Rich wrote:
> > often post from addresses that are almost the same (e.g. they contain
> > a machine name and this varies). Smartlist does fuzzy matching, not
> > strict, which reduces the load on the list maintainer in dealing with
> > rejects based on posts from similar but not identical addresses.
>
> We've got regular expressions in Exim, so if only all strings in the
> config were expanded and all strings used in matches were allowed to
> contain regular expressions then we wouldn't need anything new to be
> coded.
And how would the list owner set the level of matching on their list
and tune it over time without access to the MTA or the sysadmin of the
site? I.e. set it to exact, or medium matching, etc?
> seems to me. (And no, the list manager does NOT have to process posts
> that are headed for the exploder, but only those going to the management
> address, ie. Majordomo or listserv or <list>-request or whatever.)
Huh? My list (and majordomo, listserv, etc) all have capabilities to
filter the post and reject it for a variety of reasons other than the
sender. E.g. whether it looks like an administrivia request (checking
the body and headers), whether it contains strings that the individual
list-owner wishes to filter out for personal review, whether the post
is too long. Also, text headers and footers are often added to the
message. All of these things can be set (often remotely) by the
list-owner at whim, and changed at whim, without the list-owner having
access to the MTA or the sysadmins at the site.
These are all things in routine use by MLMs and have been for years.
> Aliases? The forwardfile exploder uses its own file to define the
> out-set, not system aliases. That is very safe: using in/out sets
> in Exim doesn't offer the possibility of anyone exploding through
> just the out-set at all, because the director validates the sender
Yes, but the poster could then bypass the mailing list filters (for
instance a filter against sending long posts or posts with the string
"make money fast" in the body, or posts with empty bodies and a
subject saying "subscribe"). I don't want there to be a way for any
user to bypass my mailing list filters. Sender-checking isn't the
only thing you need to do for posts. Given that one is rejecting
automatic posting for a large number of reasons, it is best to have
these bumped posts be of a consistent format -- i.e. I wouldn't want
to have some come as exim "bounces" and others come in my MLM reject
format. Not to mention that the format should be of a type that is
easy for the list-owner to approve for posting. In the case of
smartlist, post-rejects look like posts but merely have additional
headers, so they can be sent right back to the MLM with another header
indicated that it is approved for posting. With an exim bounce, you'd
have to make sure that the bounce didn't chop off any of the text, and
then redo all the headers to make it look like it came from the
individual who originally sent it and also get rid of all the text in
the exim bounce message. I have a one-line command "approve" that
will send any rejected post back to my list and have it approved.
Whether it is a too-long message that is appropriate for the list, or
a post from someone on my list using a second address (in which case I
approve the post and then add their address to a supplemental list so
subsequent posts go through direct), etc.
Implementing high-quality MLM features is not as simple as it might
seem, which is why I originally scoffed at the idea of using exim to
implement MLM functions.
> [I'm not knocking MLMs, just praising Exim's list explosion model.]
Likewise, I think exim is cool and the features you suggest of merit.
Just not useful for mailing lists, except for small lists with
well-behaved readers and little outside abuse.
--
Michelle Dick artemis@??? East Palo Alto, CA
