Re: More Questions about Majordomo

Glenn wrote:

>>>2.I want to show the email of member's list at TO : (To : member 's
>>>email) instead of my mailing list (To: my mailing [email protected]
>>><mailto:[email protected]>).
>>
>>This means rewriting majordomo, and creating a separate message for
>>every recipient instead of one message to all recipients.  This has
>>actually been asked many times.  Sorry, it is not efficient SMTP to
>>repeat the same message many times.  Not to mention all the wasted
>>CPU cycles and fragmenting of disk space.
>>

> 
> OK, so how do you do stuff like:
> "You are subscribed to this list as [email protected].
> To unsubscribe, click here <personalized link>
> etc., etc."

Majordomo does not have this capability out of the box.
You either put another piece of software in the process between
majordomo and the MTA, or make modifications in majordomo or the
MTA, to add the personalized footer.  This does not help change
the TO: field however.

> 
> I know I've had angry people "stop sending me email" -- and what's happening
> is they're getting the email from a former employee forwarded to them and
> have no idea themselves why they're "on my list".

This is a primary reason for a double opt-in philosophy.  Nobody
should be able to act on behalf of another without some sort of
validation/verification that they have the right to do so.  This
includes adding anyone but yourself to a mailing list.  There are
exceptions with work mandated subscriptions where your employer
can guarantee the email address added to the list is delivered to
an employee, even if not the correct one.  At least this does not
impact anyone outside your local domain.  I digress.

If they do not remember signing up/subscribing to the list, they
are not likely to know how to unsubscribe from it.  In this case,
it is easier to just remove them manually, regardless of how poorly
this scales.  To provide "true support", you might have to contact
the user and ask them to forward the original offending email with
full headers for you to evaluate to determine who really needs to
be removed from your list.

You might also send a monthly (read periodic) reminder to your
subscribers with a custom message/tool that actually uses the
subscribed address in the To: field and the message body, as well
as the name of the list they are subscribed to.  Periodic list
cleaning should be every list owner's responsibility anyway.

> 
> Personally, I'd give up the cycles to get that.  Plus I think it's only a
> matter of time before some legislature mandates this anyway.
> 

If you want to create such a tool as a user contributed utility,
the logic should be quite straight forward.

1.  Wordsmith common message body content, perhaps a template
with at least 2 variables.
	$A=listname=filename
	$B=emailaddress
It is best to keep this template generic enough to be used for
any mailing list.

2.  Plan for $A to be an argument of calling the tool.
	This tool would probably live in the
	/usr/(lib|local)/majordomo directory.

3.  The tool will basically be a loop that until EOF will;
	Read a line from $A
	Parse $B from that line
	Populate template with $A and $B
	Call sendmail with arguments of $template and $B

4.  Extra credit:
	Make the template static content within the tool.
	Within the template email include a URL giving
	users the ability to opt-out of their subscription.
		This can be mailto: or http:.
		Periodically verify the URL works.

<soapbox>
Legislators need to stop making laws about things they have little
knowledge of.  Or at least be held responsibe for the consequences
they create.  I do not appreciate anyone mandating "how" I read my
mail, or how I sort/file it, or how/why I reject it, or how long I
must archive it once I accept it.  These are all mostly possible
by having the list address in the TO: field, and are not options
(or are more difficult) having my own address in the To: field.
</soapbox>

Dan Liston