[Mailman-Users] How to send moderator email approval

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Matthias Schmidt writes:

 > Wouldn't it be than possible either in mailman itself or in the MTA to
 > send a copy to a list of admins?
 > Just an idea, didn't try that.

This would be hard to do in the MTA; it doesn't have the relevant
information.

But it isn't hard to do in Mailman; it just requires a fairly
straightforward modification of the source.  That hasn't been done,
yet.

The hard questions are (1) "is it a *good* idea?"  Apparently several
people think so, but there may be a better way to accomplish the same
thing.  How about an aggregation of RSS feeds, like a buildbot[1]
display, from all your lists, anyone?  Or, personally, I use a folder
of bookmarks to my lists and just open-all-in-tabs, etc.  I don't
claim that the alternatives I present are *actually* better, but since
there *are* alternatives, one of them might be a clear win over more
email.  And it may pose problems.  Could this feature be used to DOS or
harrass the admins (a la "backscatter")?  I don't think so off-hand,
but any "push" medium needs to be checked for abuse potential.

(2) "What kind of configuration should the feature have?"  Where does
it fit in the Mailman admin screens?  What options should be available
(list of addresses, frequency, can we aggregate such notifications
across several lists, etc)?

If your answer to (1) is "yes, and I can't think of a *better* idea",
then file an RFE on tracker.  Answers to (2) are optional, but really
really help make your case (thinking about this kind of yucky detail
that almost everybody will disagree with no matter what you do is
really enthusiasm-draining for developers, you know<wink>).  A patch,
of course, is best.<nudge,nudge,wink,wink,say-no-more,say-no-more,eh?>


Footnotes: 
[1]  http://buildbot.net/trac/wiki/Screenshots/