Re: Confirming subscribe: confusion, and inconsistance or unclarity

[Bob Proulx]

Hello Alexandre,

Garreau, Alexandre wrote:
> <list>-confirm+<string>@gnu.org wrote:
> > To confirm that you want to be added to this mailing list, simply
> > reply to this message, keeping the Subject: header intact. […]
> ...
> 
> Yet usually the “Subject:” line is “Your confirmation is required to
> join the coreutils mailing list”, not “confirm
> 77a1eb4a6fdc66a23923b97144ff970f60c347a8”, therefore I don’t see what’s
> the relationship with the “Subject:” line the mail suggests.

I think at one time GNU Mailman did put the confirmation token in the
subject line.  But as implemented now at lists.gnu.org GNU Mailman
there is putting that in the From: header.  I think that is a later
change and before that time it was in the Subject.  I think.  I don't
really know.

> It says “in a message” but when I read this I understand it expects
> “in the body of the message”, with of course the ambiguity (which is
> an ambiguity, it’s quite unclear) of if we consider the Subject as
> “in the message”.

It is a logical OR of the two things.  Either this or that.  It is
trying to be as clear as possible that it is one or the other.  And
being an OR it is okay to have both.  When I do this I usually just
reply and send and leave both.

I think what Mailman was trying to tell the user in layman's terms
that they shouldn't include other text because Mailman might
accidentally think it was a command and then do something unexpected.
So best not to have anything unexpected in there.  You can see the
help response for all of the possible commands.

> Also the confirmation string is in fact present in the address of the
> sender, after the “+”, so in fact answering should include it in the
> mail (again, ambiguously, we can think as of the “To:” line as “in the
> message”), but it still has nothing to do with most mail readers leaving
> the “Subject:” line in the right form with an additionnal “Re:”.

I think that is a recent change.  I am pretty sure that in the old
days it was actually in the subject.

> I tried all the combinations and still never understood what would
> trigger the combination: “to:” header, “subject:” header, body?  and
> most of time I have to wait an error message mail before to subscribe
> via the web interface (and I don’t like the web… furthermore it requires
> a system with a browser, maybe even a graphical one).

I am sorry but I am not understanding what you are trying to say
there.

The design is this.  If you send mail to address@hidden it
will go to the mailman list management software robot.  That will send
a confirmation message to the requested address to verify that it
isn't a spoof of that sender.  Because anyone can send a message to
anywhere.  The sender confirms by sending the token back by replying
which sends to the To: coreutils-confirm+9e... address.  That's the
plan.  I am sorry this isn't working out for you.

If that isn't working out for you for whatever reason then you can use
the second half of the OR part of having the token in the message
body.  Mail sent To: address@hidden with the "confirm
token" in the body.  The list management software will parse it out of
the body and then connect you with the original request still in its
database of tokens.

> I even managed to receive several error message mail of this form:

I can't even guess at how this has been failing for you.  Sory.

I can see that you did get subscribed to the coreutils mailing list.
That's good.  I am happy you were successful.

> Is this interface no longer correctly working? the explanation
> message not updated somehow? inconsistant however? or is it just me
> who’s confused by it?

I think the confirmation token has moved over the years.  However we
are currently using Mailman 2 on lists.gnu.org and the upstream
project is developing Mailman 3 for some time.  I don't know when we
will upgrade to it.  I haven't yet used Mailman 3 anywhere.  Therefore
I do not know if the text language you are having a problem with
exists there or not.

If you like you might report the text description problems to the
upstream Mailman project.  Their home page is here:

  https://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/

Their contact page describing ways to communicate with them:

  https://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/contact.html

Meanwhile, there isn't anything we can do about it here.  We are
simple users of it.  If you have problems getting unsubscribed that is
the major use of this email address.  It contacts the volunteers that
help with the mailing lists and we will help people unsubscribe.
Since that seems to be the most problematic for people.

Bob