[plug] Unsub/FAQ logic handling...

James Andrewartha trs80 at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
Mon Mar 26 10:21:03 WST 2001


On Mon, 26 Mar 2001, Mike wrote:

> As there has been some b/w tied up with unsubscription issues,
> why don't we start with a bit of logic to do something about
> it - we can debate how smart we are after it works ;)
> 
> ie. I get the impression most people don't want to see unsub
> requests sent to the list and the systems analysts prob
> don't want to see suffix lines re unsub info as most
> people prob wouldn't read it and it wastes b/w.

[snip pseudo code]

All good stuff ... but rather than reinvent the wheel, mailman already
detects (from utils.py, def IsAdministrivia(msg)):
"subscribe", "unsubscribe", "who", "info", "lists", "set", "help",
"password", "options", "remove".
in the subject or the body by itself and sends such messages to the list
admin rather than to the whole list. Not that I've got any particular
preference for mailman, it's just that it's an existing solution.

Note that re a later post, the message is only held, and can be let on to
the list by the list admin if they see that it's not administrivia.

Another thing that egroups/yahoogroups uses is a header that contains
unsubscribe info, eg:

List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:dgd-mudlib-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com>

This might need to be modified if the PLUG list doesn't have an
unsubscribe address and only a request address, perhaps

List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:plug-request?unsubsribe at plug.linux.org.au>

This header is picked up by recent versions of pine, and probably other
mail clients as well.

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 writing software that I      |  Email:    trs80(a)ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
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