On 19 Nov 2001 Michael Shannon wrote:

> If your users can get to the initial sign-up page
> (http://your.domain.name/path-to-wa/WA.EXE?SUBED1=<listname>&A=1) without
> being challenged for a password then the only confirmation they should need
> to do will be for confirming their request to join.  I've found that in
> practice all attempts to sign up through the web interface require a confirm
> procedure via email.

This is the problem.  How do I prevent that?  If one does that with subscribe by owner the person
must try to subscribe, then confirm the request, then wait for owner approval, and it's too much --
people get confused, they figure the first confirmation step is it, and get somewhat upset when
they have to do what to them is two confirmation steps.

As a suggestion to LSoft, it would work much better if a subscription request (however it came in)
went to the owner first, then when they were approved by the owner the subscriber then had to
respond to a standard email confirmation request before they were actually added -- sort of an
ADD /CONFIRM command for the owner to use.  This would mean web requests would have one
confirmation step from the user's viewpoint, and the rest would be automated.  I'd love to have
that for the email requests too, especially since I can't see the original message headers to verify
that the request came from the person who asks to be added.

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Tom Rawson           [log in to unmask]