Apology/Retry Re: [Mailman-Users] passwords, confirmation emails, clunky web interfaces, and my grandmother

[John DeCarlo]

David,

David Hunt wrote:

> The company that hosts my website is running Mailman 2.1.2 (recently
> upgraded), and although they do fine for normal questions, I don't really
> think they're Mailman "experts".  As for myself, I already know the options
> available in Mailman's web interface and understand most of them (I think).
> I have read what documentation I could find - which only amounted to the
> expanded explanations of those options.  My questions boil down to:
> 
> 1. Can you run a list without having passwords assigned to the subscribers
> at all?  From the responses I've received, I'm guessing that it really can't
> be done (there's a feature suggestion), but I think I can come up with some
> workarounds, like the one suggested by Howard in
> http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2003-July/030023.html.

As far as I know, the answer is "no".  Try not to worry about it <g>.

> 2. How can I change the confirmation and welcome emails?  I still want them,
> but I want them to be completely different, not just with text added using
> that option.  I've found this post from Todd
> http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2003-June/029473.html - which
> may help, except I can't find these folders in Mailman's web interface, and
> I'm not sure how to access them otherwise.

What you can do, since you don't have shell access to change the files 
directly, is ask the hosting company to put your own files in the 
directory just for your own list(s).  The URL you note has the info you 
require, namely:

     # 1. the list-specific language directory
     #    lists/<listname>/<language>

Swear to the hosting company that this will not affect any other list. 
Remind them that ~mailman/lists/<listname> exists, but they have to 
create the subdirectory for the language, presumably for you "en".

As to exactly what files you want to change, it might be easier for you 
to try an install on your own Linux machine and look at all the text 
files in ~mailman/templates/en because you may want to end up changing a 
bunch of them.

-- 

John DeCarlo, My Views Are My Own