[Mailman-Developers] Fwd: suggested improvement for Mailman's bounce processing

[Brad Knowles]

At 4:35 PM -0400 2006-08-11, Barry Warsaw wrote:

>  Although I have not implemented it yet, Mailman 2.2 will definitely
>  get auto-moderation.  IOW, should a non-member send a message to a
>  mailing list, and if that mailing list is so configured, Mailman will
>  hold the message and send a message to the From address asking for
>  verification of the post.  I'm assuming this is what you mean by
>  "auto-moderation".

I'm confused.  Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about, 
Mailman 2.1.x already does this today.  You try to post to a list 
that is restricted to subscribers only, and then your message may be 
rejected, or you may get a message saying that the post is being held 
for moderation, or it may get silently thrown away, etc....  It all 
depends on how the listowner has configured things, but to this 
level, this kind of thing works today.

>  I'm not worried about joe-jobbing because Mailman could easily send
>  just one auto-moderation message per unit of time, or number of posts
>  to limit any backspamming.

Okay, now that's different.  This actually clicks in very well with 
the recent article I wrote on fighting spam for publication on the 
LOPSA website, because backscatter has become one of my biggest hot 
buttons lately.  Putting an intelligent limiter on the potential 
causes of backscatter (like no more than one notice per recipient per 
day, or whatever), brings it down into the realm of what I would 
consider to be less than ideal but at least below the threshold of 
"totally unacceptable".

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

  Founding Individual Sponsor of LOPSA.  See <http://www.lopsa.org/>.