[Mailman-Users] Moderator v list owner

[Mark Sapiro]

On 09/26/2016 11:45 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
> At Sun, 25 Sep 2016 14:56:57 +0000 Andrew Hodgson <andrew at hodgsonfamily.org> wrote:
> 
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Just wondering what the difference is between the moderator and owner
>> addresses in Mailman? Is there a way of getting the owner to receive bounce
>> messages, subscription/unsubscription mail etc., and the moderator just
>> receiving the held messages notification?
> 
> Both the "owner" and "moderator" receive bounce messages, 
> subscription/unsubscription mail etc. The moderator can deal with 
> subscription/unsubscription and moderation messages (moderation chores) as can 
> the owner.  The owner can do additional things (deal with all of the list 
> config stuff).  Mailman basicly has two priviledge levels (three if you count 
> the overall list admin), with each higher level incorporating all of the lower 
> level's privs.


There is a FAQ on this at <https://wiki.list.org/x/4030553>, but to be
precise, owner and moderator roles have nothing to do with email
addresses that may or may not be in the owner or moderator settings of a
list. These roles are determined by who knows what password. As Robert
indicates, the moderator password for a list can be used to authenticate
for the lists admindb interface only. The owner password for a list can
be used to authenticate for the lists admindb interface and the lists
admin interface, and the site password can be used to authenticate for
the admindb interface and the admin interface for any list in the
installation.

To return to Andrew's question, the answer is no. Both the 'owner'
addresses and the 'moderator' addresses receive all mail to the list's
-owner address and this includes most notifications. There are a (very)
few notices that are sent only to the 'owner' addresses and none sent
only to the 'moderator' addresses.

Yes, it would be good if the 'moderator' addresses only received notices
about admindb things (held posts, subscriptions and unsubscriptions),
but I think it's too late to change. Also, it's tricky because in
general id is very difficult to programmatically determine if a message
from outside to -owner should or should not go to a moderator address if
there even is one.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan