On Sat, 16 Nov 2002, Jan A Bergeron VMD wrote:
>
> I run a private list and I want to be able to control
> submissions of certain problem subscribers.  I know that I can
> set them to REVIEW on an individual basis, but this only
> allows me to reject or accept their submissions.

And, that is all you should want to do. You should not want to
edit someone else's content and then pass it off as theirs
(alone).

You have two reasonable options, if "reasonable" means that you
properly acknoweldge whose prose it is that is being posted.

1. You take the submission (sent to you as "editor" for
approval), you edit it, and forward it along to the list under
your own signature, with due credit for those ideas in the
postings to the original author and to yourself, respectively,
or

2. You either ignore the submission or you send it back to the
author with your comments as to why you will not approve it for
posting as is. The author then has the opportunity to a) be
educated as to your criteria for passing muster, b) to revise
his submission to make it acceptable to you the editor, c)
decline to revise the text and forego the privilege to post
anything.

> It seems to me that the only option I have for actually
> editing submissions is to change the SEND= keyword to Editor
> and then set all subscribers to EDITOR, thus allowing them to
> post directly to the list without being edited.  Then for the
> few who are problems, change their options to NOEDITOR, which
> will allow me to screen their posts and edit them if
> necessary.

This approach is no better than the one you are using assuming
that you have no problem with most of your subscribers. Allowing
all to SEND= Private, and then SETting any transgressors to
REVIEW will get you the very same opportunity to
edit/return/ignore the submissions from those on REVIEW (and
NOEDITOR).

Again, if I were one of your subscribers, I'd be very upset if
you edited my submissions. Either ignore them, or return them to
me with helpful comments that will allow me the opportunity to
express my ideas in a manner acceptable to you.

> Does this make sense, or is there a better way to do this?

If your list is some kind of "newsletter", for which you are the
editor, for which newsletter you solicit "interesting items" for
your consideration as its editor, then under those circumstances
it would be appropriate for you to have Send= Editor, and for
all (not just "problem") subscribers to have their expectations
set by you that no one's submissions will necessarily be
posting, and if posted then not necessarily with the full
content and form that the submissions were received by you. But,
this is a very different situation from the typical "discussion"
list, in which you should not want to be changing the content of
anyone's submissions.

Peter R