I haven't seen something yet in this thread that I consider a very important listowner requirement. Though it's one that just about everyone on List Managers already has, or they wouldn't be here. Time. I have seen lists decend into chaos because the listowner seems to be absent. It's okay for a subscriber to be one of those people who logs in every week or so and skims through their email. No listowner should be like that. Every list needs at least one designated person (who does not have to be the actual owner, and certainly doesn't have to be the admin) who reads the list daily and deals with problems as they come up. Problems include: unsubscribe requests posted to the list (they tend to snowball), flame wars (assuming these are undesirable to you), personal attacks (see flame wars), posts by members that violate the list rules (like ads). This person (the list mom) needs to be able to do three different things: 1) post to the list when needed to curb flames and inappropriate posts; 2) write subscribers individually and deal with problems they may be having; 3) have the power to yank people from the list or put them on non-post status, as available and needed. There also needs to be at least one person available on a daily basis at the list-owner/admin address to deal with questions and problems. Unfortunately, this requirement makes it damn hard to have a mailing list and take a vacation, or have a personal/family crisis. Way back when my list was purely manually run (I'll never do *that* again!), it was impossible to have a backup person and I ended up with a lot of problems on my hands when I moved crosscountry or otherwise didn't have net access for a few days. But it's the listowners that never/rarely read their own lists and/or don't log in every day on most days that concern me. Cyndi -- _______________________________________________________________________________ "There's nothing wrong with me. Maybe there's Cyndi Norman something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG) [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ http://www.best.com/~cnorman
