Thank you for the fantastic, detailed response.  I will let you know how things go.

BK



-----Original Message-----
From: LISTSERV site administrators' forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Russell
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: List refusing to be freed

On 6/16/2011 11:09, Bruce Keppler wrote:
> Thanks for the excellent suggestion.  I have one follow up question before I try this.  I know there are at least 21 messages queued up and ready to be released once I get this list freed.  If my list members get "spammed" with 21 or more messages in rapid succession they are going to scream to be removed from the list.  In a perfect world what I'd like to do is ensure those messages get put in the archives but are not distributed via email.  If that isn't possible then I'd like to just purge them before attempting the solution below.
> 
> Is there a way to do either of these things?
> 
> Many thanks,
> 
> BK
> 

If you set everyone to NOMAIL before you free the list, the messages will be archived, but copies will not be sent to the subscribers. Before you do this, you might want to query all subscribers' option settings, so you can restore their current settings after the messages are processed.


If you are not concerned about restoring subscribers' current options, do this:

	quiet set (listname) nomail for *@*

	free (listname)

	quiet set (listname) mail for *@*


If you want to be able to restore subscribers' current options, do this:

	query (listname) for *@*

	quiet set (listname) nomail for *@*

	free (listname)

After the pending messages are processed, use the output from the query command to determine which subscribers need to be reset to MAIL, DIGEST, or INDEX. I would suggest using 'quiet set' rather than 'set', to suppress notification to the subscribers that you have changed their option settings.

If you need to reset options for more than a few subscribers, you might want to do it by email, rather than via the web interface. Send a single message to
listserv@(your-listserv-server-hostname) with the following commands as the only text in the body of the message:

	ok begin
	quiet set (listname) (option) for (someone)
	...
	quiet set (listname) (option) for (someone-else)
	ok end

LISTSERV will send a single command confirmation request for all commands between 'ok begin' and 'ok end', rather than a seperate command confirmation request for each command.

--
Paul Russell, Senior Systems Administrator OIT Messaging Services Team University of Notre Dame

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