[Mailman-Developers] Inactivity deletion of maillist users ?

[Dan Wilder]

On Wed, Jan 11, 2006 at 02:56:50PM +0100, Erling Hellenäs wrote:
> Hi all !
> 
> It seems like some kind of automatic unsubscribe would be a nice maillist
> function. It could relieve much of the burden of keeping the member list up
> to date from the administrators.
> 
> 1.	There could be an inactivity warning after a configurable time of
> inactivity. If the user doesn't answer, he is automatically unsubsribed.
> 2.	There could also be a possibility to send an activity check mail to all
> members. Those who doesn't answer are automatically unsubscribed.

Personally I'd call that a big nuisance.

As a long-time lurker on the list, who nonetheless reads it, I'd much
prefer not to be dropped off just because I have not much to say.  I'd
expect this is not an uncommon situation.

Would that fewer people with little to say, would say little, on some
other lists I have been on.

Having administered lists of up to 15k subscribers using Mailman, I'll
also submit that unsubscribing people with legitimate and still-active
email addresses isn't much of a burden.  Certainly not compared with
the burdens of 

- unsubscribing people whose email boxes are no longer there but whose 
  former ISPs file all identifying marks off the bounce messages, for
  example, the email address of the intended recipient:

  From: Postmaster at im.clueless.com

  Your recent mail to a user at im.clueless.com was not deliverable.
  Please resend the message.

- spam, spam, spam, and spam

- locating and unsubscribing people who can't be troubled to unsubscribe
  but who instead start submitting anonymous complaints to the likes
  of SpamCop

- locating and unsubscribing people who request to be unsubscribed
  but who are not subscribers, and who are not technically savvy
  enough to send you all the received headers so you could at least
  hazard a guess as to the route (forwards, mailing lists subscribed
  to mailing lists etc) by which the mail reached them

The check of all members that really helps in my experience is the
monthly password reminder.  It reminds a lot of people who are not
interested any longer to unsubcribe, and it elicits bounces from
inactive mailboxes, most of which are susceptible to diagnosis
by Mailman's excellent bounce handling.

-- 
Dan Wilder <wilder at eskimo.com>