>We are thinking of creating two comapnion lists: one for discussion, >the other strictly as a database on the same topic. ... My college ice hockey list (HOCKEY-L) has been discussing something similar to this for many months. We have, in recent years spun off two lists (OLYMPUCK - Olympic ice hockey and HOCKEY3 - Division III college ice hockey), while others have independently appeared (HOCKEYJR - Junior A ice hockey and UK-HOCKEY - UK college ice hockey) but our posting rate continues upward. Under discussion are use of the TOPICS facility and/or a separate moderated or invited-only list for some purpose (in our case to include scores, standings, box scores, statistics, etc., but *not* discussions). This second list would have the main discussion list as a subscriber, so someone with marginal or no interest in the discussions could subscribe to the second list, whereas all the gung-ho folks could continue getting everything on the main (present day) list. There appear to be several stumbling blocks, however. The information in the new second list is time-sensitive ... people want it immediately; they don't want it delayed minutes or hours or days for a moderator to give blessing. On the other hand, an invited-only list smacks of elitism and the invited-author list is time-consuming to maintain. (Yes, I know that the authorized posters of one list may be the membership of yet another dummy list). Also, many or most discussions would be started from a post to the second list. This is not a problem to the person that sees it from the first list, but it would be confusing, I think, to the subscriber of the second list that s/he should reply to a different list. Given all this, my current feeling is that my "second list" will not be created (this year), but we'll continue to focus on providing local re-distributions, high-quality postings on the existing list, spawning related lists where appropriate, and providing a wealth of information via files stored in LISTSERV. (In fact, LISTSERV very kindly will send a copy of changed files, such as league standings or team schedules, with a simple AFD subscription). cheers, Wayne Smith The College Hockey Discussion List administrator Systems Group - CAPS BITNET/CREN: wts@maine University of Maine System internet: [log in to unmask] P.S. This note is "CCed" to the HOCKEY list, a temporary list for the discussion of HOCKEY-L and its administration.