-This subcategory controls the rules for exposing the existance of this
-list, and for what new members must do in order to subscribe to the
-list.
+When a message is posted to the list, a series of moderation criteria are
+applied to determine the disposition of the message. This section
+contains the modeation controls for postings from both members and
+non-members.
-
advertised
-
This option controls whether this list will show up in the list
- overview for the site. Normally, an overview contains the name
- and short description of every mailing list in the virtual
- domain. By setting this variable to No, it will not show
- up in this overview, nor will it show up in the administrative
- overview. The only way then to find the list is to guess (or
- know!) its name.
+
default_member_moderation
+
Member postings are held for moderation if their moderation
+ flag is turned on. Note that only the list administrators can
+ change the value of a member's moderation flag.
-
-
subscribe_policy
-
This option controls the steps that a new member must take to join
- the list. The available options may differ based on some defaults
- that the site administrator chooses. They are:
+You can control whether new members get their moderation flag
+ turned on or off by default when they subscribe to the list. By
+ turning this flag off by default, postings by members will be
+ allowed without further intervention (barring other restrictions
+ such as size or implicit recipient lists - see below). By
+ turning the flag on, you can quarantine new member postings to
+ make sure that they meet your criteria for netiquette, topicality,
+ etc. Once you determine that the new member understands the
+ community's posting rules, you can turn off their moderation flag
+ and let their postings go through unstopped.
+E-newsletter style lists can also be set up by using the
+ moderation flag. By setting the member_moderation_action
+ to Reject, and by turning off the moderation flag for just
+ the few approved senders, your list will operate in essentially a
+ one-way direction. Note that you'd also need to reject or discard
+ postings from non-members.
-
-
None - No verification is done on the subscribing
- member. This is also called open subscriptions and is
- generally disabled by default. The site administrator must
- allow list admins to choose this option; if not, this option
- will not be presented to you.
+
+
+
member_moderation_action
+
This is the action to take for postings from a member who's
+ moderation flag is set. For typical discussion lists, you'll
+ likely set this to Hold so that the list moderator will get
+ a chance to manually approve, reject, or discard the message. For
+ e-newsletter and announcement lists, you might want to set this to
+ Reject or Discard.
+
+
+Note that when a moderated member posts to your list, and the
+ member_moderation_action is set to Hold, the message
+ will appear on the administrative requests page. When you dispose
+ of the message, you will be given an opportunity to clear the
+ moderation flag at the same time. If you're quarantining new
+ posts, this makes it very convenient to both approve a new
+ member's post and de-moderate them at the same time.
-
-
Confirm - An email confirmation step is required before the
- address is added to the list. When a member requests
- subscription, either via the web page or by sending a
- message to yourlist-join@example.com, Mailman
- will send a confirmation message to the requesting address.
- This mail-back confirmation contains a unique identifier,
- which the requester can present to Mailman in order to
- confirm their subscription. This can be done either by
- replying to the mail-back, or by visiting the url in the
- mail-back message. The url points to a page that lets the
- user either discard or confirm their request.
+
+
member_moderation_notice
+
When a member's moderation flag is turned on and
+ member_moderation_action is Reject, this variable
+ contains the text sent in the rejection notice.
+
+
-
-
Require approval - All subscription requests are held for
- approval of the list moderator. No mail-back confirmation
- is sent, but the list admins will recieve a message
- indicating that approval is pending.
+The next batch of variables controls what happens when non-members
+post messages to the list. Each of these accepts one email address
+per line; regular expressions are allowed if the line starts with the
+(caret) character. These address lists are always consulted in the
+order in which they're presented on this page (i.e. accepts first,
+followed by holds, rejections, and discards).
-
-
Confirm and approve - Here, a mail-back notice must first
- be confirmed by the requester. Once confirmed, the list
- moderator must then approve the request. This is the most
- secure method for users to subscribe since it both verifies
- the requesting address, and forces the list moderators to
- approve the request.
+
+
accept_these_nonmembers
+
Postings from non-members whose addresses match this list are
+ accepted, barring other list restrictions due to size, implicit
+ recipients, etc. You might want to add alternative addresses of
+ approved posters to this list.
-
-
+
+
hold_these_nonmembers
+
Postings from non-members whose addresses match this list are
+ held for moderator approval.
-
unsubscribe_policy
-
Specifies whether the list moderator's approval is required for
- unsubscription requests. No is highly recommended, since
- it is exceedingly impolite to not allow people to leave a mailing
- list whenever they want (i.e. opt-out). Yes is useful in
- some specialized contexts; e.g. you may not want to allow
- employees to unsubscribe from the company newsletter.
+
reject_these_nonmembers
+
Postings from non-members whose addresses match this list are
+ rejected, i.e. bounced back to the original sender. There
+ currently is no way to add additional text to the rejection
+ message.
-
ban_list
-
This contains a list of addresses (or regular expressiosn), one
- per line, that are banned from ever subscribing to your mailing
- list. If a match occurs during the subscription process, the
- request will be automatically rejected, and the requester will get
- a rejection notice. You can use this to permanently ban
- troublesome posters to a members-only list.
+
discard_these_nonmembers
+
Postings from non-members whose addresses match this list are
+ discarded, with no bounce back message. You might want to add the
+ addresses of known spammers to this list.
-
private_roster
-
This specifies who is allowed to view the roster of member
- addresses. If you choose Anyone, then the list membership
- is completely public. You can limit exposure of the roster to
- just list members, or just to the list administrators. In the
- former case, a user must enter a valid member's address and
- password before they can view the roster. In the latter case, a
- list administrator's password must be enter; if a matching admin
- password is entered, address field is ignored.
+
generic_nonmember_action
+
This variable controls what happens to non-member posts when the
+ address of the sender doesn't match any of the above four lists.
+ If you set this to Hold, the posting will appear on the
+ administrative requests page, and you will be given an opportunity
+ to add the non-member to one of the above four lists at the same
+ time you dispose of the held message.
-
obscure_addresses
-
Controls whether some simple obfuscation of addresses is used when
- member addresses are included on web pages. This should reduce
- the opportunity for email address harvesting by spammers, although
- it probably doesn't eliminate it.
+
forward_auto_discards
+
When messages from non-members are discarded, either because the
+ sender address matched discard_these_nonmembers, or because
+ generic_nonmember_action is Discard, you can choose
+ whether such messages are forwarded to the lsit administrators or
+ not.
