individual moderation notices stopped suddenly
Currently running Mailman 2.1.9 with a low-volume moderated list called kuenning-relatives@qhpress.org. I'm supposed to receive notifications of posts to be moderated at kuenning-relatives-owner@qhpress.org, both as single notifications as the posts come in and as daily batch notifications (normally at 8:00 AM) if there are any accumulated posts from the day before.
On Aug. 31 I received, as usual, a single-post notification,
Subject: Kuenning-Relatives post from [user@domain] requires approval which I acted on promptly.
On Sept. 1 at 8:00 AM I received a daily summary notification,
Subject: 1 Kuenning-Relatives moderator request(s) waiting covering one post for which there had _not_ been a single-post notification (not the above post but a reply to it).
Again this morning, Sept. 3, I got another summary,
Subject: 4 Kuenning-Relatives moderator request(s) waiting covering 4 posts for _none_ of which there had been any single-post notification.
This sudden and unexpected loss of the immediate single-post notifications naturally makes it harder to moderate the posts in a timely fashion.
No changes were made to the list or the mailman setup during the relevant time period.
Where should I look in the mailman logs for clues about what's wrong? I tried cd-ing to the log directory (/var/log/mailman) and grepping for the notification address kuenning-relatives-owner@qhpress.org, but nothing turned up.
P.S. I know I'd be better off if I could upgrade from 2.1.9 to something that can cope with DMARC, but this is a Plesk setup and I'm afraid to mess with it for fear of breaking something. Any advice about this would be welcome but isn't the main subject of this query.
-- Larry Kuenning larry@qhpress.org
I may have just figured out the key difference between posts for which I get single moderation notices and those for which I don't. Some of my subscribers are set to individual moderation, and for them I get the single-post notices. Then the whole list was more recently set to "emergency moderation," and there are no single-post notices for posts that are moderated for that reason only.
I suppose this means that the only way to get immediate notification of every single post is to set all subscribers to moderated status?
-- Larry Kuenning larry@qhpress.org
On 09/03/2017 11:57 AM, Larry Kuenning wrote:
I may have just figured out the key difference between posts for which I get single moderation notices and those for which I don't. Some of my subscribers are set to individual moderation, and for them I get the single-post notices. Then the whole list was more recently set to "emergency moderation," and there are no single-post notices for posts that are moderated for that reason only.
That's correct. No owner notifications are sent for 'emergency moderation'. As the code says:
No notices are sent to either the sender or the list owner for emergency holds. I think they'd be too obnoxious.
I suppose this means that the only way to get immediate notification of every single post is to set all subscribers to moderated status?
That's correct.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
On 9/3/17 2:57 PM, Larry Kuenning wrote:
I may have just figured out the key difference between posts for which I get single moderation notices and those for which I don't. Some of my subscribers are set to individual moderation, and for them I get the single-post notices. Then the whole list was more recently set to "emergency moderation," and there are no single-post notices for posts that are moderated for that reason only.
I suppose this means that the only way to get immediate notification of every single post is to set all subscribers to moderated status?
I believe it is intentional that you do not get notified for post held for 'emergency moderation'. My understanding of the purpose of 'emergency moderation' is for a short term emergency when a lot of 'bad' posts (like spam) are getting to the list. It is intended to be a short term patch till you can figure out a better method, then you will turn off the emergency moderation. In this case you will likely get flooded with moderation messages for posts held for the emergency moderation, and you are likely going to be able to check the web interface frequently while you are working on it.
-- Richard Damon
On 9/3/2017 3:11 PM, Richard Damon wrote:
I believe it is intentional that you do not get notified for post held for 'emergency moderation'. My understanding of the purpose of 'emergency moderation' is for a short term emergency when a lot of 'bad' posts (like spam) are getting to the list. It is intended to be a short term patch till you can figure out a better method, then you will turn off the emergency moderation. In this case you will likely get flooded with moderation messages for posts held for the emergency moderation, and you are likely going to be able to check the web interface frequently while you are working on it.
I see. That makes sense for the typical high-volume "emergency" such as a spam attack or flame war.
In my case the "emergency" on this very low-volume list was that one cousin had requested other cousins' personal data to help arrange an aunt's bequests, and the list's reply_goes_to_list setting was creating a risk of the requested private info being accidentally sent to too many recipients. I could have turned off reply_goes_to_list but most subscribers were used to the old setting.
Thanks, I guess my technical questions have been answered (apart from the probably unanswerable matter of how to get Plesk to accept a recent version of mailman).
-- Larry Kuenning larry@qhpress.org
On 9/3/17 5:19 PM, Larry Kuenning wrote:
On 9/3/2017 3:11 PM, Richard Damon wrote:
I believe it is intentional that you do not get notified for post held for 'emergency moderation'. My understanding of the purpose of 'emergency moderation' is for a short term emergency when a lot of 'bad' posts (like spam) are getting to the list. It is intended to be a short term patch till you can figure out a better method, then you will turn off the emergency moderation. In this case you will likely get flooded with moderation messages for posts held for the emergency moderation, and you are likely going to be able to check the web interface frequently while you are working on it.
I see. That makes sense for the typical high-volume "emergency" such as a spam attack or flame war.
In my case the "emergency" on this very low-volume list was that one cousin had requested other cousins' personal data to help arrange an aunt's bequests, and the list's reply_goes_to_list setting was creating a risk of the requested private info being accidentally sent to too many recipients. I could have turned off reply_goes_to_list but most subscribers were used to the old setting.
Thanks, I guess my technical questions have been answered (apart from the probably unanswerable matter of how to get Plesk to accept a recent version of mailman).
Sounds like you don't really have an 'Emergency Moderation' issue but changing a policy of a (mostly) unmoderated list to a fully moderated list.
One other option if people are just pressing Reply All, is to create a filter for the Subject of that message, so you can review replies to it.
-- Richard Damon
A new question about the same list:
Can a submitted e-mail, stupidly deleted by list owner (me) through the list administration web interface, be somehow reconstructed if the option "Forward messages (individually) to: [owner address]" was previously checked and the resulting e-mail-to-owner still exists?
There is no single-message notification to owner because this one was held only through "emergency moderation."
Shell access with root privileges is available, and I've already wasted some time there trying to reconstruct a heldmsg-*.pck file by copying one for another message and trying to substitute data from the deleted message. This doesn't seem to create anything mailman is willing to use (unsurprisingly, since I don't understand mailman's internal data storage).
-- Larry Kuenning larry@qhpress.org
On 09/04/2017 12:18 PM, Larry Kuenning wrote:
Can a submitted e-mail, stupidly deleted by list owner (me) through the list administration web interface, be somehow reconstructed if the option "Forward messages (individually) to: [owner address]" was previously checked and the resulting e-mail-to-owner still exists?
Yes. The message as received by the list is attached to the "forward" to the owner. Some mail clients will allow you to open the attached message and "bounce" it to the list. In the worst case, you can save that attached message to a file and then use Mailman's bin/inject to post it
bin/inject -l LISTNAME /path/to/saved/email
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
participants (3)
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Larry Kuenning -
Mark Sapiro -
Richard Damon