn’t acceptable, and GMail doesn’t always show you the echo of your own mails, so you don’t know).

So I have a choice: I can either

  • only reply to emails from gmail
  • only reply to emails from my iPad
  • or subscribe both addresses to the email list

None of these options are really palatable. Especially because the sign up page for email lists only allows me to sign up to a list once (though it knows about the fact that I have multiple email addresses, since I signed up with it).

There’s two solutions to the underlying problem. One is documented here - that you can set up iPad to use a different reply-to: address, if you don’t set it up as a GMail account. That’s the method I followed, though what with google’s two factor authentication (you do use an email client with two factor authentication, don’t you), this was a bit of mucking around - I still needed a GMail account for calendars after all.

But if that doesn’t work out for you, and you still have to sign up multiple times, here’s what the HL7 webmaster advises:

The listserv account structure is based entirely on the email address and there is no way to relate one email address to another email address. The HL7 site does expand slightly on this setup in that you can have multiple email addresses under your account but you can only subscribe one email address to a listserv using the HL7.org interfaces.

Should you wish to subscribe two emails to the same listserv there is a way but it is a bit more complex to set up and manage, and isn’t something that we actively support. Using these methods you can have multiple email addresses which can either Send and Receive or just Send. I’ve detailed out the steps below:

  1. 1.  Subscribe one email address to the listserv using the interfaces on the HL7.org website (My HL7 -> My Listservs). This email address will be able to both send and receive emails through the listserv.
  2. 2.  Now add your second email address directly through the listserv. This email address will be able to send email through the listserv but will not receive.
  3. Log out of the HL7.org website
  4. From the My HL7 -> My Listservs page click the “Subscribe to list services” link on the right
  5. Enter the information for your secondary email address

  6. Confirm your subscription via the email link which will be sent to your secondary email address

  7. 3.  Update the subscriptions for your secondary email address to not send you email (You can still send to the list, this will just prevent it from sending you duplicates)
  8. Return to the HL7 -> My Listservs page and now click the “Lyris list manager” or “Lyris listserv interface” link on the left (the label may change depending on whether you are logged in or not)
  9. Log into the Lyris List Manager using your secondary email address and the password you set up in step 2.b.
  10. Click a forum that you would set to not send you email
  11. Click the My Account button on the left
  12. Change the Membership type to “No email”
  13. Click the Save Changes button
  14. Repeat 3.c. – 3.f. for each forum you’d like not to receive email for

Note that you can switch which email addresses receive email and which don’t. The HL7.org website does allow you to edit the subscription method for subscriptions which were made there to set them to No Mail as well. To do you, from the My HL7 -> My Listservs page you’ll want to click the Edit link next to your subscription and then change the subscription format to No Mail.

There’s a wider issue with HL7 email lists - the reply-to of the list is set to the sender, not the list. People (including me) habitually reply to all, which means that

  • anyone involved in the thread starts receiving multiple copies of the thread exchanges
  • if the lists are running slow - which they usually are - then the insiders on the thread can power through a discussion before anyone else can even join in

Supposedly the lists are set up this way to stop bounces going to the list. Though I’m on many other lists that aren’t setup this way, and bounces usually aren’t a problem (I think I see a bounce avalanche - two different subscribers bouncing each other’s bounces - about once a year.

I’d really like to see this changed - HL7 has enough problems with insider-ness without adding to it in the key engagement space,