In release 1.6b, delivery error notices will be sent to the people listed in
the 'Errors-To=' keyword (whose default will have been changed to 'Owners'
rather than 'Postmaster', after numerous requests from overloaded postmasters)
as a single file, containing the usual blurb, a banner line, and the message
in error; for those of you who are not list owners, previous versions used to
generate a short nastygram and a separate copy of the mailfile in Netdata
format (or whatever the preferred format defined for the target's node is).
I would now like to hear your opinion regarding what should be done with mail
forwarded to the editor of moderated lists for approval. The present system is
similar to the "old" way of returning delivery error mail, ie short nastygram
and standalone copy of the message in question. This system is not very
convenient as you will usually get the nastygram a couple hours/days before
the message, which is usually much bigger, and which you may in fact mistake
for something sent directly to you. On the other hand, you will see the actual
origin and subject of the note in the MAIL menu, and the value of the 'To:'
field (pointing to the list) should identify it for what it is; the message is
sent unmodified, so that you have nothing to edit out if you do want to
forward it back to the list.
What I could easily do is change this to generate a single mail message, as
explained above; the origin of this message would be the LISTSERV userid, I
could set the subject to whatever you want, and the body would contain a short
blurb, a banner line, and a copy of the original, unmodified message. The
advantages of having a single message rather than 2 are obvious, however it
should be noted that this cannot be just forwarded as it is to the list; you
would need to delete the blurb (unless your purpose is to bore your audience),
and you would have to do something about the headers in the body, or LISTSERV
would choke on them and reject the message. Finally, if your did a FORWARD of
that note, the message would appear as "originally from" the LISTSERV userid
(if really needed, I could place something else in the "From:" field).
Now, I'm the editor of only one list, which is (almost) local, and anything
sent to it by someone else is usually sent there by mistake, so that I really
don't do any actual moderator job on that list. I have no idea how a "real"
editors handles incoming mail for the list; this is your opportunity to speak
up and help me design a better system that will make your life easier.
Eric
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