Hi everyone,
I’ve been googling a bit, but the only thing I can find is from back in 2010 (https://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2010-May/069388.html) as to if it’s possible to configure a mailman list to “prevent” reply-all.
Basically, I support a lot of users that seem to not realize the difference between the two, or they just don’t care if everyone gets inundated with “thanks” and “congrats” responses. So I’m curious if there’s any way to make a mailman list not easily accommodate reply-all. I thought reply-to munging would work, but it doesn’t sound like it does. What I want is really what rpschwar wanted back then.
User A send message to list. List members get the mail, but it “appears” to be from User A and not from the list. So a Reply and Reply-all both do the same thing. To really reply-all, users would have to physically type in the mail list address into their To or CC fields.
Is this possible (short of re-educating our users about how “reply-all” really isn’t appropriate in most cases)?
Thanks!
-Ryan Stasel
On 10/25/2016 02:46 PM, Ryan C Stasel wrote:
What I want is really what rpschwar wanted back then.
User A send message to list. List members get the mail, but it “appears” to be from User A and not from the list. So a Reply and Reply-all both do the same thing. To really reply-all, users would have to physically type in the mail list address into their To or CC fields.
Is this possible (short of re-educating our users about how “reply-all” really isn’t appropriate in most cases)?
There's not much you can do with list configuration.
Mailman ensures the list posting address is always in To: or Cc:, so you have to modify code (Mailman/Handlers/CookHeaders.py) to keep it out. You also may need to set the list's Non-digest options -> personalize to Full Personalization so the list address is not in To:.
Perhaps a better way to do all of this is to set the list's Non-digest options -> personalize to Full Personalization and create a custom handler (see https://wiki.list.org/x/4030615) to go in the pipeline after CookHeaders and to just remove any Cc: from the message. Then the From: will be the poster, To: will be the individual recipient and there will be no Cc:.
However, with any method like this, you will run afoul of DMARC if the domain of From: publishes a DMARC p=reject or p=quarantine policy. You really can't avoid DMARC issues without changing the From: domain. Standard DMARC mitigations will probably work by putting the original From: in Reply-To:, but then you have the issue of the munged From: containing the list address and you'd need to change that, but to what could you change it that isn't the original From:, isn't the list address, won't bounce and won't inundate someone with unwanted mail, Maybe the list-owner address?
Another way to do something, but not exactly what you ask is to set Privacy options... -> Recipient filters -> max_num_recipients to 2 and require_explicit_destination to Yes.
This will ensure that any post which addresses more than just the list, which all reply-alls will, will be held for moderation.
For more control, you can use header_filter_rules to hold or reject posts with more that one address in To: (a regexp like '^To:.*?@.*?@.*$' might do although it will falsely catch a display name with an @), or any Cc:
-- Mark Sapiro mark@msapiro.net The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
On Oct 25, 2016, at 15:42 , Mark Sapiro mark@msapiro.net wrote:
On 10/25/2016 02:46 PM, Ryan C Stasel wrote:
There's not much you can do with list configuration.
Mailman ensures the list posting address is always in To: or Cc:, so you have to modify code (Mailman/Handlers/CookHeaders.py) to keep it out. You also may need to set the list's Non-digest options -> personalize to Full Personalization so the list address is not in To:.
Perhaps a better way to do all of this is to set the list's Non-digest options -> personalize to Full Personalization and create a custom handler (see https://wiki.list.org/x/4030615) to go in the pipeline after CookHeaders and to just remove any Cc: from the message. Then the From: will be the poster, To: will be the individual recipient and there will be no Cc:.
However, with any method like this, you will run afoul of DMARC if the domain of From: publishes a DMARC p=reject or p=quarantine policy. You really can't avoid DMARC issues without changing the From: domain. Standard DMARC mitigations will probably work by putting the original From: in Reply-To:, but then you have the issue of the munged From: containing the list address and you'd need to change that, but to what could you change it that isn't the original From:, isn't the list address, won't bounce and won't inundate someone with unwanted mail, Maybe the list-owner address?
Another way to do something, but not exactly what you ask is to set Privacy options... -> Recipient filters -> max_num_recipients to 2 and require_explicit_destination to Yes.
This will ensure that any post which addresses more than just the list, which all reply-alls will, will be held for moderation.
For more control, you can use header_filter_rules to hold or reject posts with more that one address in To: (a regexp like '^To:.*?@.*?@.*$' might do although it will falsely catch a display name with an @), or any Cc:
Hmm, darn. I might play with the max recipients thing, but I think the end result of that will be similar to just making the list moderation only.
Thanks Mark!
-Ryan Stasel
Hi!
On Tue, 2016-10-25 at 21:46 +0000, Ryan C Stasel wrote: [...]
User A send message to list. List members get the mail, but it “appears” to be from User A and not from the list. So a Reply and
And the mail actually *was* from user A - it was just replicated and distributed to many others via the mailinglist (software).
Reply-all both do the same thing. To really reply-all, users would have to physically type in the mail list address into their To or CC fields.
The "reply-all" button in - TTBOMK - all MUAs does this and the "List- Reply" button in the better ones does this too: grab the appropriate addresses from the headers and use them for the reply. That's actually the definition of them IMHO.
Do you use "Reply-To-Munging"? If yes, you actually want to *not* *do* reply-to-munging so the (simple) "reply" button goes just to the address in the From: header.
Personally: And *if* people press "reply-to-all", they may actually want it and what software can decide based on which criteria that they actually do not want it?
Is this possible (short of re-educating our users about how “reply- all” really isn’t appropriate in most cases)?
No - Email and mailing lists are just tools (just like a hammer) and if people use them wrong, it's not the job of the hammer to decide if he should hit or not hit the nail - even if the hammer could decide that a finger is in between.
Since on one (else) complains via the mailinglist (otherwise you would have mentioned it IMHO) that "thank you" mails should be private, it probably bothers no one really.
It's IMHO also a thing for the mailinglist charta, if "thank you" mails (and similar) are actually wanted/encouraged or "only private, otherwise it bandwidth and archive space waste".
And some people may actually think that saying "thank you" in public is actually a good thing - even if it's only just the education;-)
Kind regards, Bernd
Bernd Petrovitsch Email : bernd@petrovitsch.priv.at LUGA : http://www.luga.at
participants (3)
-
Bernd Petrovitsch
-
Mark Sapiro
-
Ryan C Stasel