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