3.11. How do I create a newsletter/announcement/one-way list?

From 2 posts by Barry Warsaw to the mailman-users list on February 10/11 2003, with edits by JC Dill:

How to setup an announcement/newsletter/one-way email list with Mailman:

Features: Members join by filling in a form on your website (and replying to the confirmation email). They will be sent a welcome message that does not mention how to post to the list. They will receive your newsletters, with a footer that gives simple instructions for unsubscribing. Only authorized persons can post to the list (send the newsletters). (Note: For this FAQ we are discussing how to setup an announcement list for a band.)

For Mailman 2.1.x

How to create a customized welcome message that avoids mentioning how to post to the list:

  In Mailman 2.1.x you can customize the welcome message.  Create
  a directory lists/<yourlist>/en (assuming English :) and copy
  templates/subscribeack.txt to this directory.  Then edit this file
  for your specific wording.  Mailman will use this specialized
  template for the English welcome messages.

  Prior to Mailman 2.1.6, if you don't have write access to Mailman's
  directories and files, then you won't be able to create a customized
  welcome message for your list.  Beginning with Mailman 2.1.6, you
  can edit the welcome message via the 'Edit the public HTML pages
  and text files' link in the web admin interface.

How to minimize password issues and unsubscription problems commonly faced on this type of list:

  Turn on personalization under the NonDigest section[1] (and disable
  digests under the Digest section) so people get their options page
  URL included in the footer of every message.  While not totally
  avoiding the use of a password, most unsubs won't need them.  The
  easiest instructions (include in the footer) are to send a message to
  <yourlist>-leave@dom.ain, and then simply reply to the confirmation
  message, so they never need to know their password.  Disable monthly
  password reminders.  You may wish to occasionally manually run the
  reminders to cull dead addresses.

[1] In 2.1 personalization is not enabled by default -- adding:

  OWNERS_CAN_ENABLE_PERSONALIZATION = 1

to $\/Mailman/mm_cfg.py will reveal this functionality.

How to restrict the list so only authorized persons can post:

  Turn on the moderation flag for all your existing users.  Go to the
  membership management page, and use the Additional Member Tasks to
  turn on the mod flag for all users.

  Then go to Privacy Options -> Sender filters and set the
  default_member_moderation flag to Yes so that new users are
  automatically set as moderated.

  Set the member_moderation_action to Reject and add a nice rejection
  notice text to the following text box.  Say something like "this is
  an announcement list, to reach the band, please email band@dom.ain"

  Set the generic_nonmember_action to Reject or Discard.

How to set an announcement list to reply to a contact address:

  Go to the General options and scroll down to Reply-To munging.
  Turn on first_strip_reply_to and set reply_goes_to_list to Explicit
  Address.  Set reply_to_address to band@dom.ain.  This way anyone
  following up to an announcement will send the message to your band
  contact address.  If your newsletters are likely to be widely
  forwarded on, you may want to use a special contact address for
  this purpose, one you can change from time to time when the address
  starts receiving a lot of spam.

  Scroll down on the General options and set include_list_post_header
  to No, but leave include_rfc2369_headers to Yes.

How to post to the announcement list:

  For the list subscribers who are authorized to post announcements to
  the list, turn off their moderation flag so their postings go straight
  through.  (Note: this leaves open the possibility of someone forging
  email as coming "from" one of the authorized posters, and spamming
  your list.  This also opens a door for virus software that takes a
  random address from the infected computer and uses it as the "from",
  and then sends to another random address on the same computer, to use
  the authorized sender address and the list address, and end up sending
  the virus to your list.)

  A more secure alternative is for approved posters to add an Approved
  header to their postings as a header, or as the first line of the
  post (which is treated as a header by mailman when the first line
  starts with certain words).

  The approved header or first line has the following format:

       Approved: <password>

  If you are using this on the first line of your post, follow it
  with a blank line.  Mailman will recognize it as the "header" and
  remove it from the body. Follow it with a blank line because the
  line following the Approved: line is removed too (fixed in Mailman
  2.1.7).

  Q: If I misformat it, is there a chance that I will send the
  administrator password sailing forth to the list?

  No, in theory it will either get approved and stripped or not stripped
  and not approved.

For Mailman 2.0.x

If you want to create a list to which only the admin or a restricted number of people can post (such as a newsletter), set member_posting_only to "no" and add the addresses of all allowed posters to posters.

This is done on the Privacy Options page. The relevant items are "Restrict posting to list members" and "Addresses of members accepted...".

There is a link to more detailed information for the items which you might want to read as well.

One problem you will encounter is that the headers of each list message still mention a post address, and some users will think that public posting is allowed. This can be turned off in Mailman v.2.1, but for the 2.0 series, it seems you have to live with it.

In 2.1b, "Restrict posting to list members" is no longer available, unfortunately. It appears the best solution for 2.1 is to make all members require moderation, give them an auto-action if they try to post (discard or bounce, e.g.), give all non-subscribers an auto-action, and then either specifically allow certain non-subscribed addresses or un-mod certain subscribed addresses to allow them to post. (If there is an easier way, please correct this.)

Using the command-line tools instead of the web administration interface

How to do it in Mailman 2.1: you want a list where only the list moderator can post. If list subscribers (or nonsubscribers) try to post, you want their messages to be rejected. The list moderator should be able to send email to the list without having to tend to administrative requests -- you just want the email to go. The quickest way to fix the list configuration settings to get this scenario is to dump the configuration list via "config_list", edit the file, and read it back in.

Here is what you need to do for list "foobar", assuming that "joeblow@big.com" is the moderator:

   config_list -o foobar foobar

Then edit the foobar file and set the following options:

   moderator = ['joeblow@big.com']
   default_member_moderation = 1
   member_moderation_action = 1   (reject member posts)
   member_moderation_notice = 'Sorry, subscribers cannot post to this list.'
   generic_nonmember_action = 2   (reject nonmember posts)

Now reload the foobar settings file:

   config_list -i foobar foobar

Note that it is not necessary to dump and edit the configuration. You can simply create the foobar file with the above entries and then run

   config_list -i foobar foobar

as config_list only changes those settings in the input file and leaves everything else unchanged.

One final step is needed so that the moderator can post to the list without doing "tend administrative requests". Go to the admin webpage for the list and UNCHECK the "mod" button for the moderator ONLY. All subscribers to the list should have the "mod" button turned ON, except for the moderator. This assumes that the moderator is also subscribed to the list.

Note however that the more secure way to to this is to leave everyone moderated and post with an Approved: header as discussed above. under 'How to post to the announcement list:'.

Last changed on Wed Jan 23 12:16:29 2008 by jidanni Converted from the Mailman FAQ Wizard

This is one of many Frequently Asked Questions.