Help! I cannot post to the mailinglist.

By: Michael Stucki

It often happens that mailing list users have trouble with posting emails to a list. The solution is simple and quite logical - as long as you're aware of the problem.

I'm often receiving mails from new mailing list users who wonder why their mails to a mailing list got rejected. I usually answer those people within a week, but I think it's finally time to blog about it, so the answer can be found much faster...

Well, what has happend?

You've just subscribed yourself to a new mailing list via the web interface at lists.typo3.org. You've subscribed with your favourite email address, received a confirmation email, and clicked the link to confirm your subscription. Everything fine so far.

So you are subscribed and want to post your problem to that very mailing list. You hit send, and a little while later you receive a mail with the following content:

You are not allowed to post to this mailing list, and your message has been automatically rejected. If you think that your messages are being rejected in error, contact the mailing list owner at <listname>-owner@lists.typo3.org.

What is wrong?

Well, be sure we haven't blocked your mail because we don't like you! In fact, we are never blocking anyone (except spammers and people who flood us with their out-of-office autoreplies).

The problem is rather simple: You seem to have two or more different email addresses, and apparently use a different one to post than you have used to subscribe. It may be clear for humans that this is the same address, but our mailing list software will not know about it, and therefore block your mail.

Here's a classic example:

• You have subscribed yourself as "jd@mycompany.com", which you are using as a shortcut for "john.doe@mycompany".
• After the subscription, only "jd@mycompany.com" is subscribed, but your mail server will send the mail to the list using the longer variant.

How to solve the problem?

1. Check which address is used by your mailserver when you send emails.
2. Subscribe with this address rather than using the alias.

If you have any questions, you can contact the listserver admins at admin(at)typo3.org and we'll help you soon.