Moderation and Approval for Mailing Lists at Pitt using Majordomo
All lists on list.pitt.edu can be moderated. This is simply a toggle in
the list configuration file; no request to Postmaster is required.
Overview
When the list is moderated, all submissions are redirected to the moderator(s)
for editing and approval. There are two ways that Majordomo will accept
a message to a moderated list without resending it to the moderator(s):
-
Message contains Approved: header in its own headers
If your mail client allows you to add extra headers to your outgoing
messages on an individual basis, you can simply insert a header of exactly:
Approved: passwd
in your message to the list. Of course, this only works for messages originated
by the moderator(s).
The full message as it is seen before sending would be something like:
To: listname@list.pitt.edu
Subject: Important information about listname
Approved: passwd
This is an important message being sent to all members of the
listname list...
Message body contains Approved: header followed by headers and body of
actual message
This is the normal case; when someone submits a message to the list,
the moderator extracts the message to a file, edits it (perhaps removing
long .signatures, fixing typos, etc.), and then composes a new message
to the list like this:
To: listname@list.pitt.edu
Approved: passwd
From: Original Submittor <...>
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 15:56:44 -0500 (EST)
To: listname@list.pitt.edu
Subject: My message
[Moderator's note: normally, I wouldn't send out a request such as
this to the list, but in this case, it seemed fairly important.]
This is my first message to the listname list...
Note: Be sure to format your message correctly. First, you could
unwittingly expose the list password to your recipients. Second, the message
enclosed after the Approved: header must have a complete set of headers,
including at least From:, Date:, To:, and probably Subject:.
The Approved: line must be the first line of the message. There
must be no blank lines preceding it.
If the message to be approved begins with ">From ", you must remove
the ">" before sending the approved message. If you leaved the ">" there,
Majordomo will omit the headers of the approved message.
List Owner Options for Moderation
All of these options are in the list configuration for the list, which
you can use the config/newconfig commands to update. You don't need to
edit any of these unless you wish to change the defaults. If you have a
-digest version of your list. you must edit these options in the config
for the non-digest list.
-
moderate
If yes, all postings to the list must be approved by the moderator.
-
moderator
When this is not left blank, approval requests for moderated lists
will be sent to the address specified instead of to the list owner address(es).
Managed Mailing
Lists at Pitt
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postmaster@pitt.edu.
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