Multiple mailing lists with overlapping membership

I run a small club with about 50 members. All the club mailing lists are private. Everyone is in the members@domain.name list, and there are two other smaller lists containing subsets of the membership, eg admin@domain.name, maintenance@domain.name. When a message is sent to both admin@domain.name and members@domain.name, recipients get both copies of the message. Would it be better to remove individuals who are in the admin@domain.name list from the members@domain.name list, and then add @admin as a member of the members@domain.name list. Does this make members@domain.name an 'umbrella' list?

On 2/19/22 01:48, linux--- via Mailman-Users wrote:
I run a small club with about 50 members. All the club mailing lists are private. Everyone is in the members@domain.name list, and there are two other smaller lists containing subsets of the membership, eg admin@domain.name, maintenance@domain.name. When a message is sent to both admin@domain.name and members@domain.name, recipients get both copies of the message. Would it be better to remove individuals who are in the admin@domain.name list from the members@domain.name list, and then add @admin as a member of the members@domain.name list. Does this make members@domain.name an 'umbrella' list?
First, you wouldn't add @admin as a member of members@domain.name. If you wanted to do this, you would add admin@domain.name as a member of the members@domain.name list. The @listname syntax is only for things like subscribe_auto_approval and *_these_nonmembers. But then members removed from the smaller lists because they are also members of the larger list would not receive posts addressed only to a smaller list.
That said, there is a better way to do this.
add admin@domain.name and maintenance@domain.name to regular_exclude_lists on the members@domain.name list. Then when a post is addressed to say members@domain.name and admin@domain.name, members of admin@domain.name will be excluded from delivery from the members@domain.name list and will receive only one copy from the admin@domain.name list.
How you set regular_exclude_ignore on the members@domain.name list depends on how the smaller lists treat nonmember posts. This is to address the situation where a nonmember of say admin@domain.name posts to members@domain.name and admin@domain.name, perhaps by reply-all to a post that addressed both lists. If that post to the admin@domain.name list will ultimately be rejected or discarded, set regular_exclude_ignore on the members@domain.name list to Yes, but if it will ultimately be accepted for the admin@domain.name list set regular_exclude_ignore on the members@domain.name list to No.

Many thanks for a very clear explanation. Can I add another twist? There is also some overlap in the membership of the smaller lists. Can I follow the same procedure, ie adding each smaller list to regular_exclude_ignore in the settings of the other list? Thus, a message posted to both admin@domain.name.com and maintenance@domain.name.com would be received only once by the duplicated members?
Bob Williams

On 2/20/22 02:21, linux--- via Mailman-Users wrote:
Many thanks for a very clear explanation. Can I add another twist? There is also some overlap in the membership of the smaller lists. Can I follow the same procedure, ie adding each smaller list to regular_exclude_ignore in the settings of the other list? Thus, a message posted to both admin@domain.name.com and maintenance@domain.name.com would be received only once by the duplicated members?
No, That's tricky. I.e. you might want regular_exclude_ignore for members has admin and maintenance; regular_exclude_ignore for admin has maintenance, and regular_exclude_ignore for maintenance has admin.
The problem there is with regular_exclude_ignore for admin has maintenance, and regular_exclude_ignore for maintenance has admin. In that case, if a post addresses both the admin and maintenance lists, members of both lists will not receive the post from either list.
What you need is only one of those. I.e., regular_exclude_ignore for admin has maintenance, or regular_exclude_ignore for maintenance has admin but not both.

On Sun, 20 Feb 2022 07:46:29 -0800 Mark Sapiro wrote:
On 2/20/22 02:21, linux--- via Mailman-Users wrote:
Many thanks for a very clear explanation. Can I add another twist? There is also some overlap in the membership of the smaller lists. Can I follow the same procedure, ie adding each smaller list to regular_exclude_ignore in the settings of the other list? Thus, a message posted to both admin@domain.name.com and maintenance@domain.name.com would be received only once by the duplicated members?
No, That's tricky. I.e. you might want regular_exclude_ignore for members has admin and maintenance; regular_exclude_ignore for admin has maintenance, and regular_exclude_ignore for maintenance has admin.
The problem there is with regular_exclude_ignore for admin has maintenance, and regular_exclude_ignore for maintenance has admin. In that case, if a post addresses both the admin and maintenance lists, members of both lists will not receive the post from either list.
What you need is only one of those. I.e., regular_exclude_ignore for admin has maintenance, or regular_exclude_ignore for maintenance has admin but not both.
-- Mark Sapiro mark@msapiro.net The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Thank you. I think I understand the logic, but need to draw it out on paper to really get my head around it.
-- Bob Williams
participants (3)
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Bob Williams
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linux@karmasailing.uk
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Mark Sapiro