List Archives and Statistics Manual

The Archives tool provides access to the archived postings to a list, as well as to statistical information about that list. The Archives tool can also be used to diagnose list problems.

All lists are archived.  However, some may have Public Archives, which can be viewed by anyone with RAMS access, while others may have Admin Only Archives, which can be viewed only by a list's manager.

Selection

When you go to the Archives tool, you will be presented with a list of mailing lists to choose from. To get to the archives and statistics for a given mailing list, click on a list name to highlight it, then click on the "View Archive" button.

View Archive Page

The View Archive page consists of two sections. The top section is the statistics section, and the bottom section is the archive section.

Statistics

The statistics presented are 

• Number of messages
• Average number of recipients
• Total number of recipients
• Last message sent on
• Average message size
• Total message size 

The most important item for list managers is "Last message sent on". This allows you to verify the date of the last message sent out for the list. 

"Total number of recipients" is not per message, but per list. The same applies to "Total message size".

The others should be self-explanatory. More statistics may be added in the future, based on requests. 

If a message is not successfully posted to all members of a list, no statistical information will be generated for that message. A "successful" posting is simply one that has been sent out to all members; it does not mean that each of the addresses is actually valid or reachable.  (For example, there could be a typo in the data we collect, or an address could be unable to accept mail for some reason. While error messages regarding such addresses should come back to the designated list owner(s), this will not affect the statistics RAMS creates.)

Archives

The archive lists all the messages posted in the list, from newest to oldest, beginning with the first message posted after archiving was turned on. For every message, it lists 

• Date: the date and time the last copy of the message left the RAMS system to be mailed to the list members.
• Subject: the contents of the Subject header of the message.
• Poster: the address in the From header of the message
• Recipients: the number of addresses it was sent out to
• View: a "View" button to click on to show the text of the message

• Spam Level: the score assigned to the message by the SpamAssassin program.  "N/A" means the message was posted before spam filtering was available, so there is no score to show.
• Approved By: the NetID (if the RAMS web tools were used) or e-mail address (if an e-mail reply was used) of the person who approved the message.
• Released By: for lists with prime-time restriction, the manager who released the message so that it could be posted immediately.

If a message does not successfully post to all members of a list, an archive entry is not generated for it.

If no messages have yet been posted to a list, or if you are viewing an Admin Only Archive and are not a manager for the list, the message

List NAME has no archived messages

will appear instead of the archive.