On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:57:11 -0500, Winship <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Why cannot a lisowner access this information about his own list?

Because there is only 1 LISTSERV logfile and it contains information about all
activities for all lists as well as many non-list events (registering
passwords, etc.)   It would be an extreme breech of security for one List
Owner to have access to all this information.  As to the Site Admin, well, if
you don't trust the Site Admin to access the information, I would suggest you
should not be a List Owner or have a list at that site.

Even if LISTSERV were modified to create a separate logfile for each list (a
pretty horrible idea when you think about the technical details), how many
List Owners would have sufficient knowledge and experience to understand and
correctly interpret such logfile information.  I suggest the number would be
be very small.

As to other site staff having access, there are so many 'Site Admins' who
don't have a clue about where the LISTSERV log files are and what they
contain, that I am not worried about other non-LISTSERV knowledgable staff
poking around.  Even if they had access it is unlikely they would know enough
to become harmful.  I think they would be more likely to attack the accounting
program files or grade records or other things of higher 'value'.

As a Site Admin of my own site, I encourage List Owners to report anything
irregular and I will investigate matters of this kind from my List Owners,
because I want to eliminate anybody from doing anything irregular with any
list on my site, because any such foolishness compromises the security of
everyone else.  Obviously Site Admins of other sites may have different
non-LISTSERV workloads (the things they need to do in the rest of their job
and their non-work life) and almost certainly have different ideas or opinions
about how they would respond to such requests from List Owners.  YMMV.

But unless you have already been refused cooperation in this matter by your
Site Admin, I suggest you should at least prepare what evidence you have and
make a serious request of your case to your Admin.  You will certainly not get
any help if you don't ask for it.