Oct. 18, 1998
5:44 a.m.
Why not simplify the unsubscription process so that it can not only be easily be done by forgetful users but also by dumb agents?
Most mailing lists allow a simple UNSUBSCRIBE in either subject or body to trigger an unsubscription confirmation message being sent to the apparent user, with a random token which must be returned in the reply. This could be the default mailman behaviour when a password is omitted.
A lot of people in the mailing list community obviously think that the mail unsubscription process should be both simple and standard - eg the RFC authors who proposed the new mailing list headers such as "List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:list-request@domain?subject=unsubscribe>".