Installing the link inserter to your mailing lists | Page 1 , 2 | Go < >

For straight technical details, go directly to page two .

There are several procedural steps to consider before physically installing the link inserter. First, a list administrator needs to join as a Author, activate their account, and set up beneficiary profile(s). These profiles will be used to indicate to Patrons which beneficiaries should receive funds for donations made on behalf of members of their list(s) who have not already chosen their own beneficiaries. Second, the list administrator needs to contact Affero to provide us with a) the list administrator's Affero log in name, b) the exact name(s) of each mailing list where the link inserter will be used, and c) list of competencies to be associated with ratings for each mailing list. Finally, you will need to install a link inserter program into your mailing list environment. For instructions, see page two .

We have prepared a listmanager independent link inserter, written in Perl, which creates links that integrate relatively well with the Affero service. If you would like to improve this independent link inserter or integrate similar functionality directly into your mailing list software, you may find it usefull to subscribe to the affero-links mailing list to connect with others who have similar interests and visit the affero project site .

Another thing to consider is the social context of specific communities and the impact of adding the Affero service to the environment. First of all, certain individuals may not be friendly to links attached to mail messages, for whatever reason. Certain netizens may also have a difference in opinion about who the default beneficiaries should be for a particular community. Your ideas of an important cause may differ from someone elses. Affero strives to provide tools...not rules. Nevertheless, a rule which we did design into our service is one which decentralizes control. Specifically, each Author has the ability to override any list administrators default beneficiary profiles. But this only works if a member indicates to Affero what beneficiaries they support. They may not want to take that step, but they may not want to have certain other beneficiaries get any benefit from their contributions. For all of these reasons, it is important to involve your community in this process.

Finally, the legal context of your list may be worth evaluating. Most Universities, for example, have policies that prohibit certain types of activities on any lists which are hosted on their networks. In cases like this, it will be important to evaluate those policies, and go through the right steps to enable this type of service. Most universities are non-profits, and could be quite interested in accepting donations from people using their lists. If this is the case for you, please send us an email to and fill out the following form , and we will try to assist you in this process. You could also suggest to the non-profit organizations development director that they may wish to contact Affero to get listed as a beneficiary.