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

[Ian Eiloart]

--On 11 August 2006 16:35:41 -0400 Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> 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 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.

Each mailman installation may be able to do this, and that will help a lot. 
It won't be able to co-ordinate between installations, but this will 
certainly be better than the current situation where bounces are 
unrestricted. Maybe SubEtha permits the same, but I've not heard that.

I'm not all that bothered about Mailman doing this, because there's a clear 
way that the MTA can get the information about what Mailman would bounce - 
by running a python script at STMP time. At least that's true for Exim.

This thread arose because someone claimed that SubEtha didn't suck. My 
comment was that the developers choice of auto-moderation instead of SMTP 
time rejection was a missed opportunity. It's probably easier to implement, 
and more frequently the desired behaviour for a closed list. The 
developers' didn't seem to think SMTP time rejection was desireable, and I 
think that sucks.

> There are issues related to how long you  want
> to hold such auto-moderated posts and such, but I think those  are all
> manageable.  There's also the question of how long you want a  verified
> non-member to be able to post to a list, but again, this is  doable
> (hopefully without introducing a bajillion new admin knobs).
>
> - -Barry



-- 
Ian Eiloart
IT Services, University of Sussex