To have Mailman notify you daily (instead of immediately) when one or more messages have been held for approval:

1. Access the list administration website for your mailing list.
2. Click Initial Options.
3. Scroll down to find Should the list moderators get immediate notice of new requests, as well as daily notices about collected ones?
4. The default setting is Yes. To change, click No.
5. Click the Submit Your Changes button at the bottom of the page.
6. If you have completed your list administration work, remember to click the Logout link and close your browser.

To Mailman, list administrators are also list moderators so any changes to the above will apply to all list administrators as well as any specified list moderators.

When a message is awaiting approval by the list administrator or moderator, the administrator or moderator will receive email indicating message(s) awaiting approval. To process the messages pending moderator approval:

1. Access the administrative request website for your mailing list.
2. Select how you want to process each message.
   In the left column of the table are options for what to do with the message's distribution to list members as well as other options that include forwarding the message to another address or adding the message sender's address to a banned or approved sender list.
   
   • Defer -- Defer your decision until later. No action is taken now for this pending administrative request.
   • Approve -- Approve the message, sending it on to the list.
   • Reject -- Reject the message, sending a rejection notice to the sender, and discarding the original message.
   • Discard -- Throw away the original message, without sending a rejection notice.
     
   If you would like to discard all messages marked defer, click the box to the left of Discard all messages marked Defer. Note: There is no way to retrieve a pending message after it has been deleted, so use this option carefully.
   
   In the right column is a summary of the message which includes a link to a Web page that will allow you to see the complete message. The message summary also usually includes the message subject, the message size, the reason the message is held and the date/time the message arrived. If you note the reason the message is held and the message size, those two pieces of information may help you determine what Mailman option needs changing.
3. Click the Submit Your Changes button at the bottom of the page.
4. If you have completed your list administration work, remember to click the Logout link and close your browser.

If you are a Mailman list administrator who has not restricted the distribution of messages to list members (by moderating your list, by creating a U.Va. only list, or by creating a members only list) and find that you regularly receive email notification that messages for your list waiting for your review, check your list configurations to insure that only those messages that truly need your review are held.

Three default configurations cause many messages to be held for approval. Detailed information on each message is provided so that you will understand why the default value was chosen and the implications of changing the configuration. On your list's Administrative requests for mailing list page you may see one of the following reasons for a message being held:

• Message body is too big
• Too many recipients to the message
• Message has implicit destination

Message body is too big

Message body is too big indicates that the size of the message and any attachments is larger than allowed by the current configuration of your list.

The default limit for message size is 100 KB.

The default 100 KB limit is large enough to allow a message that contains many, many pages of plain text to be delivered to all list members. This setting was chosen to provide protection to the mail system. Large messages to large lists have the potential to swamp email servers. The 100 KB setting will cause any message with an attachment to be held for review, including some larger spam and virus messages, which should reduce the likelihood of spam or virus messages being delivered to your list members.

1. Access the list administration website for your mailing list.
2. Select General Options.
3. Scroll down the page to find: Maximum length in kilobytes (KB) of a message body. Use 0 for no limit.
4. Change the existing number to some reasonable value or to 0 (zero) for no message size limit. If you noted the size of the message being held on your Administrative requests for mailing list page, you may be able to specify a specific value instead of using the unlimited setting.
5. Click the Submit Your Changes button at the bottom of the page.
6. If you have completed your list administration work, remember to click the Logout link and close your browser.

Too many recipients to the message

Too many recipients to the message indicates the there are more email addresses on the message than allowed by your list configuration.

The default limit is 10.

This setting was chosen to protect lists from spam messages that are often addressed to many, many email addresses.

1. Access the list administration website for your mailing list.
2. Click Privacy Options.
3. Click Recipient Filters.
4. Scroll down the page to find: Ceiling on acceptable number of recipients for a posting.
5. Change the existing number to some reasonable value. To allow the automatic distribution to your list members of any message regardless of the number of email addresses appearing in the To:, Cc: and Bcc: lines of the message, you can set this value to 0 (zero) although a setting of 0 is not recommended.
6. Click the Submit Your Changes button at the bottom of the page.
7. If you have completed your list administration work, remember to click the Logout link and close your browser.

Message has implicit destination

Message has implicit destination means that the name of the list must appear in either the To; or Cc: header of a message sent to your list. Should a message be held for this reason, the list address appears only in the Bcc: field of the message or the message was sent to a list of which your list is a member.

The default setting is No, which means that the list address can appear in either the To: field or the Cc: field or the Bcc: field of the message and the message will be distributed to list members without being held.

This setting was chosen to enable the smooth functioning of umbrella lists - lists that have other lists as their members. If your list is not a member of another list, you may want to change this setting to Yes, so that messages sent to your list by putting the list name in a Bcc: field are held for review. This approach sometimes thwarts the distribution of spam email messages to members of your list.

With umbrella lists, setting implicit destination to Yes can be problematic. In an umbrella list, a list has other lists as members. Example: the list dept-staff is a member of the list dept-all. The dept-all list is the primary list, the dept-staff list is the subordinate list. Requiring an implicit destination means that messages sent to the primary list (dept-all) will hold for review by list administrator of the subordinate list.

1. Access the list administration website for your mailing list.
2. Click Initial Options.
3. Scroll down to find: Must posts have list named in destination (to, cc) field?
4. To change, click No.
5. Click the Submit Your Changes button at the bottom of the page.
6. If you have completed your list administration work, remember to click the Logout link and close your browser.