[Mailman-Developers] On allowing any list member to be an email moderator

[Brad Knowles]

At 6:56 PM -0800 2005-12-31, JC Dill wrote:

>  That's a very interesting and accurate observation.  In fact, the
>  moderated post that started this thread is one that I don't think I
>  would have approved for posting to this list!  I felt mildly (but not
>  strongly) that this was a discussion that should probably take place on
>  -users first, because it's a discussion about the possibility of
>  changing the way the mailman list is used (by it's users) rather than a
>  discussion about "developing" a new feature, per se.  But, it's not
>  totally off-topic for -dev so Brad is also "correct" for approving it.

	Okay, now that is truly weird.  I thought it was kind of 
off-topic myself, but I thought that it would be one that either you 
or Barry would have approved of, so I approved it on that basis.

	I guess that just goes to show that you shouldn't over-think the 
process too much.  ;)

>  The main problem I think Rocky is experiencing is the problem of absent
>  moderators, period.  Rather than some automated method of turning the
>  moderator tasks over to others, I suggest that a better way is to more
>  closely oversee pending moderator tasks so that the list owner and the
>  list server administrator receive notices when a moderator's queue has
>  not been recently attended to, and address the lack of moderation while
>  the queue is still small and relatively fresh.

	We're certainly seeing some issues of absentee moderators on some 
of the lists at python.org, where my new version of the "mmdsr" 
script (see 
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2005-December/048362.html>) 
is showing that some lists have as many as 100 messages waiting in 
the queue to be moderated, and some of those messages date back to 
May of 2005.  I think that this is a problem that needs to be 
addressed within the Mailman package, and not just something that can 
be observed externally through tools like "mmdsr".


	However, I am not yet sure what would be the best way to resolve 
this issue.  I would like to see more discussion on that topic, 
although I'm not sure that mailman-developers is the best place to do 
that.

-- 
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

  LOPSA member since December 2005.  See <http://www.lopsa.org/>.