[Mailman-Users] Some observations and suggestions...

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "PH" == Peter Hamilton <survey at hamil.org> writes:

    PH> Hi folks, At the Association of C & C++ Users, we run 25
    PH> Majordomo mailing lists, these will be gradually moving over
    PH> to Mailman.

Cool!  Be sure to let me know if you want to be listed under

    http://www.list.org/inthenews.html

:)

    PH> Whilst running a couple of small lists for a local Caving
    PH> club, a few issues came to light (whilst reading this bear in
    PH> mind that unlike ACCU members, most of the Cavers are very
    PH> much at the novice level with regard to email).  Currently I'm
    PH> running v2.0.3.

    | The confirm message:
    | -------------------
    PH>   I've modified verify.txt, most users found the original
    PH> wording confusing.  It now emphasizes the simplest way to
    PH> confirm - hit reply button (but make sure the Subject line is
    PH> etc, etc..).

This has been rewritten for MM2.1, and hopefully clarified.

    | Listinfo:
    | --------
    PH>   listinfo.html was also modified, as several users complained
    PH> they were confused about the Admin address and Password boxes
    PH> for viewing the subscriber list ("do I have to type something
    PH> in these boxes to subscribe?" they ask).  This, and the
    PH> question about batched mail I've removed.  People were
    PH> checking the daily digest button, then complaining about
    PH> receiving mail only once a day!

Do you mean the address/password boxes for private rosters?

    PH> These are tweaks that beginners found useful, personally I
    PH> found the default templates fine (I'm NOT suggesting changes
    PH> to the distribution!).

Okay, but if you have suggestions, I'm happy to look at them!

    | Internet Mail Service (some sort of MS mailer?):
    | ---------------------
    |   This broke the Subject line into two lines like so:

    PH>   Subject: RE: Wcms-announce -- confirmation of subscription
    PH> -- request 6715 58

I've seen reports of this before, and it could get worse in MM2.1
since the cookie is longer now.  I should probably just shorten it to
"confirm <cookie>".

    | Outlook Express:
    | ---------------
    PH>   The default installation of Outlook Express seems to send
    PH> all text as a text/plain attachment, plus a text/html
    PH> attachment.  If subscribers don't return the default Subject:
    PH> line (and try to use "confirm 330970" in the message body
    PH> instead), Mailman can't understand the attachments and fails
    PH> to confirm.

Yeah, I really want to get some sort of demimeing support into MM2.1.
We'll see...

    PH>   This problem was easy to fix by putting a mime stripper
    PH> program into the request address alias entry (already do this
    PH> to prevent viruses and attachments in the discussion lists).
    PH> This strips out the html and flattens the text attachment to
    PH> non-attached, allowing confirms to work correctly.

    PH> Features for Mailman 3 For me, the most useful feature on the
    PH> Mailman todo list would be user accounts with multiple email
    PH> addresses.  It would be nice to have everything accessable
    PH> under a single username and password (all mailing list
    PH> subscriptions, and with a bit of custom scripting, website
    PH> password protected areas, club subscription details, etc).

Yep, no question, that'll be the biggest feature of 3.0.

-Barry