How to make an “Announce Only” Newsletter Mailing List
Mailman is developed to be a listserv discussion tool. This means by default anyone can post to the list and everyone gets the replies. However, most often, you just want to setup a mailing list that only one person can post to and everyone else gets a copy of the email. A classic one-way Newsletter setup.
Login to your Mailing list
Login to your your list: eg. http://www.yourdomain.com/mailman/admin/yourlistname
Enter the list administrative password and click the “Let me in” button.
Configure the following settings
- Privacy Options >> Subscription Rules
- Who can view subscription list? (List admin only)
- Privacy Options >> Sender Filters
- By default, should new list member postings be moderated? (Yes)
- Action to take when a moderated member posts to the list. (Hold)
- Action to take for postings from non-members for which no explicit action is defined. (Hold)
Auto-responder settings
- Should Mailman send an auto-response to mailing list posters? (Yes)
- Auto-response text to send to mailing list posters: “Sorry, only the site administrator can post to this list.”
- Number of days between auto-responses: (0)
- Membership Management >> Membership List
- Set everyone’s moderation bit, including those members not currently visible (On)
Now that everyone has their moderation bit on (which means their posts are subject to moderator approval) and “Action to take when a moderated member posts to the list” is Hold, the administrator will have to approve their own posts.
You could turn off the moderation bit for moderators’ email addresses, but this is not very secure because email addresses can be easily forged.
You can customise these settings as you like, but to prevent unauthorised people from posting to you list, always have their moderation bit(flag) on.
You should always keep “By default, should new list member postings be moderated?” set to “Yes” so new members are also moderated.