Notes on the list manager, a "suck less" feedburner

For low volume announcements, with emails generated from a RSS feed ideally.

• Code that manages the list
• Script that sends the emails with unsubscribe link in footer and header

Inspired by http://sivers.org/emailer and HackerNews. Hinged upon random strings. Very low SLOC, aims to be suck less.

• Direct GET /unsub/$id/$reason for list-unsubscribe: mail header and POST otherwise from /unsubscribe/$id/$reason

Why use this over Campaign Monitor, madmimi, Mail Chimp, Feedburner, Dreamhost announce et al?

• Implements RFC 2369 List-Unsubscribe:
• Writes down reasons for leaving in usubs.private
• More control and simpler
• MIT licensed

subs/ directory

subs/.htaccess must read:

deny from all

Probably should be on some other non-www path, but where?

Does not send a verification email to say whether one is subscribed or unsubscribed

I don't think this is needed. If subscription is abused, you should be able to see patterns in the IP column.

Reason why unsubscribed

http://$domain/unsubscribe/$id/$reason

When unsubscribing http://sg.hackandtell.org/unsubscribe/6b813f10/foobar, the "foobar" should indicate the subject of that correspondence so you know where&why people unsubscribed.

Demonstration

http://sg.hackandtell.org

TODO

• Simple inotifywait process on subs/ to see who has subscribed or unsubscribed
• Some automated way to handle bounces