(optional) Defines whether new members receive a
confirmation request when joining the mailing list. The confirmation request
will be an email message telling the person that they have requested to join this
mailing list, and the person will have to respond to the confirmation message
in order to become a full member. The new member's status will be set to confirm
until the confirmation response is received, and the person will not receive
mail from the mailing list until the confirmation is received.
Confirmation serves several
purposes. It is quite common for people to mistype their email address when
subscribing to a mailing list using the Lyris Web Interface. Without
confirmation, the Lyris Server would waste effort trying to send mail to this
incorrect address.
Another need for confirmation is to
counter a common form of Electronic Terrorism. The Terrorist will sign someone
they wish to harm to many mailing lists (perhaps several hundred), and that
person will then be flooded with unwanted electronic mail, such that they will
be unable to accomplish any work with that email address. If that person's
email server is not perfectly configured, the act may crash the person's email
server, use vast qualities of Internet bandwidth, or prohibit other people
sharing the email server from receiving their email.
The Confirmation feature blocks
this form of Electronic Terrorism. If the Terrorist subscribes someone to 100
Lyris mailing lists (all with Confirm set to Yes), the person
will receive 100 confirmation messages, but no more mail after that. If the
person does not respond to the subscription confirmation messages (as they
should not), their memberships will not be activated.
We highly recommend that all Open
mailing lists use the Confirm feature, as this form of Electronic Terrorism is
quite common, and is very bothersome to the victim.