>   Actually, what I'd like to see before the fuzzy domain matching is
>some sort of "change" command which would allow wildcards.  eg:
>
>CHANGE listname oldaddress newaddress
 
I was one of those who originally supported the fuzzy domain matching,
but realize that with uniqueness not guaranteed it's a kludge, even
though statistically it may not come up very often (i.e., the probability
that a truly unsubscribed user will post an unauthorized message AND
happen to have an address that fuzzy-matches an existing subscriber seems
insignificant, especially since when it does happen it's hardly a big
deal).
 
I guess I could add my vote to the "change" command (with the caveat
that I really haven't thought through all its ramifications).  However,
all my lists are now Review=Owner, and most of the time people don't
remember what they were subscribed to.  So to make the change command
more useful, there should also be a fuzzy "query" command which would
list all fuzzy-matching variations of the invoker's e-mail address.
The loss of "privacy" would be miniscule.
 
But since everyone is using this issue to tell Eric what they'd REALLY
like instead, I'll add mine: :-)
 
==> An "approve" command for moderated postings (no, the "OK" mechanism
    isn't good enough).  Explanation follows.
 
It seems that every 3 months there is a thread on lstown-l about Resent-
headers (which are needed for moderators to approve messages to
moderated/edited lists without changing the original "From:" lines). The
gist of it is that someone doesn't know (a) what it is (b) how to
generate it (c) how to get around an apparent inability to generate it
in their environment.  The best outcome of the discussion is usually a
partial solution that can be made to work with some kludging around
and applicable to the original requester's environment.  Then this
process is repeated three months later.
 
It is an unfortunate but serious limitation of an otherwise excellent
system for edited and moderated lists that listserv makes it so unwieldy
for so many listowners to have moderated lists.  Witness:
 
- Some small number of mailers seem to have a "resend" command that does
  exactly what is needed without any work by the users.  Unfortunately,
  this seems to be the exception rather than the rule.  NONE of the mailers
  that I've used on three completely separate systems (two at mit.edu,
  three at att.com and two at world.std.com--a public access provider)
  fall into this category!  From the frequency with which this comes
  up on lstown-l, clearly it's a more universal problem.
 
- The discussion usually then digresses into complicated configuration
  file changes on how to get particular mailers to permit these headers.
  Should it be this complicated to use what should be a simple feature?
 
- The "OK" mechanism partially addresses this (yes, it even makes it easier
  in many cases).  But there are at least two situations where this
  doesn't work:
  + For truly edited lists, where changes are made to the text by the
    editor;
  + For unmoderated/moderated list pairs or some equivalent arrangement
    (this is my situation).  I have a list BALLROOM (unmoderated) and
    BALLRM-M (moderated).  All submissions are made to BALLROOM and a
    small subset approved for BALLRM-M.  No one other than the
    moderator(s) sends mail to BALLRM-M, so I cannot use the OK
    mechanism here.  (Yes, I've thought about putting making ballrm-m a
    "member" of ballroom, but (a) I don't want to read all my messages
    with the approval banner and OK code--the ratio of submitted to
    approved postings is much higher in this arrangement than I imagine
    would typically be for a moderated-only list--and (b) I don't want MY
    postings to BALLROOM to be approved automatically just because I am
    the list owner or moderator.)
 
The bottom line is that mail clients are moving AWAY from giving users
access to headers (at least not easy access) and are moving AWAY from
allowing outgoing "From:" lines to be set easily to something other than
the originator's address.  Some mail gateways are, RFC822 or no RFC822,
rewriting "From:" lines for various reasons (forgery prevention being
one and conversion to "generic form" addresses being another).  Call
them broken if you want to, but all this is the reality, even if not the
ideal.  Why L-Soft is not acknowledging this is beyond my
comprehension!  The solution is so simple, too:
 
1. Retain the current "Resent-From:" and OK mechanisms for compatibility
2. Add a command (which would be sent to listserv@...)
        approve listname [pw=xxxx]
        Headers AND body of message immediately following approve command
   EVERY mail client I know lets one read a file into the body of the
   message, and for those inclined it is not hard to write a simple script
   to automate this.
 
This has the additional advantage of allowing an implementation with
some security in the approval process via the pw= mechanism.  (Presumably
the password could be the list password or personal passwords of editors
or moderators.)
 
OK, I'm done now.  Can we have this in 1.8c?  1.8d then? :-)
But seriously, all the fuzzy matching stuff is just icing compared to
making a fundamental feature like edited lists more accessible.
 
Shahrukh Merchant
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