Mailing List Archive

How do you set nomail for the List?
How do you set nomail for the List?
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
Don Saklad wrote:
> How do you set nomail for the List?

To unsubscribe send an email message to this address. Followed by a
pre-mangled address for the web archive readers that hide email
addresses.

users-unsubscribe@spamassassin.apache.org

users-unsubscribe AT spamassassin DOT apache DOT org

For general information about the mailing lists:

https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/SPAMASSASSIN/MailingLists

Bob
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
On Tue, 20 Apr 2021 10:21:57 -0600
Bob Proulx wrote:

> Don Saklad wrote:
> > How do you set nomail for the List?
>
> To unsubscribe send an email message to this address. Followed by a
> pre-mangled address for the web archive readers that hide email
> addresses.
>
> users-unsubscribe@spamassassin.apache.org

I think the question was getting no mail without unsubscribing and
losing the ability to post. This is useful if you read a list by other
means, e.g. via NNTP.
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
On Tuesday 20 April 2021 at 22:54:29, RW wrote:

> On Tue, 20 Apr 2021 10:21:57 -0600 Bob Proulx wrote:
> > Don Saklad wrote:
> > > How do you set nomail for the List?
> >
> > To unsubscribe send an email message to this address. Followed by a
> > pre-mangled address for the web archive readers that hide email
> > addresses.
> >
> > users-unsubscribe@spamassassin.apache.org
>
> I think the question was getting no mail without unsubscribing and
> losing the ability to post. This is useful if you read a list by other
> means, e.g. via NNTP.

I thought the question was for someone being away for some time and not
wanting to build up list emails which wouldn't be replied to, and therefore
probably also wouldn't be worth reading upon the return.

mailman supports this on its web interface; I can't see the equivalent
function on what this list runs on.

Incidentally, I had no idea what "a pre-mangled address for the web archive
readers" meant.


Antony.

--
"Can you keep a secret?"
"Well, I shouldn't really tell you this, but... no."


Please reply to the list;
please *don't* CC me.
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
RW wrote:
> I think the question was getting no mail without unsubscribing and
> losing the ability to post. This is useful if you read a list by other
> means, e.g. via NNTP.

I was not aware that this mailing list requires one to be subscribed
to post to it. Does it? It's not necessary on most technical mailing
lists.

I look now at the help file for the apache.org mailing lists and do
not find any way to set a "nomail" option (which some other mailing
list management software provides). Therefore I think there is no
feature to do it. The help file only lists unsubscription. Since it
has become part of the discussion I will include the help file at the
end.

As to your specific case question I can only find this infomration on
it and it appears that primarily it requires the list owner to
manually handle things.

https://www.ezmlm.org/manual/Unsubscribing.html

1.4.1 Posting from an alternative address when post are allowed only to subscribers.

When a list is set up to allow posts from subscribers only(*), a post
from an address ('jonesj@softx.com') may be rejected since this
address is not a subscriber (even though mail to the subscriber
'john@univ.edu' reaches you, ezmlm has no way of knowing this). The
easiest way to deal with this is to unsubscribe 'john@univ.edu' and
subscribe 'jonesj@softx.com'. If this is not possible/desirable, send
the addresses in question with a note to
'mailinglist-owner@example.org'.

The list owner can add your sender address (in this case
'jonesj@softx.com') to an extra address lists of non-subscribers
allowed to post (and access the archive). The extra addresses are
kept in a database much like subscriber addresses.

In fact, you can add the address 'jonesj@softx.com' as an alias
for the list 'mailinglist@example.org' by mailing
'mailinglist-allow-subscribe-jonesj=softx.com@example.org' and
replying to the confirmation request. Again, you're changing the
"target" address of the request from the default (the sender
address) by adding the target to the command with the '@' replaced
by '='. Of course, the "allow" list doesn't send out posts. It is
solely a vehicle for storing "allowed" aliases.

That last paragraph (I reformated it into these paragraphs for
readability) is not clear to me and I do not understand it. But this
next makes it clear that it can only be done by an administrator.

https://www.ezmlm.org/manual/Adding-Aliases.html

2.4 Adding subscriber aliases(*).

ezmlm lists may be set up to only allow subscribers to send
messages to the list. This is less secure than moderation, but
still keeps most "garbage" off the list. Occasionally, a user may
wish to send messages from an address other than the subscription
address. As a remote administrator, you can add the user's alias
to a special "allow" database. To add 'john@example.net' as an
alias to the 'mailinglist@example.org', send mail to
'mailinglist-allow-subscribe-john=example.net@example.org'. -unsubscribe
and other commands work the same way. The messages ezmlm sends
talk about the 'mailinglist-allow@example.org' mailing list, but
of course you know that this is just a figure of speech.

On lists that do not have subscription moderation, users can add
themselves to the "allow" database in the same way. This is
documented only briefly in the USER'S manual.

Archive access may also be restricted to subscribers. Like
subscribers of the list or the digest list, addresses in the
"allow" database are allowed to access the archive.

Therefore it seems that unsubscribing is the only action a user may
take to avoid receiving email. The above requires the mailing list
owner to take action.

Bob

Hi! This is the ezmlm program. I'm managing the
users@spamassassin.apache.org mailing list.

This is a generic help message. The message I received wasn't sent to
any of my command addresses.


--- Administrative commands for the users list ---

I can handle administrative requests automatically. Please
do not send them to the list address! Instead, send
your message to the correct command address:

To subscribe to the list, send a message to:
<users-subscribe@spamassassin.apache.org>

To remove your address from the list, send a message to:
<users-unsubscribe@spamassassin.apache.org>

Send mail to the following for info and FAQ for this list:
<users-info@spamassassin.apache.org>
<users-faq@spamassassin.apache.org>

Similar addresses exist for the digest list:
<users-digest-subscribe@spamassassin.apache.org>
<users-digest-unsubscribe@spamassassin.apache.org>

To get messages 123 through 145 (a maximum of 100 per request), mail:
<users-get.123_145@spamassassin.apache.org>

To get an index with subject and author for messages 123-456 , mail:
<users-index.123_456@spamassassin.apache.org>

They are always returned as sets of 100, max 2000 per request,
so you'll actually get 100-499.

To receive all messages with the same subject as message 12345,
send a short message to:
<users-thread.12345@spamassassin.apache.org>

The messages should contain one line or word of text to avoid being
treated as sp@m, but I will ignore their content.
Only the ADDRESS you send to is important.

You can start a subscription for an alternate address,
for example "john@host.domain", just add a hyphen and your
address (with '=' instead of '@') after the command word:
<users-subscribe-john=host.domain@spamassassin.apache.org>

To stop subscription for this address, mail:
<users-unsubscribe-john=host.domain@spamassassin.apache.org>

In both cases, I'll send a confirmation message to that address. When
you receive it, simply reply to it to complete your subscription.

If despite following these instructions, you do not get the
desired results, please contact my owner at
users-owner@spamassassin.apache.org. Please be patient, my owner is a
lot slower than I am ;-)
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
Antony Stone wrote:
> Incidentally, I had no idea what "a pre-mangled address for the web archive
> readers" meant.

You are the second person to mention this, the first in a direct
message to me. Which means there will be many. Sorry. Let me
explain.

Due to too much caution about spammers harvesting email addresses from
web pages most web mailing list archives block display of anything
that looks similar to an email address. I say similar because often
false positives are a problem. Which is super annoying!

While I am still reading email with an actual mail reader (I am using
mutt) I know that the majority of all email users today are using a
web-mail interface to email. And many of those people are using
mailing list archives to read mailing lists. Therefore I try to write
with that reading interface of those other users in mind.

This web archive hiding of anything that looks like an email address
makes posting email addresses in responses to people more difficult
than it should be. I happen to be aware of the problem and sensitive
to the breakage and therefore, when I remember to do so, I try to
include both the address written plain as it should be and also
encoded in the typical way for a human to be able to read it and
reconstruct it back into the original.

Here are some examples of my message with the email address hidden,
obscured, "mangled" by the web mail readers, for the archives listed
for this mailing list. So that you can see the problem that is being
addressed by including both a plain email address and also a human
readable but encoded address to avoid the hiding.

says "[hidden email]"
http://spamassassin.1065346.n5.nabble.com/How-do-you-set-nomail-for-the-List-td161302.html

says "users-unsubscr...@spamassassin.apache.org" with those dots mangling it
https://www.mail-archive.com/users@spamassassin.apache.org/msg108060.html

says "user...@spamassassin.apache.org" again with different dots mangling it
https://markmail.org/search/list:org.apache.spamassassin.users#query:list%3Aorg.apache.spamassassin.users+page:1+mid:5tjzft7smag2433m+state:results

Meanwhile other archives show the message plain.

https://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/spamassassin-users/202104.mbox/browser

https://marc.info/?l=spamassassin-users&m=161893573926245&w=2

Sorry for perhaps obscure and confusing reference to "pre-mangling"
it. I meant I was going to get ahead of the web archive manglers and
do it myself so that my "pre-mangled" version would be left un-mangled
and therefore still readable and possible to reconstruct.

And also even though the OP was asking the question that means there
are many more people who would like to know the answer to it too who
are wanting to know but not wanting to ask. And some of them will use
the web to search for wisdom and find one of the above email archives.
If they find a good archive without mangling then they have their
answer. If they find a bad archive that mangles then they are left
still looking. However in this case, hopefully, my answer is still
useful to them even on a bad archive as they can assemble it
themselves.

https://xkcd.com/979/

Hopefully that explains what I meant there! :-)

Bob
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
On Tuesday 20 April 2021 at 23:27:14, Bob Proulx wrote:

> I was not aware that this mailing list requires one to be subscribed
> to post to it. Does it? It's not necessary on most technical mailing
> lists.

I would in fact say the exact opposite: most mailing lists do require
subscription in order to post, primarily in order to reduce spam from random
addresses.

After all, if just anyone, without subscription, can post to a list, then it's
open to the entire Internet, and then, as we all know, anarchy ensues...

At least if you have to subscribe first:

a) the subscription process itself is a barrier to bots

b) a list admin can block unwanted posters.


Antony.

--
I know I always wanted to be somebody, but I guess I should have been more
specific.

Please reply to the list;
please *don't* CC me.
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
Antony Stone wrote:
> Bob Proulx wrote:
> > I was not aware that this mailing list requires one to be subscribed
> > to post to it. Does it? It's not necessary on most technical mailing
> > lists.
>
> I would in fact say the exact opposite: most mailing lists do
> require subscription in order to post, primarily in order to reduce
> spam from random addresses.

But, but, but... SpamAssassin's entire purpose is an anti-spam
function! Oh the irony of it!

> After all, if just anyone, without subscription, can post to a list, then it's
> open to the entire Internet, and then, as we all know, anarchy ensues...

Hmm... No. I disagree. It's not if-one-then-the-other. All that is
needed to disprove it is one example. And as it happens I can list
two immediately.

So as it happens I am actually one of the anti-spam admins for the
lists.gnu.org mailing lists. There are some 1,500+ mailing lists
there. Most of them are bug reporting mailing lists. Requiring
people to subscribe to a mailing list in order to make a report would
be much too burdensome. Therefore the bug reporting lists are open
lists and anyone may post there and it does not require subscriptions.

I know that many will argue that there is nothing but chaos and
anarchy there but there is very little spam on the mailing lists! (If
people do see spam there I welcome reports so that problem can get
addressed. Send reports to the mailman AT gnu.org address please.)
One of the major components of the anti-spam to those mailing lists is
SpamAssassin. Plus some additional things too of course.

Secondly the Debian project mailing lists are extensive and extremely
active too. The Debian lists are all open lists. Anyone may post to
them. Many do! I am not directly involved there but I have been a
long time community participant.

If we can do it then why can't SpamAssassin do it for itelf? Don't
answer as that's a rhetorical question. I already know the answer.
The answer is because SpamAssassin is using the Apache Software
Foundation infrastructure and Apache isn't operating their mailing
lists that way. The SpamAssassin group could do things differently
from Apache if they wanted to do so but using the Apache
infrastructure has advantages and that is why they moved under that
umbrella in the first place. And closed mailing lists are just one of
the trade-offs of that decision and it is okay.

Bob
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
On 20 Apr 2021, at 18:29, Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> wrote:
> Hmm... No. I disagree. It's not if-one-then-the-other. All that is
> needed to disprove it is one example. And as it happens I can list
> two immediately.

Which does nothing to disprove "most mailing list require subscription" which is absolutely true.

--
The omnipotent eyesight of various supernatural entities is often
remarked upon. It is said that they can see the fall of every
sparrow. And this may be true. But there is only one who is
always there when it hits the ground. --Hogfather
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
> But, but, but... SpamAssassin's entire purpose is an anti-spam
> function! Oh the irony of it!
>
> > After all, if just anyone, without subscription, can post to a list, then it's
> > open to the entire Internet, and then, as we all know, anarchy ensues...

The Debian mailing lists too are open for anyone to post regardless if
they are subscribed. It's not anarchy but sometimes spam does get
posted and some people go and report it to places like spamcop (I've
been guilty here!). Debian has a mechanism to flag messages as spam
in the archives so they can be removed. It's far from anarchy that
imagine but it's definitely not zero labor.

For me the biggest problem with allowing non-subscribers or
subscribers that don't get mail back from the list is that there is no
way for someone to know if you are reading their replies. I'm never
sure if I should CC the person directly or not on these open lists.

On the Spamassassin list, I know the person has to be subscribed so I
don't have to CC them. I doubt most mailing lists are smart enough to
CC such non-subscribers on replies.

Multiple people I know join lists and then create a filter rule to put
the list directly in to the Trash folder or some folder that they
automatically delete older messages. Then, they read the lists in
that folder. That may be your best option in my opinion.

A hack comes to mind... maybe something could be written using sieve
or procmail to spot which messages you sent to the list and move them
and replies to it back to your inbox automatically.

Michael Grant
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
>> > After all, if just anyone, without subscription, can post to a list, then it's
>> > open to the entire Internet, and then, as we all know, anarchy ensues...

>> But, but, but... SpamAssassin's entire purpose is an anti-spam
>> function! Oh the irony of it!

On 21.04.21 06:41, Michael Grant wrote:
>The Debian mailing lists too are open for anyone to post regardless if
>they are subscribed. It's not anarchy but sometimes spam does get
>posted and some people go and report it to places like spamcop (I've
>been guilty here!). Debian has a mechanism to flag messages as spam
>in the archives so they can be removed. It's far from anarchy that
>imagine but it's definitely not zero labor.

>For me the biggest problem with allowing non-subscribers or
>subscribers that don't get mail back from the list is that there is no
>way for someone to know if you are reading their replies. I'm never
>sure if I should CC the person directly or not on these open lists.

imho you should never reply or Cc: personally unless the person asks for it.
The point of mailing lists is to discuss issues there.

Person posting to mailing list with public archives can browse them.

>On the Spamassassin list, I know the person has to be subscribed so I
>don't have to CC them. I doubt most mailing lists are smart enough to
>CC such non-subscribers on replies.

I don't think it's issue of mailing lists, it should be issue of posters.

--
Matus UHLAR - fantomas, uhlar@fantomas.sk ; http://www.fantomas.sk/
Warning: I wish NOT to receive e-mail advertising to this address.
Varovanie: na tuto adresu chcem NEDOSTAVAT akukolvek reklamnu postu.
The only substitute for good manners is fast reflexes.
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
@lbutlr wrote:
> On 20 Apr 2021, at 18:29, Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> wrote:
> > Hmm... No. I disagree. It's not if-one-then-the-other. All that is
> > needed to disprove it is one example. And as it happens I can list
> > two immediately.
>
> Which does nothing to disprove "most mailing list require subscription" which is absolutely true.

You lost sync and switched topics. My statement that you quoted had
nothing to say about whether the list required subscription or not.
My statement was refuting the part I had quoted.

>>> After all, if just anyone, without subscription, can post to a list, then it's
>>> open to the entire Internet, and then, as we all know, anarchy ensues...

That's the statement I was refuting.

Bob
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
Michael Grant wrote:
> > > After all, if just anyone, without subscription, can post to a list, then it's
> > > open to the entire Internet, and then, as we all know, anarchy ensues...
>
> The Debian mailing lists too are open for anyone to post regardless if
> they are subscribed.

Sorry but I don't understand. Because the Debian lists are open and
do allow anyone to post there. I'll stipulate that as a fact unless
it is refuted. I have become less involved the last few years and
perhaps after decades there has been a change?

> It's not anarchy but sometimes spam does get posted

Yes. Sometimes a spam message will get posted. But it is infrequent
enough that it does not cause serious problems.

> and some people go and report it to places like spamcop (I've been
> guilty here!).

Agreed. And understood.

That is rather a separate philosophical problem. Being on the mailing
list side it feels wrong for people to subscribe to something and then
report it to 3rd parties as abuse. In general I don't think any
mailing list that someone has subscribed to should have messages from
there reported as spam to 3rd parties. Instead I think they should
complain (loudly) to the mailing list administrator(s). Get them
motivated to improve their policies! An occasional spam is almost
inevitable as 1) everything has a non-zero error rate and 2) spammers
are humans and humans are very clever. But there is no need to make
it easy for them.

For my own subscriptions I don't run any mailing list messages to my
personal mailbox through SpamAssasssin. I file mailing list messages
directly and if there is spam then I will see it. And I will complain
about it. (For me the chiark lists are the most problematic in this
regard. I would have mentioned them as a 3rd example of open lists
but in their case they are a bad example due to lack of anti-spam.)

> Debian has a mechanism to flag messages as spam in the archives so
> they can be removed. It's far from anarchy that imagine but it's
> definitely not zero labor.

They claim that it is not very difficult however and they encourage the
reporting of it. Therefore I always report spam to them when I see it.

Removing spam from the archives prevents a site from being flagged by
search engines as harboring malicious content. And reporting spam
allows them to keep their anti-spam rules trained up on new attacks.
So regardless of the effort on the list admin side it has become a
required thing to do.

> For me the biggest problem with allowing non-subscribers or
> subscribers that don't get mail back from the list is that there is no
> way for someone to know if you are reading their replies. I'm never
> sure if I should CC the person directly or not on these open lists.
>
> On the Spamassassin list, I know the person has to be subscribed so I
> don't have to CC them.

Agreed! And I think this is the strongest argument brought up so far!
It makes knowing how to respond easy. And frankly I often cheat on
other lists by looking at who is subscribed which is not information
available to everyone. Therefore knowing absolutely that one should
only ever respond to the list is a good thing.

I contemplated pulling this point up to the top and leading with it as
I think it is an excellent point for usability of mailing lists.

However I note that on this list it does not prevent people from
CC'ing anyway. :-(

> I doubt most mailing lists are smart enough to CC such
> non-subscribers on replies.

I don't know of any mailing list that CC's non-subscribers. But
that's often desired by the people who post but read an archive of the
list instead of being subscribed to it. They are neither subscribed
nor do they want a CC either. Unless they have specifically asked for
one to be sent to them.

> Multiple people I know join lists and then create a filter rule to put
> the list directly in to the Trash folder or some folder that they
> automatically delete older messages. Then, they read the lists in
> that folder. That may be your best option in my opinion.

I do that! :-) Or rather I file mailing list messages to a folder,
automatically expire them, and read the messages from that folder.
It's rather like a newsgroup in flow doing it that way.

> A hack comes to mind... maybe something could be written using sieve
> or procmail to spot which messages you sent to the list and move them
> and replies to it back to your inbox automatically.

For the Debian lists that works because they are consistently
configured across all of the lists. And actually what you suggest is
very similar to something Brian suggested there during a discussion we
were having on this very idea! This message and another one after it
in the thread you might find at least academically interesting. :-)

https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2013/03/msg00571.html

For Mailman lists this is problematic because individually different
lists have a "No duplicates" setting where if Mailman thinks you were
CC'd then it avoids sending you the mailing list copy of the message.
Which by my way of thinking always produces exactly the opposite of
the desired result. Because then the direct message, missing all of
the mailing list headers which are desired for proper filing, arrives
first and the mailing list copy never arrives. And it fails to handle
the case where multiple lists were recipients and you are subscribed
to multiple of them. IMNHO it's just a bad feature.

It's also a feature that casual users often point to as a reason not
to use the mailing list header fields for filing and instead request
subject tags to use for filing. However subject tags break DKIM
signatures.

Bob
Re: How do you set nomail for the List? [ In reply to ]
Don Saklad wrote on 20/04/21 3:36 am:
> How do you set nomail for the List?

I can't tell if any of the replies to your query actually answered your
question because of the various interpretations of "nomail" and the way
the thread expanded into a discussion of other mailing list policies.

If by "nomail" you are asking about how to be able to post mail to the
list without having the list sent to your email address, here is an
authoritative answer. I am one of the moderators of this mailing list.

To post to this mailing list, you must send your mail from an address
that is subscribed to the list. This protects the list from spam and
protects subscribers from accidentally sending mail to the list from a
private address, exposing it to harvesting by spammers.

You can subscribe additional addresses for posting, without receiving
another copy of list posts by sending an email from each address to
users-allow-subscribe AT spamassassin.apache.org

If you read the mailing list using an archiving service on the Web such
as Nabble that posts on your behalf using your email address, subscribe
that address using users-allow-subscribe as described above.

Regards,

Sidney