[Mailman-Users] User List

[Desert Hawk]

> >> Does not work in a shared environment.  PERMISSION DENIED every time!
> >
> >Uh?
> >You gotta be part of the group mailman to have permissions on the db.
>
>Damn this really sucks.  I imagine this software just was not designed to 
>run in a shared environment.

Instead of slamming the people who've written a flexible, easy to use
application designed for use by list administrators (who also mainly 
act as site administrators and sysadmins) primarily as a replacement 
for Majordomo which does have limitations, have you ever considered 
asking your sysadmin to give you the permissions you need to run the 
Mailman scripts?

You spend more time yelling at people who have no idea how your system
is setup when you should be talking first to your sysadmin, since they
were the ones who replaced Majordomo with Mailman on you.

Maybe they could reinstall Majordomo for you and you can go back to 
being "happy".  Have you even asked them for anything during this?

> >> BTW if any of the programmers are here can I ask why a .db format was used
> >
> >Because you don't want to a access a 10,000+ membership list linearly.
> >That's programming 101.
>
>I serious doubt even a SMALL percent of lists have that many users.  But 
>never mind, thats not the point.

It's part of the point.  There are lists out there in the hundred thousand
user range, and using Mailman.  Flatfiling that would bog a machine down
with inefficient coding on top of the MTA overhead.

>From every question you've asked, it seems like you kept picking the 
smallest possible inconsequentials to grab and knaw at.   Why not ask your
sysadmins to help?  You could write a script that uses the programs in
~mailman/bin, and have your admins install them so that they have the
permissions to use those programs as well has you having the permissions 
to run them.

You have been attacking the wrong people from the get go.  Step back, 
breathe, rethink your approach.

> >> and not the much simpler ASCII file?  I mean this software is really great
> >> at what it does.  The problem is (like I have mentioned before) that it is
> >> not very flexible at all and you have to go through a lot of screens and
> >> steps to do things.  I want to try to make this work on my server.  Please
> >
> >Not really,  you just try to  do all the  things it wasn't designed  for and
> >then complain that there isn't a front end of it.
>
>You make my point.  IT WASNT DESIGNED to be used but in a single manner.  I 
>know I am not the only one who has made request like these.  I have gotten 
>a lot of private responses asking that if I get a way to fix the problems 
>to let them know as well.  Also it is NOT complaining to ask for help or 
>request knowledge.  The fact that the program cannot do what a person asks 
>does not mean that the person is complaining.  The product really isnt as 
>flexible as it could be.  Thats not kicking anyone's cat it is simply 
>stating a point of fact.

And Majordomo was designed for more than a single use how?

Having a web interface is perfect for those who don't have shell access,
which is becoming more and more common these days.  What would happen if
your host site had a security problem or a shift in ideals, and they took
away shell access for all users?   Don't scoff...it's happened before, and
will almost certainly happen again.

I love Perl as a language, been writing admin scripts and CGI in it for 
years.  I've recently started learning PHP because I like it better for 
web use.  I also think Mailman is the sexiest application I've seen in a 
long time, and it beats the pants off Majordomo (an application that, in
1992-94, I used to think couldn't be topped).  But for ages, Majordomo
users asked for a web interface, and a builtin one never ever appeared
because "that's not what it was designed for."  Majorcool showed up, but 
that is highly lacking, also in my opinion.

Times change, technology changes, perceptions change.  Mailman does things 
in earlier versions of 2.0 that I thought Majordomo should have been doing 
over 5 years ago.  But that's just my opinion.  For my needs, I've moved
on and haven't looked back.

No one thing, be it application, or operating system, or cars, can be 
everything to everyone.  Accept that and instead of trying to force Mailman
to do what you're used to some other app doing, try to figure out different
ways to think about what you want and what you need (two very radical 
things, btw).
 
You are not stating any facts to anyone.  You are attacking an innocent
group of people because of your frustration with an application that you
can't or don't want to learn to use, when the people you should be asking
for help aren't here to begin with -- your systems administrators.

> >Eh, don't complain to  us if you need to shave the conners  off your cube as
> >you're hammering it into a round hole.
> >It's open source, you can do that if you want, but you get to shave the said
> >corners off, not us.
> >(Well, Barry & Zope.com take monetary bribes, but that's a different matter
> >:-p)
>
>Again it was a request.  I ask not to remove corners but to not have to use 
>all kinds of extraneous layers and levels of control freak features.  I 
>made a request to learn how to edit the standard message returned when the 
>HELP command is issued because I dont use the web interface pages for my 
>lists.  I want to remove the reference to them.  Thats a really simple 
>request.  I don't know what file to work with so I asked.  I asked how to 
>not have to force users to have passwords and all I get is people giving me 
>crap about "what you want your subscribers mass unsubscribed by other 
>people".  Obviously I do not consider that to be a risk worth going to all 
>the hassle of passwords over.  In my previous 8 years of running lists I 
>had ZERO instances of this.  Of course these lists were set up that one 
>could only unsubscribe a given address from that address.  Gee no need for 
>passwords!  Point is that every request made that does not have an already 
>defined fix, etc seems to be treated as a complaint or an attack on 
>someone.  It would be better for the list as a whole if the folks who have 
>nothing better to say than "if you don't like it write the code yourself", 
>"Hey its not my problem",  or "quitcher bitchin" would just move on to the 
>next email and help with what they have a constructive solution 
>for.  Although I guess that is what makes some folks happy, just sitting 
>there and pissing and moaning at everyone else.

Most of the things you are asking for aren't in the "normal" range of
operations for Mailman, and I honestly don't believe they should be.

Mailman was designed to be setup and and left alone...and it does a great
job of it.   I haven't had to do any "maintaining" on my own lists at all 
save for MSN.com users...but that's an odd situation, and doesn't have any
relevance to Mailman at all.  

Odd how the things you are requesting makes you seem like more of a control
freak than the folks you are calling control freaks.   Mailman was designed 
for list owners and site admins, who by that very definition are "control freaks" all   :)   

They control a resource that has a high abuse factor built in just because 
of the nature of the beast.  You might not care about that, but I'll bet 
that your sysadmins do, because it's their time and resources that are 
abused when they have to clean up someone else's mess after a mailbombing.

Lists are supposed to be transparent.  People sign themselves up, and 
sign themselves off, and everyone's happy.  Passwords are a great idea, 
because I've had first hand problems with lists getting mailbombed by
non-members, with people getting mailiciously signed up to lists they 
have no interest in and no easy way to get off.  The confirmations and
the passwords prevent this.  Most people like this behavior as well.

Have you tried searching the archives at all for the same questions you
are asking?

try http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/ -- all the mailing lists archived there
are driven by a database search.  I never would have been able to do half
the unconventional things with Mailman that I needed to do without that.
Well, maybe I would have, but it would have taken me a little longer.

I had to setup Mailman in an environment where no one needed to know their
passwords, nor the Mailing list URLs.  I was also the sysadmin for the 
mail servers.

I chose Mailman because the thought of converting several hundred ancient
alias-style mailing lists to Majordomo lists, but with flexibility for a
large number of list admins who couldn't be bothered to learn Majordomo
commands, but still wanted control over their own lists, gave me a migraine.

I didn't bother ripping out the List-* headers because most of the users
used Outlook or Netscape, and they would never see those headers, and 
truly wouldn't know what to do with them if they did.  It was a non-issue.
They didn't need them, but I saw no reason to take them out.

I ripped out the footers so they never knew there were URLs for them to
poke and prod, and the list members never knew they had passwords, much 
less how to access them.  I modified the listinfo pages so that the only
function left was viewing list membership.  I set up over 200 lists like
this, with memberships ranging from 5 to 5000 (including umbrella lists).

These were internal lists for an international shipping company.  List
owners had the ability to modify their list settings and memberships, and
several list members of medium sized lists with high turnover wanted to get
full lists of their users just like you've asked.  I wrote a script, and 
never had to worry about it anymore.

You are in an unusual situation, compared to most of the people here that
use Mailman.  I'd really suggest starting with your sysadmins...they might
have already done some of these things for other list owners, if this is
indeed the large, shared system you've been grousing about.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jo Brooks, Senior Staff Wizard		brooksj at wildhorse dot com
WildHorse.com				"This is a Unix system...I know this!"