[Mailman-Developers] confirmations/approval of subscriptions

[Scott]

currently, things are a little weird with the setup for
confirmations/approval of subscription.   particularly, there is an
option on the privacy admin page that allows admins to set web based
subscriptions without any approval whatsoever, but it doesn't
work. Also, the confirmation mechanism is invoked even when
subscriptions need approval.  

I'd like to try to straighten this stuff out and would like to know
how others think all this should work.

my personal take on the matter is that:

1) KISS - web based subscription and email based subscription should
act identical to each other -- meaning that there would be only one
set of configuration options for the admin instead of two.

2) all subscriptions that don't need to undergo administrative approval
should go through the confirmation step.  Supscriptions that do need
administrative approval should not need to go through a confirmation
step. 

If people (other than malicious users ;) want for some reason to have
the option of completely open subscription (without confirmation or
admin approval), then there should be a site configuration variable
that determines whether or not completely open subscriptions can take
place.

the purpose behind this last idea is to allow site admins to
completely disable the possibility of mass subscribes without the
consent of the subscriber (this happens quite frequently at a
majordomo site i administor).

scott