Sam Darwin via Mailman-users writes:
His answer: "the user is set to 'list default'. Isn't that right??" No. It should be 'default processing'.
Notice the reasoning. he just thinks "default", and that's all, which is a mistake.
Sure, and it wouldn't have happened if he'd been instructed more precisely. The options are very nuanced. I doubt most untrained moderator candidates would be able to state the differences between "discard" and "reject", or "accept" and "default processing", and there are reasons why each of those options might be the preferred policy for the moderator's action on a given list. The list owner should explain these things to a new moderator.
Perhaps some kind of documentation (popup help on mouseover, for example) could be added to the moderation page template. I think that's the most plausible improvement, and a merge request would likely be approved.
There isn't a mnemonic device where the settings have different names.
The problem isn't that the names aren't mnemonic. It's that the moderator doesn't understand the semantics, and has nothing for a mnemonic to refer to. Any names that reflect the semantics ("list fallback" for "list default", "standard processing" for "default processing") are going to have the same problem, although possibly not to the same degree.
You're welcome to submit a merge request to change to alternative names, but I will be -1 if they don't reflect the semantics, Most likely I will be negatively biased because (a) I think properly educating moderators is important, which would likely eliminate the problem, and (b) I don't want to make work for the translators (who also are frequently not native speakers of English and might not understand why the change was made, and the proper translation!)
But it brings up another idea also. When accepting a held moderated message, could there be an option, which is enabled by default, so it just works, that is "and switch this user from moderation-action1 to moderation-action2. That is, from 'list default' to 'default processing', at the same moment as accepting a message, and even without further mouse clicks. Then there would need to be an option, which is clickable, when accepting a message, "keep this member in moderation".
This is a more plausiable suggestion, but it's clearly inadequate (or perhaps the last part is redundant). The "accept", "discard", and "reject" options are present for reasons, so they must be available as well as "do nothing" (which is not exactly the same thing as "keep in moderation"). I am concerned about whether "bad things" could happen if a moderator clicks "and switch this user from moderation-action1 to moderation-action2" when one of the other options should have been chosen. It seems you envision that "moderation-action1" and "moderation-action2" could be configurable, or that there might be several such options. I wonder how that would look.
In your merge request, please document how you address those design considerations.
-- GNU Mailman consultant (installation, migration, customization) Sirius Open Source https://www.siriusopensource.com/ Software systems consulting in Europe, North America, and Japan