Hi, I'm from Topica, and I wanted to give you an update on the unsolicited mail issue that has been under discussion here for the past few days. After discussing the points raised here, we have decided to halt our current practices of notifying list owners regarding their listings in the Liszt/Topica directory and archiving options, and to spend more time investigating the issues. As previously mentioned, we did solicit opinions and feedback from many list owners, and we had concluded that it was important to notify list owners of any issues that may affect their lists - even though it meant that some of the contacts might be viewed as "unsolicited." However, based on the discussion here, it is clear that we must re-examine our position on this. The key issues are: 1. As you know, we are now working with Liszt to combine our directories. We believed it was important to notify the list owner that his/her list, part of the Liszt database, is now part of the Liszt/Topica directory - primarily to provide an opportunity for list owners to update/edit or remove the information for their lists. 2. Many Topica users are subscribing to lists through us. We believed it was important to notify the list owner that someone has joined his/her list through Topica, with a one-time opt-in request to allow web-based reading for that subscriber. It is our sincere desire and intent to deliver a valuable service for both list owners and subscribers. While it may not be possible to come up with a solution that pleases everyone, we would like to balance the tradeoffs and make the best possible decision - one that works for the overall list owner community. We invite you to continue to discuss the issues and help us make the best possible decision. Rather than monopolize the discussion on this list, if you are interested, please join the discussion on our List Owner Advisory Board list: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]. And, once again, if you do want us to remove your list from the Liszt/Topica directory, please let me, Ariel or anyone at Topica know, and we will take care of it immediately. Thanks for the discussion. I hope you'll contribute your thoughts on our List Owner Advisory Board list. Tina Lin Co-founder & Vice President, Topica [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel 415.344.3812
