[Mailman-Users] Auto-reject non-member messages?

[Mark Sapiro]

Mike Starr wrote:

>Thanks so much for the help; I've set it to Reject for the moment. Could
>you expand on why Discard might be better? Are there spam issues with
>the concept of sending a rejection email?


Yes. I send spam to your list spoofing joe at example.com as the sender.
You send a reject message to joe at example.com which has my original
spam attached. Poor joe receives my spam from you - not a good thing.

Mailman 2.1.10 will have the ability to not include the original
message in the rejection notice which will help, but currently it is
included.

So if the messages are just spam, it is better to discard them.

OTOH, if there might be an occasional legitimate message from say a
member posting from the wrong address or a non-member legitimately
trying to reach the list, and you want to respond to these messages,
then choose reject.

The best practice is to filter spam ahead of Mailman so as little spam
as possible even gets to Mailman.

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