Mailing list feature: basic moderation

[avatar1024]

Sorry for reviving one part of an old thread but since the whole thread was marked as solved but only one of the two features got implemented (it was my bad probably to request two features in one post ).

This feature request is about adding a basic moderation feature to Cloudron list without requiring require much code changes compared to the existing set-up.
So the idea is that for private list we could set one of the list member (an email address) as "the moderator" who would automatically receive emails coming from non-members of a private list (external senders) and who could then manually forward those emails (or not) to the list (since they are a member of the list).
I'm thinking about an implementation that looks like this:

• If no moderator is set, then behaviour remains as is
• If a moderator is set, then the auto reply message receive by external senders explains that they've emailed a private list and their message will be moderated. The email gets forwarded to the moderator, who can then manually forward (or not) to the list. So it would effectively "only" require setting up an auto forward from external senders to a specific list member (the moderator) and that's it. I'm not a coder so the "only" may be misinformed but it feels like all of this is already within the existing email capabilities of Cloudron which would need to be applied to the email list feature.

I know Cloudron email lists are just forwarding lists and not real email lists and I don't intend to ask for it to become a fully fledged email list but wondered if we could add this function in a quite simple way since it is a probably the on of the key feature missing for most common uses of mailing lists (even if not as fine tuned as actual mailing lists software). Especially as it seems there having been much progress or interest to add actual mailing list apps to Cloudron (mailman or sympa).

[avatar1024]

Hello all,

According to this thread, it looks like proper mailing list app is not going to land on Cloudron anytime soon. I wonder if anyone with the knowledge of Cloudron email backend could help implement the above?...which is kind of a hack / workaround way to implement a basic moderation function to Cloudron mailing list feature.

[girish]

FWIW, one cannot hack or workaround this. It requires a non-trivial amount of work to implement moderation. You have to "hold" emails, provider UI to moderate it, basic moderation rules, then on approval or rejection take action etc.

[avatar1024]

@girish what you are describing is "proper" moderation whereas what I am proposing in that thread is only that for private lists, instead of having external email simply rejected, it gets sent to a chosen member of that list ("the moderator"), who can then choose to manually forward to the list or not. So there is no holding emails, provider UI, moderation rules, approval / rejection options, etc. needed.

The only UI element needed is the ability to choose the list member(s) who acts as the moderator(s) / receive emails from external senders.

[avatar1024]

@girish do you think this is technically feasible to implement without too much effort with how the Cloudron email / mailing list backend already work?
Btw I'm not suggesting you do it, but wonder if doable for someone with a basic knowledge on how Cloudron email backend work (which I sadly haven't got).

[girish]

@avatar1024 yes, understood But even that simple requires a bit of work, say atleast a week. One needs to adjust the UI to get moderator information, API routes to add/remove moderator, database migration to add this to the lists database. Then, the mail server has to be changed to detect that a list has a moderator and send only to moderator. Then we have to test all this. The feature sounds simple but it's not easy.

I also feel this workflow is very specific to your request. Usually, people want real lists and moderators don't want to manually forward emails. Just my 2c.

[avatar1024]

@girish said in Mailing list feature: basic moderation:

I also feel this workflow is very specific to your request. Usually, people want real lists and moderators don't want to manually forward emails. Just my 2c.

Perhaps it is specific to my workflow and I'm sure people would prefer real lists ...but I would imagine people would still prefer a basic / manual kind of moderation rather than none at all. Currently we have the option of either a list in which anyone can send to (including spammers), or a fully private list unreachable from external people. So I was looking for a technically simple way to achieve an in-between, even if basic and unperfect, for lack of a better solution likely to be available on Cloudron anytime soon (in a similar way when I proposed to implement private list, which it turned out was simple enough and so you - as always brilliantly - implemented the idea). But I get that in this case it's not so simple

Thank you for looking into it anyway and for providing feedback.