Hi,
I run a Mailman 2 list for an organization of writers with disabilities.
Recently our president has become concerned that some people wanting to
join the group may not be responding to the standard Mailman
subscription confirmation message because, from the From: line and the
subject line, they're not sure what it is and don't want to open it. I
understand why the subject line needs to be what it is, so people can
just reply to the message to confirm their subscription. Even more
confusing is that for complicated historical reasons the name of our
list has nothing to do with the name of our organization, which might
confuse prospective new members further.
One proposal for fixing this problem is for our secretary to confirm
that a new member does want to be subscribed to our list, then use the
Mailman interface to add the new member outright, without that person
having to go through the confirmation process. My concern with this
approach is the ever-present spam police. I know that the way Mailman
works by default, where someone requests to subscribe, receives a
confirmation Email, then has to take some action to confirm their
subscription, is confirmed opt-in or double opt-in. My question is, if
person A tells person B they want to join the list, through Email or
some other method that person B can later document, then person B puts
person A on the list with no further confirmation required, does this
constitute confirmed/double opt-in in the eyes of anyone to whom this
matters?
Thanks for any thoughts,
Jayson