[Mailman-Developers] Re: Cute TMDA use

[J C Lawrence]

On Fri, 26 Jul 2002 20:06:33 -0700 
Chuq Von Rospach <chuqui@plaidworks.com> wrote:
> On 7/26/02 7:10 PM, "J C Lawrence" <claw@kanga.nu> wrote:

>>> You know, I was kinda noodling in that direction, but I hadn't
>>> figured THIS out. Whoof.

>> Quite nice isn't it.  It effectively abstracts the concepts of
>> getting mail from being able to send mail.

> Yes, it also change the paradigm of the subscription to meet the
> multi-protocol reality we have today.

Precisely.  I figured you'd grab that bit and disappear over the
horizon.

> First, most of us are running lists with increasingly complex
> distribution systems. JC has built some nice (and complex) ways to
> allow reading and posting off the web. 

Thanks.  Its a bit messy on the server side, but trivial from the
user/web side.  You get a "Reply" link and then a form with a TEXTAREA
containing a properly quoted and attributed message you can type into.
It even does The Right Thing with In-Reply-To: and References: headers.

> I've been increasingly uncomfortable with the "gaza strip" aspect of
> running lists. This seems to me a great way to open those gates a bit
> -- safely. And build in some understanding that not everyone who's
> "subscribed" is in the subscriber lists. You have the archives, and
> the gateways, and the extended populations that are effectively
> disenfranchised from posting today. This builds a system that
> re-enfranchises them with minimal hassle and minimal risk of opening
> the door to the bad guys.

Aye, its a big step forward for our side in the cold war.

> I think it's a great hack to get back to what we WANT lists to act
> like, not what we've been slowly forced to turn them into.

I've moved my previous mimefilter stuff under procmail, and have thrown
TMDA into the loop with it as well (damned trivial actually, tho a bit
messy on file-permissions).  After a week or so of testing and play I'll
post the recipe here and in the FAQ.

Idle thought:

  Some lists have currency requirements.  They discuss current events
  and really only want messages which are, well, current.  A possible
  TMDA address:

    1) Configure your MTA to run all outbound mail deliveries thru a
    filter which calls `tmda-inject` prior to delivery.  For details of
    how I did this under Exim see:

      http://mla.libertine.org/tmda-users/200207/msg00308.html
      http://mla.libertine.org/tmda-users/200207/msg00309.html

    Doing similar under Postfix should be easy but I've not looked into
    it.

    2) Write an outbound filter for TMDA which rewrites all list posts
    with a Reply-To: to a dated version of the list address.

    3) Write a TMDA inbound filter to bounce/discard all list mail sent
    to a stale dated address.

  Result: All replies to the list which are "too old" are
  bounced/dropped.  Currency!

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw@kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.