At 12:43 PM 12/18/98 -0500, Pete Weiss wrote:
>|...whatever.  What's needed is a clear convention for ID'ing who the buck
>|stops with in owner disputes.

I have been following the discussion of list ownership with great interest
and I have a couple of comments and a suggestion.

I think we all know where the buck stops with list owner disputes ... first
with the listserv site maintainer and, if the fight is nasty enough, with
other higher (if there are) levels within the company or university.

Since I run the show here, I know who I set up lists for and who should be
running them. And that information is standard part of my electronic and
paper logs that I keep on all aspects of my network operations. I
expect/require the list owner of record to let me know if they want to add
additional list owners to the header so that *I* can make sure that new
owners understand our rules and terms of service. I expect/require the list
owner of record to let me know if they no longer wish to run their list and
if they are planning on turning it over to someone else. And I
expect/require notification if an organization running a list on my server
has asssigned the management functions to another employee.

Yes, I only have a few lists running on my server so I don't have the
administrative headache that sites with hundreds of lists have, but I do
run lists for people outside organization.

Ultimately we know that the site maintainer is responsible for everything
that goes on at his/her site. S/he will have to deal with the fallout if
things get really bad between co-owners or hijackers. Perhaps the only way
to ensure that, as site maintainer, you know who is supposed to run a list,
even years after the initial creation, is to have the list owner of record
sign and return a yearly agreement that lays out the basic adminsitrative
ground rules and that also very clearly lays out who is a list owner and
which *one* list owner has ultimately responsibility if a dispute arises.

Karen Strauss
Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Network
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