Philo,
  I was really hoping someone more qualified would jump in, but perhaps
everyone is gearing up for the big party (have fun, guys!) so...
 
As I understand it the risky part comes in from not specifying the year.
If you don't specify the year LISTSERV uses the oldest date it has
(creation of the list?).  At any rate, that is what I recall from
when Eric was explaining it to us nine, ten months ago, should be in
the archives.
 
Using specific dates, based on the school calendar, will not
necessarily get rid of the abandoned nomail subs, at least not the
first go-round.  Merely by setting the sub to nomail the student has
reset the counter, and that is what RENEW goes by.  May not be until the
next date that the truly abandoned subs will be caught.  I would still
advocate using intervals (you can use days, months, years) rather than
specific dates as a regular feature.  If you want specific dates I think
you ought to put in the year, which means you must change it periodically.
 
I *have* used specific dates.  Used it when I put in RENEW after years
without it.  Used a specific date to flush out all possible deadwood
subs, which it did.  Of course it also caught a lot of current subs and,
yes, it was a big mess.  But I was sure it would be, told Judith to send
any gripes or problems associated with it to me and I'ld deal with them,
then grinned and bore it.  Once past the initial storm I changed the
keyword to an interval rather than a date (yearly).  But I did achieve my
goal of getting rid of the deadwood nomail subs (one person had 15 of them!).
 
You might want to wait until you can get this new "probe" feature Eric
has been using, might be a closer fit to what you want.
 
Douglas
       Douglas Winship   Hays County, Texas  [log in to unmask]
                    Secondary AUTOCAT Listowner
                              MEDLAB-L