>Our new listTool - Mailing List Subscription
>Manager at http://www.lawguru.com/subscribe/listtool.html allows you to
>easily
>"subscribe", "unsubscribe" and send commands to over 450+ mailing lists
>(including this mailing list) in categories such as computers, news,
>business,
>law, humor, sports, art, literature, music and more. You no longer have to
>remember what command to send to which obscure email address to
>"subscribe" to
>or "unsubscribe" from a mailing list. After selecting the category, just
>enter
>your email address, select from the over 450+ different mailing lists
>available,
>pick the command, press the "Send" button and our server will do the rest.
>Best
>of all it is free. Let me know what you think or if you want to suggest a new
>mailing list to add.

Well, frankly, you probably won't like what I think, though I understand
the intention behind what you've done here.

There are several problems, not the least of which is verifying that
someone is putting in a legitimate e-mail address and not just spoofing
either someone else's address or a completely bogus address.  Not all
lists are set up as "Confirm" (even though they should be).  How do you
keep someone from just sitting there and subscribing to a zillion lists
just because it's easy?  Do you verify with the sites supporting the
lists that you have available that they *want* you to provide this
service for them?  (I can tell you up front that we don't.)  And there's
always the down side that when it's easy for them to subscribe, they tend
to do it even though they're only mildly interested or maybe just want to
take it for a "test drive", and then the list owner(s), site admins and
site support people end up with the headaches of someone who wants off,
but doesn't remember where the site is where they "easily" subscribed",
may not even know the actual list name or site where the list is located,
whines that they're getting mail they didn't ask for (supposedly), etc.

Since LISTSERV will send a subscription request to the right site if one
happens to get the wrong one, I just don't see this as a necessary thing
and think the potential for abuse far outweighs the positive side.  I
mean, really, how hard is it to type: SUB listname?  And do we really
want to make things so easy that nobody understands what goes on in the
background at all?  Why must we assume that everyone on the planet is a
complete dunce, incompetent and incapable of learning?  Should we not
make people responsible for doing some things for themselves?  (That
question was phrased in lawyer-speak just for you... *grin*)  In my case,
our business is *educating* people, not just providing them with things
that make life a mindless meandering.  (But then again, it seems the page
does exist primarily for lawyers, and maybe they need something easy...
*GRIN*)

(I'm sorry... just couldn't resist a couple lawyer barbs.  Feel free to
come back with nerd jokes. :-)

-Holly