Moderation
Moderation is how a list stays on-topic and spam-free. What gets held, and who decides, depends on the list type and its settings.
When a post is held
- Discussion lists with moderation switched on hold all posts for approval.
- Newsletter lists don’t hold posts — only owners and designated senders can post, and everything else is rejected outright.
- Discussion lists with moderation off deliver subscriber posts immediately and reject non-subscriber posts.
The held queue
A held post sits in the list’s moderation queue as a Held Message. Every owner
and moderator sees it — in the web console’s Moderation page, in xlistman moderation list, and by email.
Held messages expire: after the list’s held_expiry_days (14 by default), a
held message is silently discarded by the daemon’s hourly sweeper. Same for the
action tokens.
The three actions
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Approve | Delivers the post to the list. |
| Reject | Discards it and notifies the sender. |
| Discard | Removes it without notifying the sender. |
Who can act: any Owner or Moderator of the list. Moderators can’t change list configuration — only moderate.
Doing it from email
When a post is held, every owner and moderator gets a moderation notice with the
original message attached as message.eml and a reply-to address like dev-moderate+token@example.com. Replying to that address with a body whose first
non-quoted, non-blank line is approve, reject, or discard performs the
action. It’s the same three actions as the web console, driven by email.
Doing it from the CLI
xlistman moderation list dev@example.com
xlistman moderation approve 42
xlistman moderation reject 42
xlistman moderation discard 42
Doing it from the web
The console’s Moderation page shows the queue with the three actions per held message, plus a detail view of the rendered body and attachments.
Everything a moderator or owner does here is recorded in the list’s audit trail.
Next: Command line.