[Mailman-Developers] Building plug-ins for mailman.

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

In principle, I agree with Patrick.  Mailman is not the right place
for DNSBL support or Spamassassin support.  This is not just because
it's already done in the MTA and/or HTTPd, but also because the MTA
and HTTPd are better places in any case because they can reject
without receiving the whole content (which can be very large,
especially in case of a DoS attack).

Nevertheless, this is a frequently requested feature because many
Mailman list owners and even site admins lack shell access and access
to MTA and HTTPd configurations.  I don't much like it (I'd rather
tell the list admins to get a better host), but OTOH many can't or
won't, so we may as well give them what they ask for.

There's another problem with these two projects as GSoC projects,
though, and that's that they're too "small".  As the OP noted,
SpamAssassin has already been done for Mailman, and there are packages
on PyPI for DNSBL support.  Integrating into Mailman is only gong to
be a few lines for each, and even if you propose several, the code
quite repetitive (mostly marshalling for the Handler API, and the code
to allow the list owner to enable/disable through the admin site).
GSoC envisions a more extended project that involves some design and
several different skills.

The confirmation for phone numbers is more interesting, and could be
extended to various kinds of confidential information, as well as
detection of confidential posts from footer legalese (which was
recently discussed on the -users list).

Regards,
Steve

Patrick Ben Koetter writes:
 > Hi Aanand,
 > 
 > * Aanand Shekhar Roy <2013001 at iiitdmj.ac.in>:)
 > > Hi all,
 > > I am currently finding good plugin ideas that might make there way into
 > > mailman 3 system.I had discussed the same with @terri on irc.Some ideas i
 > > have already found good are:
 > > 1. DNS BlockList
 > 
 > where would you put DNSBL support?
 > 
 > On SMTP level? I'd let the MTA take care of it.
 > On HTTP level? I'd let the HTTP take care of it.
 > 
 > Sorry, if I sound harsh. I don't mean it. I just can't imagine where DNSBL
 > would make sense without reinventing something that has been done yet.
 > 
 > 
 > > 2. Confirmation from user before posting phone nos in emails
 > > 3. SpamAsassin as it is
 > 
 > I'd leave that to an MTA too, unless there's a non-SMTP way how mail enters
 > mailman.
 > 
 > p at rick
 > 
 > 
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