David Gibbs wrote:
Lawrence Bowie wrote:
I have been rejecting messages from non-members but I am not sure that is the best practice. Is it better to "discard" rather than "reject" non-members messages?
It depends on the message ... if the message is topical, then I reject the message indicating that to post a person must be subscribed, and if they are subscribed, then they might be posting from a different email address.
If the message isn't topical, then I just discard it (for which the 'discard all messages marked as deferred' check box is a boon), as those are usually just spam.
So you have generic_nonmember_action set to 'Hold', and you (or a moderator) make a decision on each post.
I think Lawrence is asking a different question, namely, should generic_nonmember_action be 'reject' or 'discard'?
This is a controversial question, and the answer really depends on the list. The 'good' answer is that spam should be filtered out ahead of Mailman. Then Mailman and the list owner don't have to worry about 'blowback' and spam forwarding issues, but this solution isn't always available.
If you have spam reaching Mailman, it is clearly best to discard the spam without sending any kind of 'reply'. Note that holding and then discarding the message only does this if respond_to_post_requests is set to 'No'. Otherwise, by the time the moderator sees the message, a hold notification reply has already been sent.
Unfortunately, once the post gets to Mailman, Mailman applies the generic_nonmember_action in every case. I think we all agree that for spam (if it gets this far), this should be discard, but there are lists for which this is not appropriate if the message is not spam.
In the past, Brad has posted examples to this list of situations where silently discarding an attempted post has caused significant problems for the non-member who thought the post had been received.
In short, this is a list specific decision. Is your list one where you have non-members attempting to post? What are the consequences if that post is discarded without notice? How do these balance with spam blowback/forwarding considerations to the extent that spam gets this far?
-- Mark Sapiro <msapiro@value.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan