To be excruciatingly precise, one does not login to the archive.  One
may login to the site - you can establish a LISTSERV(tm) password
without regard to subscriber status on any of the lists hosted by any
particular site - the server doesn't care if you subscribe, it requires
only that you receive and respond to the "magic cookie" email.

In the case of a list with private archive, this then enables
subscribers to access the archive content (among other things).  In the
case of a list with public archive, unmasking email addresses in the
archive is the only difference I can think of right now - this
distinction prevents (for example) web crawlers from feeding those
addresses to search engines.

>>> [log in to unmask] 6/21/2006 12:47:11 PM >>>
On Wed, 21 Jun 2006, Ben Parker wrote:
> I'm also slightly puzzled because you said the site where your list
is hosted
> is running VM.  If so, I am under the impression (please correct me)
that the
> LISTSERV WWW interface is not available on VM.  The feature being
discussed
> here <[log in to unmask]> applies only to viewing the list message
archives
> via the WWW interface for lists with Notebook= ..., Public.   List
message
> archives requested by email commands will show the actual email
addresses.

I'm glad that you cleared that up that the described behavior is seen
only in "public" lists; all my lists are "private."  I am puzzled though
as to how one "logs in" to a public list archive, and what the point of
doing so is.