> is there a less risky way to allow proffessionals into our group without:
>
> 1.  creating list subcatagories (this seemed to recieve some critism
> from some people in the list based on prior experiances

Well, this really *is* what you're asking for :-)

> 2.  to subscribe such a person to the list and have them set to NOMAIL
> (which they themselves can override)?
>
> I guess what I want is a subscription option for such people so that
> they would only be allowed to post to the list, but not recieve mail
> from the list.  Is there any possible way to do this securely?

Technical solution: You could simply say "Send=Public" and
"Subscription=By_Owner" (and of course, make notebooks private).  That
would result in anyone being able to post.  Or if you wanted to limit
the second group as well, you could make a second list, say PRO-FOLKS,
and say "Send=Private,(PRO-FOLKS)".  That way they could join PRO-FOLKS
and thus be allowed to post, without being members of your discussion
list.

But ... all of this sounds sort of impractical on a deeper level.  How
are these people supposed to make a reasonable contribution to the list
if they don't know what the context is that they're dropping their
contributions into?  It would make more sense for them to mail a
contribution to you (say, after you'd sent them a focused question), and
allow you to re-post it to the list with some context added.

Norm