"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
> O.k. that is probably true, but Matt had a good suggestion. If you are
> not subscribed it immediately bounces. I think that is a very good idea.
> It would take some load off of the system and the moderaters.
That won't do, as some other folks noted. But what I'd really like to
see is a hack that, when someone subscribes to a list, goes through the
moderator queue and auto-approves any pending messages from that
someone.
What we see way way too much of is the following sequence of events:
1. Newbie sends a question to a list.
2. Question goes into the moderator's queue because it's from a non subscriber.
3. Newbie figures this out (maybe right away or maybe not), subscribes, and reposts his question.
4. People answer.
5. Some while later (usually several days, which means that Marc is badly overworked :-(), the original question gets
approvedand we see a duplicate appearing on the list.
There is nothing optimal about this from the point of view of the
newbie, nor the moderator, nor the list membership (who have to be
able to recognize delayed duplicate questions when they see 'em).
Plus it clutters the archives.
An auto-approval mechanism would fix all this (though we'd probably
need to add something to the standard list-welcome message mentioning
that you shouldn't repeat any questions you already sent in). I have
no idea how hard it is to do, but it sure seems like it would make
things more pleasant all around.
regards, tom lane