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What is a BOUNCED message?
 
BIGLIST mailing list software may bounce certain messages that people attempt to post to your mailing list. The list software is asking for your confirmation before sending the message out to everyone on the list. This is known as approving a message.

These messages may be bounced for several reasons, all with the intention of making everyone's mailing list experience better.

  1. You have a "one-to-many" (a.k.a., "moderated" or "newsletter") list.
    With a one-to-many list, only the list onwer or someone with the list password can send messages to the list. Others who try will have their message redirected to the list owner for approval.
  2. They appear to be administrative requests.
    Someone mailed a request to subscribe or unsubscribe to the posting address rather than to Majordomo or to the -request address. This prevents spurious "Take me off the list" requests from being sent out to everyone.
  3. They are too long.
    In your list configuration file, there is a setting for the maximum length of a post (maxlength). This is to prevent someone from sending an unwanted large file to everyone, such as a picture.
  4. They contain words that you or BIGLIST has defined as being "taboo".
    This is to prevent spammers from sending messages to your list.

 

Approving a BOUNCE via our Web Interface.
 
Those "bounced" email messages can be difficult to approve via email, so we have implemented the ability to approve any "bounced" message using a web interface. When you get a bounced message, follow these simple steps:
  1. Go to http://www.biglist.com/lists/<listname>/admin/
    (This requires your web password.)
  2. Click on Modify the list .
  3. Type in the listname, password, and select the radio button "Approval Queue", then GO.
  4. You will see a list of the messages that are awaiting approval, and you can delete, approve, or do nothing.
You may find some messages already in the Approval Queue if this is the first time you have used it. You can simply delete them if no longer needed. Otherwise, we will remove old messages from the server periodically.

 

Approving a BOUNCE via e-mail.
 
You can manually approve the message via email. To do so, follow the following directions exactly:

  1. Save the original message (the body of the message you received from Majordomo) in a file. The portion you need will consist of the headers of the original message, followed by a single blank line, followed by the text of the original message. You do not need to include any of the headers of the message which contained the original message. Here's a quick example: 

    From: majordomo@list.server         \
To: your-list-approval@list.server  | Don't want these headers
Subject: BOUNCE: taboo_header found /
                                    - Blank line
>From list-member@her.site  date    \ 
Received: some long routing info    | Headers of original message;
From: list-member@her.site          | You want these.  It's OK if you
To: your-list@list.server           | don't have the first line.
Subject: Just a message             /
                                    - Blank line, you _must_ have this!
Hello.  I'm just writing to         \
consume some bandwidth and          | Message body; include all of
take up space in your mail          | this.
spool!                              /

    Basically you want everything after (and not including) the first blank line.

  2. Edit the file to insert a line that says "Approved: password" (where "password" is the password for your list) at the top, before the original message, with absolutely no intervening space: 

    Approved: sekrit
>From list-member@her.site  date
Received: some long routing info
From: list-member@her.site
To: your-list@list.server
Subject: Just a message

Hello.  I'm just writing to
consume some bandwidth and
take up space in your mail
spool!

  3. Send this edited file back to the posting address for your list (NOT to Majordomo). You should make sure that your mailer doesn't try to do anything like include your prepared mail as an attachment, encode it somehow, indent every line, or add anything extra to the beginning or end of the message. There are mailers that will do pretty horrible things to messages before they are sent; you should take care that you aren't using one or, if you are, you have it configured to pass your text on unadulterated.

    This time around, Majordomo will notice the "Approved:" line and check it against your list password. If it matches, Majordomo will strip off the header of your message and the "Approved:" line (leaving just the original message), and send the original message on through.

     

Additional Information.
 
Pre-approving a message
The list-owner can pre-approve a message by inserting information that tells BIGLIST not to bounce the message for approval, but rather to go ahead and send it to listmembers.
Approving MIME-Encoded Messages 
If you are having trouble sending messages to your list members because your mail software is making everything (even plain text documents) a MIME attachment, check here for tips on what you can do. 

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