Re: [tdf-discuss] Two moderator questions

 On 10/15/2010 11:58 AM, Charles Marcus wrote:
> On 2010-10-15 9:58 AM, James Wilde wrote:
> > On Oct 15, 2010, at 13:43 , Charles Marcus wrote:
> > > On 2010-10-15 2:18 AM, James Wilde wrote:
> > > > Is it possible to add an indication that a message has been
> > > > passed by the moderators to the subject line, or as a secondary
> > > > header in the message itself?  This way those answering the OP
> > > > will know that they need to add his/her personal address to the
> > > > reply.
> > > Doesn't it make more sense just to modify the Reply-To header (to
> > > both the list and the OP) and let the mail client just do the right
> > > thing?
> > You mean automatically, or in the copy of the message that comes to
> > the moderators?  I didn't think that any changes one made to this
> > would percolate through to the message subsequently posted to the
> > list, but I'm willing to try.
> Yes, automatically... if the list software cannot do it natively, then
> someone could write a custom handler (at least in mailman you can do
> this, if exmlm can't then thats another reason to change) that would
> accept posts from non-members, but with some extra processing where it
> modified the Reply-To headers.
> The reason allowing non-members to post is a problem (endless questions
> and explanations) is *because* these messages are currently handled
> manually.

LibO apparently uses mlmmj rather than ezmlm, and OOo is apparently in a transition to Kenai and its 
list manager.  But the root problem here is that really no human should have to know, or care, 
whether or not the OP is subscribed. IMO, the ideal solution would be that if an unsubscribed user 
initiates a thread, they should automatically be "subscribed" to that thread (specifically) once the 
message has been moderated and posted to the list (assuming that moderation is still required). This 
would be analogous to the mechanism for issue handling, where you can get messages whenever somebody 
modifies the issue content. The "subscription" should also add them to a list of those allowed to 
post to that thread without moderator involvement. There may be some difficulties with maintaining 
threading across some types of changes, though, such as subject changes made to clarify non-subjects 
like "Help!" (a perennial favorite!).

If the official archives allowed for actual conversation, another option would be to automatically 
supply the unsubscribed OP with a link into the archive for that thread, if that could be done as 
the message is archived. Both the nabble and Gmane archives provide a "Reply" option (requiring 
confirmation on first use). The OOo archive doesn't. Actually, such a link could also be manually 
provided by the small group of people who currently monitor such things on the lists, even without 
an automatic response. We can *almost* get there with the current ezmlm system on the OOo users 
list, but the lack of a Reply capability really messes it up.

I've looked at this whole area quite extensively, and I'd gladly continue the discussion here or 
off-list.

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