Brad Rogers wrote:

I run a small mailing list which under version 2.1.11 of Mailman. A while ago, an unsubscribe message came to the list rather than be intercepted and acted upon. I thought nothing of it at the time, but a similar occurrence on another list (to which I subscribe but do not have admin priveleges) prompted me to look closer at my settings. Admin messages to the list are supposed to be intercepted, but for some reason, this one (actually, there were several from the same person) wasn't. Obviously something amiss. The other list runs under v2.1.9 of MM.

A message really has to look like a command that would be sent to the -request address to be classed as administrivia. There are several tests, but here's a summary:

If the message has more than DEFAULT_MAIL_COMMANDS_MAX_LINES (default 25) non-blank body lines preceeding a signature ("-- ") separator it is not administrivia. Thus the typical message that says "unsubscribe me" followed without an intervening "-- " line by a quote of a 50 line post is not administrivia.

Then if the message body has exactly one word and that word is one of the words in this list

'confirm'
'help'
'info'
'lists'
'options'
'password'
'remove'
'set'
'subscribe'
'unsubscribe'
'who'

the message is administrivia.

Then if the message body is more than one word, it is administrivia if the subject or one of the first 5 non-blank body lines begins with one of the above words and has the right number of following words to be a syntactically valid email command.

All other messages are not administrivia.

I can forward copies of messages (with headers) if required so those of you more knowledgeable than me can see what's happening.

If the above doesn't explain it, You can send me a sample message.

-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan