[Mailman-Users] 100s of copies of the same mail

[Mark Sapiro]

Mark Sapiro wrote:
>
>You set up the list and subscribed 1500 people of which some (a few, a
>hundred, more?) are clueless about e-mail lists. 1500 people get the
>test message. Some (see previous sentence for number) reply to the
>list saying don't send this to me. Now all 1500 subscribers get those
>messages and some reply saying "I didn't send it, I'm getting them
>too, stop it". And on and on it goes.
>
>Set emergency moderation for your list on NOW! and discard all these
>replies as they come in before they reach the list.

But note the addresses of the people who want to get off the list.

BTW, emergency moderation is "Emergency moderation of all list
traffic." under "Additional settings" on the General Options page

After you do the above, you need to think about the next step.

If you have set the list for reply goes to this list, the above
situation is just one of many good reasons not to do this. See
http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq03.048.htp

Whether you can recover from all the ill will that this situation
caused is not clear. You need to send an apology to the list. Leave
emergency moderation on for this. If you are now convinced that
Reply-To: munging is bad, turn it off (It could have been off all
along in which case be thankful because it would have been much worse
if it was on) before sending the apology.

Whether or not you unsubscribe everyone who asked to be unsubscribed
before or after sending the apology is your call. It may be best to
unsubscribe the entire list and then if it seems appropriate, invite
people to resubscribe. Or you may just abandon this list as a lesson
learned for another time.

--
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan