[Mailman-Developers] Mailman limitations

[Edward Elhauge]

Hi developers,

I transfered the ten mailing list I run from Smartlist to Mailman about
two months ago and don't regret it. But I can also see some improvements
needed in Mailman to get it generally accepted.

I've been on the list a couple of weeks and posted a request on the
mailman-users list about these limitations and haven't seen any solutions
forthcoming so I presume what I want is not available in Mailman right
now.

I'm a fairly senior Perl programmer and would love to learn Python so now
might be the time for me to find out if there is something the Mailman
team needs in terms of Python programming.

What I find great about the system is the authentication of the address
required to get on the list and the monthly reminder for users on how to
get off. Also the Web user config interface and admin interface along with
the Web archive.

What I don't like is that I can't run the lists on autopilot mode. My
lists are fairly small, between 20 and 100 mail address in each. A lot of
the subscribers on one list are from other countries and post in French or
Spanish. A lot of political activists post to these lists about their own
interests without staying on topic for the lists.

I have the lists set up so that you have to subscribe to post; that deters
some of the huge political mailers. The authentication step, I think,
stops some people who use their addresses to post but never read their
mail. I have the too many addresses filter in, although I bumped the limit
to about 15. I also set the implicit address filter. Both of these last
two steps promote the interactive list atmosphere that I am trying to
promote.

The bad thing is that I then have at least 10 messages to approve
throughout the day. It is a real hassle. Most of these people seem to ignore
my rejection notices; perhaps some of them don't understand the generic
message sent back that talks about 'not posting administrative requests'
etc, since it isn't to the point of why their post was rejected, and it
may not be in a language they understand. Editing each message would take
up even more of my time. Some of them may never read the mail received
at their address.

I feel that a lot of sites that have dropped Mailman, after giving it a try,
might have done so because they can't run their lists on autopilot.

I think was is needed is to keep these filters, but to have the option to
have an automatic rejection message specific to the rejection reason and
to the list. As a further refinement the message might be specifically in
the language that the poster used.

Furthermore there should be a database of rejects by address, so that
persistent rejects can be put on a reject spam list at the the MTA level.

Let me know if these capabilities are already in Mailman or if there is
already ongoing development along these lines. If not, I would be
interested in working on enhancements along these lines.
--
  Edward Elhauge <ee@uncanny.net>  | "War is like love;
    Uncanny Inc., San Francisco    |  it always finds a way."
                                   |            -- Bertold Brecht