If your list is moderated, then any message addressed to the list will first be sent to the moderator (often referred to within Sympa as the list 'editor'), who will need to forward the message to the list if appropriate.

The advantage of list moderation is :

• No junk mail, spam, or irrelevant postings.

Disadvantages include :

• Messages don't reach the list as quickly.
• Easy discussion may be constrained.

Alternatively, the list may be set up such that messages sent for moderation can be tagged with a key. This has the advantage that any moderated messages will appear to be sent from the original sender and not from the moderator (editor).

Messages for moderation are held on the server in a spool area, and can be distributed, rejected, or an index shown, by the use of the following email commands :

DISTRIBUTE listname key

This command is used by the moderator to distribute messages (tagged with a key) to the list. (Note : the list must be set up to allow key based moderation - the send parameter of the list must be set to either editorkey or editorkeyonly for this to work)

REJECT listname key

This command is used by the moderator to reject a message to the list. The message tagged with the specified key is deleted from the moderation spool.

MODINDEX listname

This command returns a list of messages queued in the moderation spool for the specified list. The result is presented in the form of a table, which supplies, for each message, it's sending date, the sender, it's size, and the associated key that it has been tagged with. (Messages stored in the form of a digest are also stored here).

If a list is a moderated list, and there are no moderators explicitly defined, then the listowner is also, by default, a list moderator, and can issue these commands too.