[Mailman-Developers] Re: mailman and voting (fwd)

[Marilyn Davis]

Excuse me.  I didn't realize that reply-to's didn't go to the whole list.
Now I realize.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 16:32:02 -0800 (PST)
From: Marilyn Davis <marilyn@deliberate.com>
To: David Champion <dgc@uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: mailman and voting

On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, David Champion wrote:

> 
> I probably can't help much with the problem, but something in your
> message really grabbed at my lapels.

My message is a week old.  Because I'm new here, I was quarantined, I
guess.

My panic has worn off, she says, smoothing your lapels.  Thank you for
you concern and your thoughts.

> 
> * On 2002.11.06, in <Pine.LNX.4.10.10211061151380.916-100000@rosa.deliberate.com>,
> *	"Marilyn Davis" <marilyn@deliberate.com> wrote:
> > 
> > I'm in a sudden panic because I've been running it with majordomo and
> > that's old stuff.  The Linux Journal wants to run an article about
> > eVote/Clerk but they want it to be running with Mailman.  My deadline
> > is in a few weeks.
> 
> Do I understand correctly that Linux Journal is pressuring you to adapt
> your software to use another component, one that they favor over the one
> you're using? It sounds like LJ is pushing an agenda of some kind, and
> using publication as the enticement to leverage their favoritism. That
> makes me most wary of Linux Journal.

I think his agenda is to please his readers and he thinks they won't
like reading about majordomo.  He's right.  I've been wishing for a
mailman interface for years but I don't really have the resources to
do much.

But the Linux Journal carrot has got me moving.  Let's hope he really
publishes my article after all this.  

> 
> Hmm -- as I've been writing, I've also been thinking about your problem.
> If I understood, you essentially need a mechanism for diverting the
> messages containing "eVote". Since (in most cases) Mailman works via
> mail aliases, just like Majordomo, it seems you could do this with a
> front-end wrapper around the Mailman script. If your Majordomo works the
> same way, it might even be the same script, mostly.
> 
> Here are some aliases set up for a test list on my server, so you can
> see what it looks like:
> testlist:                "|/opt/pkgs/mailman/mail/wrapper post testlist"
> testlist-admin:          "|/opt/pkgs/mailman/mail/wrapper mailowner testlist"
> testlist-request:        "|/opt/pkgs/mailman/mail/wrapper mailcmd testlist"
> owner-testlist:          testlist-admin
> testlist-owner:          testlist-admin

You're right.  I have modified mailman's wrapper to also exec to
eVote_insert and eVote_petition.

I have added a little bit in MailList.py so that eVote is sent
notification of the addition and subtraction of members.  I am using
withlist to check the admin password and to find a list of members for
syncronizing.

It's turning out to be pretty fun because the mailman code is so nice
and I love Python.

I guess, when it's all done, and the holidays are over, I'll see about
incorporating my changes into the sources at sourceforge, if anyone
likes them.

Thank you again.

Marilyn Davis



> 
> -- 
>  -D.	dgc@uchicago.edu	NSIT	University of Chicago
>