[Balug-test] [BALUG-Admin] (pre-announce / "soft" open) BALUG-Test list

[Michael Paoli]

Thanks, great pointers!  :-)

Alas, GNU, they often put the "full" documentation in their info
pages ... which ... of course since most folks interact with mailman
without having mailman locally installed ... yeah, that wouldn't be
the best place to document that.  But yes, it ought be documented
quite fully *somewhere*.  Maybe they try not to overwhelm users/admins
with "too much" detail/completeness?  Seems there ought be commands
(and probably web URL) that would give the full reference sets - for
both users, and also admins.  Ah well, note it on my wish/annoyance
list.  ;-)

Speaking of which ... GNU annoyances ... hit a couple of those in the
last few months or so ... two of which I fine pretty dang annoying -
nasty feature creep ... but alas, ... for a separate posting on some
non-Test list.  ;->

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick@linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: Re: [Balug-test] [BALUG-Admin] (pre-announce / "soft" open)  
> BALUG-Test list
> Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2017 23:51:40 -0700

> Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli@cal.berkeley.edu):
>
>> And ... well, not exactly step-by-step, but tracking fair bit of
>> migration and testing here:
>> https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:mail_and_lists
>
> Includes:
>
>    mailman admin commands should work via email (need more complete list)
>
> This is woefully underdocumented (and underdeveloped?).  I'm really not
> the extent of such functions.  The standard doc for Mailman listadmins
> doesn't mention any, but it's known to be incomplete:
> https://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-admin/index.html
> Here's an example, showing how the listadmin can approve/reject/discard
> a held message entirely via e-mail:
> https://wiki.list.org/DOC/How%20do%20I%20respond%20to%20a%20held%20message%20notification%20to%20accept%20or%20discard%20the%20message%3F
>
> That is in response to a held-message notice.  In general, it _appears_
> that Mailman doesn't really offer to listadmins the abilities it does
> to them via the WebUI.
>
> In the Mailman conceptual model, docs are kept separately for users,
> listadmins, and site admins.
>
> Maybe one reason for paucity of administrative functions via e-mail is
> that the command-line tools for site admins are so excellent -- from the
> Unix shell.  Here is the list of the standard tools:
>
> https://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/site.html
>
> During the years that Marc Merlin administered the SVLUG mailing lists,
> he made me aware that there is also a robust and active community of
> people making additional command-line tools for Mailman that are not
> necessarily included in the Mailman standard package.  I have a bunch of
> those that Merlin collected on linuxmafia.com in an archival replica of
> what Merlin put together.