[vox-tech] Mailman question

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Dave Margolis (margolid@ecs.csus.edu):

> I'm trying to configure Mailman (ver. 2.1.3) to be as simple as a
> one-way mailing list as possible.

Answers below are based on 2.1.4, which differs only trivially.

> I'd like to allow the owner to send monthly newsletter style messages
> to the mailing list.  I want users to be able to subscribe/unsubscribe
> per normal.
> 
> So far I've figured everything I want out except for the most obvious
> thing: turning [off] the ability for the subscribers to send messages
> to the list...  

(I'm assuming the omitted word, above, was "off".  If not, please
clarify.)

Under Privacy Options, pick Sender Filters.  Set item "By default,
should new list member postings be moderated?" to "Yes".  This is the
most-important setting in configuring a Mailman mailing list to be
announce-only.  

Set item "Action to take when a moderated member posts to the list" to
either "Hold" (default) or "Reject", per your preference.  (You could
alternatively pick "Discard", but that's a bit too BOfHish even for me.)
This setting specifies how subscribers' posts should be treated if
they're not on the very short list of approved posters.

If you use "Reject", then type some explanatory text into item "Text to
include in any rejection notice to be sent to moderated members who post
to this list" to remind subscribers that the mailing list is
announce-only.

I would recommend that you set item "Action to take for postings from
non-members for which no explicit action is defined" to "Discard",
because 99% of such postings will be spam.  (Bouncing spam is no longer
defensible, in 2004, given the ubiquity of forged headers in such mail.)

If you do that, also set item "Should messages from non-members, which
are automatically discarded, be forwarded to the list moderator?" to
"No", to preserve your sanity.

You'll want to remove the "mod" (moderated) flag from your own
subscribed address[es], the ones from which you'll be posting (under
Membership Management, Membership List).  If you or other authorised
parties prefer to post from non-subscribed addresses, add them to item
"List of non-member addresses whose postings should be automatically
accepted" on the aforementioned Privacy Options, Sender Filters page.

> I'd also be nice if it was obvious that it wasn't a public list from
> the user's perspective (I suppose I can add a note about this to the
> public html pages myself).

I would strongly recommend that.  Remember, you can use the
administrative "Edit the public HTML pages" link for that function.
Note that you can (and should) remind users about the list's
announce-only nature on (1) the General list information page, (2) the 
Subscribe results page, and (3) the User specific options page.

-- 
Cheers,             "Don't use Outlook.  Outlook is really just a security
Rick Moen            hole with a small e-mail client attached to it."
rick@linuxmafia.com                        -- Brian Trosko in r.a.sf.w.r-j