4.52. How do I change the subject line format for subscription confirmations?

From the thread on the mailman-users mailing list at http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2004-July/038239.html:

Question: Is there any way to modify the Subject of the invite message?

"confirm aad5624d316c46234928426cb4a6c57c691d0e7c"

is a DEAD RINGER for spam, and is likely to be deleted by many of our users.

Answer: In $MAILMAN_HOME/Mailman/Defaults.py, we find the following section of comments & code:

 # For nicer confirmation emails, use a VERP-like format which encodes the
 # confirmation cookie in the reply address.  This lets us put a more user
 # friendly Subject: on the message, but requires cooperation from the MTA.
 # Format is like VERP_FORMAT above, but with the following substitutions:
 #
 # %(confirm)s -- the list-confirm mailbox will be set here
 # %(cookie)s  -- the confirmation cookie will be set here
 VERP_CONFIRM_FORMAT = '%(addr)s+%(cookie)s'

 # This is analogous to VERP_REGEXP, but for splitting apart the
 # VERP_CONFIRM_FORMAT.
 VERP_CONFIRM_REGEXP = r'^(?P<addr>[^+]+?)\+(?P<cookie>[^@]+)@.*$'

 # Set this to Yes to enable VERP-like (more user friendly) confirmations
 VERP_CONFIRMATIONS = No

So, all you need to do is put "VERP_CONFIRMATIONS = Yes" into your mm_cfg.py in $MAILMAN_HOME/Mailman, then stop and restart mailman.

Note that this feature is not enabled by default within mailman, due to the fact that it requires VERP support from the MTA, which may not be available. Before enabling this feature, ensure that your MTA is configured to support VERP.

There are a number of other FAQ entries which discuss VERP, and you can read them by clicking on this link: Search Wiki documentation for VERP.

Also note that prior to Mailman 2.1.6 this only works for the invitation messages. This feature did not work for other types of confirmation messages. See http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-developers/2004-February/016513.html and http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-developers/2004-February/016558.html for more on this and a patch.

Note that the functionality of the patch was incorporated in Mailman 2.1.6.

Thanks to Mark Sapiro!

Converted from the Mailman FAQ Wizard

This is one of many Frequently Asked Questions.