It seems to me that some long term commercial value (to L-Soft) can be
had by providing a mechanism for hiding owner-selected LIST keywords.
 
I can imagine that large commercial firms could use LISTSERV for hundreds
of small, ad hoc committee/working group/team project/board/etc discussion
lists. I can imagine that for some of these lists, who is involved,
how they are involved, what they are involved in, when they're involved
(and dis-involved), is company- and/or project- or committee-sensitive
information.
 
Having selective control over dissemination of this information would
seem to me to be quite valuable, and would be a commercially
valued "feature" of L-Soft's LISTSERV, rather than simply a bother to
L-Soft to implement.
 
> Date:         Thu, 8 Aug 1996 02:07:17 +0200
> From: Eric Thomas <[log in to unmask]>
>
> ... How do  you want to archive your list if  it doesn't have a
> header?
 
>   Eric
 
Certainly, some minimal identifying info will have to be present in
such an archive/database, or else the choice for that list is (for
those who don't want _any_ advertising/searching done on their list)
no database/archive.
 
> How is the database filled in, who is the owner, etc?
 
<listname>-Request@wherever and <listname>-Owner might work for the public
address; of course, somewhere, there needs to be a map from -Request
to the real owner's address (but that one needn't be published/publishable).
 
Seems as a minimum, a list's name@address and the generic -owner/-request
addresses need to be available. What other info in LIST _must_ be public
in order for LISTSERV to be available to (prospective) subscribers?
 
This discussion is not about the technical feasibility of hiding info;
with enough development time and effort, things could be hidden, right?
It's about the philosophy of hiding info, and/or about the value
(commercial or otherwise) of hiding info. Commercial world hides all
sorts of things all the time. So, clearly there is value to some. Will
they pay for it?
Peter