[Mailman-Users] Gathering additional iniformation at signup

[Hank van Cleef]

The esteemed Mark Sapiro has said:
> 
> Walter wrote:
> 
> >I have just started using Mailman and wish to add fields (user title, organization) that must be filled out upon subscription and available to the list moderator for approval.  I can easily change the subscription form, adding these fields, but where do I go to modify the approval process to display them?  I looked thru the archives and I'm guessing that I have to customize something in the admin pages, but where do I begin?  Thanks.
> 
> 
> This question is probably more appropriate for the
> mailman-developers at python.org list, but ...
> 
> This kind of information is kept in a UserDesc instance during the
> subscribe process. This class is defined in Mailman/UserDesc.py and
> you would probably need to augment its methods to account for your new
> items.
> 
> This class is imported in all the following modules which would at
> least need to be reviewed.
> 
> Mailman/Cgi/admin.py
> Mailman/Cgi/confirm.py
> Mailman/Cgi/subscribe.py
> Mailman/Commands/cmd_subscribe.py
> Mailman/ListAdmin.py
> Mailman/MailList.py
> bin/sync_members
> tests/test_membership.py
> 
> This kind of information is also kept in the list's request.pck file
> for subscriptions waiting confirmation or approval. Thus, the
> SUBSCRIPTION request record is affected and this potentially affects
> the following modules.
> 
> Mailman/Cgi/admindb.py
> Mailman/Cgi/confirm.py
> Mailman/ListAdmin.py
> bin/update
> cron/checkdbs
> 
> In other words, this is not a simple change.
> 
I'm another Mailman admin who needs a totally non-standard
subscription mechanism.  Currently, all of the Mailman subscription
stuff from the listinfo.html page is disabled with a custom page with
a link out to a site-specific form which gets mailed back to the list
admins.  New subscribers get added manually through the mass
subscription page.  

I see a couple of other people who need a similar mechanism.  While
our method works for us, with our low turnover, the underlying Python
doesn't like our changes, but things work well enough anyway.  I've
given some thought to redoing things so that a custom page can link
out to a non-Mailman process, then return the mail address and real
name to Mailman as an approved subscription for Mailman processing.

As you point out, Mark, this is probably a topic for
mailman-developers.  Thus far I've assumed that any work I did here
would be strictly site-specific.  But if there is a real need for 
a customized subscription mechanism beyond what is currently in
Mailman, we might consider something better than local band-aids.

Hank