In a recent case someone sent an announcement of a conference to many lists - apparently every list in the LISTSERV global list file in this case. Obviously, most of the mailing lists used had nothing to do with the topic of the conference and many people got dozens of copies of the same message. Although it is hard to believe, I think some of the "message floods" occur due to ignorance. Maybe it would help prevent a FEW of these if every "list of lists" included some sort of warning about sending mail to multiple lists. To that end I've added the following note to the LISTSOF LISTS document on our LISTSERV. I am sure you can improve the wording but I wanted to share the idea. ----- PLEASE NOTE: This document is an informal collection of "hints" which may help you find e-mail lists on specific topics. If you have an announcement you would like to distribute, PLEASE send it ONLY to the one or two lists whose subscribers would be most interested. At no time should mail be sent to many lists or "all lists". Such "junk mail" causes many duplications and network congestion and is a violation of the spirit of most network usage agreements. If you are in doubt about this policy please check it out with your system administrators before sending mail to a list. ----- If you are interested in the whole document you may send e-mail to [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] with the following command in the BODY of the mail: (note the spelling...). GET LISTSOF LISTS ----------- Marty Hoag ND Higher Education Computer Network US Mail: NDSU Computer Center Phone: (701)-237-8639 Fax: (701)-237-7464 PO Box 5164 / UCCS Bitnet: nu021172@NDSUVM1 (NOTE 0 = ZERO) Fargo, ND 58105 Internet: [log in to unmask] UUCP:...!uunet!plains!vm1.nodak.edu!nu021172