[Mailman-Users] managing pending subscriptions and confirmations

[Jan Steinman]

I seem to be gathering a fair number of unrequited pending  
subscriptions on several mailing lists. I see them by grepping for  
"pending" in /var/log/mailman/subscribe, and then checking for  
corresponding "new" entries. I did this after one of my hosting  
clients complained that people were subscribing to her newsletter, but  
weren't actually getting added to the mailing list.

These are "real" subscription requests -- not spammers or other trash.  
They are primarily people who have asked to subscribe, and then they  
were sent to the sign-up page. Many of them are relatively  
unsophisticated Internet users.

I have successfully gone through the subscription process with several  
alias addresses, so I know that it works -- at least from within my LAN.

I can only surmise that the confirmation messages are languishing in  
people's spam mailbox.

One of my clients is considering using a paid service called "Constant  
Contact" (http://www.constantcontact.com) because they claim they can  
get through people's spam filters.

Any clues, hints, or techniques for having mailman self-subscriptions  
without getting the confirmation stuck in spam filters?

I tried using the "listname-join" email address technique, but the  
confirmation comes back as from "listname-request", so it seems spam  
filters that allow replies to addresses previously sent to won't help  
here. Is there a way to make the "From:" address "listname-join"  
instead? (This should not cause any problems, because "Reply-To:"  
would still be "listname-request".)

Any other thoughts or comments welcome!

:::: This phase we're in of exponential growth is about over. We now  
have an exponential growth culture that at the present time doesn't  
even know how to cope with a state of non-growth. -- M. King Hubbert,  
1976 ::::
:::: Jan Steinman <http://www.EcoReality.org> ::::