Mailman: Privacy Options

Overview

Recipient filters for Mailman's privacy options. Mailman will allow people from outside the list to post to the list. A list owner can set their own spam filtering options for the individual list. The Privacy Options affect who can see the list, post to the list, and view list information.

To access the Mailman Privacy Options page, you can go to the following URL (replace LISTNAMEHERE with your list's name): 

  • https://lists.uoregon.edu/mailman/admin/<LISTNAMEHERE>/privacy

Subscription Rules

These rules dictate some privacy settings and list subscription/unsubscription behavior.

Option Description New List Default
advertised This setting determines whether the list is listed on the UO Mailman homepage. This should typically be set to No. No
subscribe_policy Dictates the steps required for subscription. Confirm will require prospective list subscribers to verify their subscription via an email notification. Require approval will require a list administrator to approve new list members. Confirm and approve combines both the above options. Confirm
unsubscribe_policy Dictates whether users will need to request to be unsubscribed, or whether they can unsubscribe themselves. It is recommended to leave this set to No. No
private_roster Determined who can view the list's members. If set to List members, then any member of the list can view the member roster. If set to List admin only, then only admins can view the member list. If set to Anyone, then anyone can view the list. It is recommended to set this to either List admin only or List members to protect the privacy of list subscribers. List members
obscure_addresses This option is another way of protecting the privacy of list subscribers. If set to Yes, then the email address of list members, when viewed, will not displayed in an Internet-usable fashion. Yes

Sender Filters

The accept_these_nonmembers setting is used to list the email addresses, one per line, of those people from outside the list who are allowed to post to the list. This is useful for announcements, information, and periodic postings from people interested in sending the list information, but who are not a part of the list or do not wish to receive list messages.

The other settings on this page are not as widely used.

Option Desctiption New List Default
default_member_moderation Determines whether newly-added list members are flagged as moderated. Yes
member_moderation_action Determines how messages from moderated members are handled. If set to Hold (default), messages from moderated members will be held pending approval from list moderators. If set to Reject, messages from moderated users will be automatically rejected, and the sender will receive a bounce notification. If set to Discard, messages will be rejected, but the sender will not receive a bounce notification. Hold
member_moderation_notice The text entered here will be included in bounce messages sent to moderated users when member_moderation_action is set to Reject. Blank
accept_these_nonmembers Email addresses listed here can freely send messages to the list without being list members and without being subject to moderation. Blank
hold_these_nonmembers Email addresses listed here can send messages to the list without being list members, but messages will be held pending moderator approval. Blank
reject_these_nonmembers Emails send to the list from addresses listed here will be rejected, and the senders will receive a bounce notification containing the message set in the nonmember_rejection_notice field. Blank
discard_these_nonmembers Emails sent to the list from addresses listed here will be rejected with no notification issued to the sender. Blank
generic_nonmember_action This setting dictates default behavior for message handling for non-members. If set to Accept, non-members can freely send messages to the list. The other options behave the same as those for the member_moderation_notice field. Reject
forward_auto_discards Determines whether list moderators are forwarded a copy of discarded messages. No
nonmember_rejection_notice The text entered here will be included in bounce messages sent to non-members when messages they send to the list are rejected. Blank

Recipient Filters

List owners can deny posting to the list unless the list address is available in the To: or CC: fields of the posting.

This keeps the list address from being obscured and allows for better troubleshooting of problems with the list.

Option Description New List Default
require_explicit_destination Determined whether or not posts must have the list named in destination (to, cc) field (or be among the acceptable alias names, specified under acceptable_aliases).  Yes
acceptable_aliases Alias names (regexps) which qualify as explicit to or cc destination names for this list. Blank
max_num_recipients The maximum number of recipients a message can have before it is held for moderation. 10

Spam Filters

The UO spam-filtering system, Proofpoint, will generally filter out unwanted messages. Good subscriber management will keep spammers from infiltrating your lists.

Use these options with caution as they can deny or delete messages sent to the list.

Option Description New List Default
header_filter_rules Email headers will be matched against the values listed in the Spam filter regexp field (regexp being short for regular expression). If an email header contains a specified element, it will be handled in accordance with the specified Action:

Spam filter regexp: Blank

Action: Defer

bounce_matching_headers Legacy spam filters that hold messages containing the specified value(s). Values specified are not case-sensitive. # Lines that *start* with a '#' are comments.
to: friend@public.com
message-id: relay.comanche.denmark.eu
from: list@listme.com
from: .*@uplinkpro.com
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