Overview
Mailing lists are typically set up so that people who wish to join the list can submit requests, and the list owner has the option of allowing them all or reviewing them one-by-one. For a closed or internal-only list, it may be appropriate to reject all such requests automatically without requiring further intervention from the owner. This is done through the 'Auto-responder' section.
Details / Instructions
Go to the list administrator site at: https://lists.richmond.edu/mailman/admin/LISTNAME (where LISTNAME is the name of your list) . Note that you have to use the 'full administrative interface' to set these options. If you see 'Mailing Lists Basic Options' at the top of the page, click on the 'full administrative interface' link at the bottom of the page. Then:
- Select the Auto-responder option.
- Go down to the question 'Should Mailman send an auto-response to emails sent to the -request address?', and click the Yes, w/discard radio button.
- It is recommended that you put in an auto-response message in the autoresponse_request_text section to tell subscribers (now blocked) who to contact in order to join the list.
- Click the Submit your Changes button.
You may optionally wish to edit the HTML of the list's listinfo page and remove the section that allows users to subscribe and inform the subscriber of the correct way to contact the list. You should try this only if you are comfortable editing HTML code. To edit this text, go to the 'Other Administrative Activities' and select Edit the public HTML pages and text files. The 'subscribe-form' is part of the 'General list information page'.
See Also