Roger Burns wrote:

>  if ...  you wish for Editors -- and Editors only -- to be
> on REVIEW for safety reasons

Ben Parker asked:
 
> I'm just curious what these "safety reasons" might be. 

For one, to prevent official announcements from the list management
from being spoofed.


> commands issued via the WWW interface are unlikely to go astray
> in the same way as email commands. 

There are many situations in which the email interface will be 
preferred over the web interface.  If there are multiple listowners,
then many actions, such as re-configuring the list header, will lead
to less trouble via email if it happens that more than one listowner
is trying to do similar actions at the same time.

Also, if there are multiple listowners, it will be helpful to have a
paper trail of who did what when, which you don't have if every owner
or any owner is using the web interface.

Also, there are rare instances, and I am intimately familiar with this,
when a listowner has significant memory problems due to age or disease, 
and it will be important for them to have a paper trail. This will be 
especially true for lists for support groups for those suffering from
illnesses whose symptoms include unreliable memory, so that any 
listowner drawn from the group will have the same limitation.


> If you are worried about accidently sending commands to your list,
> rather than to LISTSERV@...

> And what might be the harm in that, besides
> embarassment of the Owner=?

If you send a command that includes a password, and that command
goes astray as a post to your list, then that's a security issue.  
A spry troublemaker could go to the web interface and delete you 
as an owner before you might change your password.

If your ADD command goes public, then you have deprived your soon-to-be 
new subscriber from retaining their anonymity if they wished to 
exercise that privilege.  In some situations, being outed can be a very 
unhappy first-time experience for a new subscriber.

If your subscribership has asked or demanded that all disciplining by 
the moderator happen in the background in order to minimize
embarrassment to those in question, and then your REVIEW command goes 
astray as a post to the list, then the listowner will have violated 
their bond of trust with the subscribers.

If you try to do a quiet mass delete of all AOL subscribers and that 
command goes astray, the AOL Police will hunt down you, your family, 
and everyone you've ever known for the rest of your natural lives.

 - Roger Burns
   Manager of CFS lists based at ICORS.org,
   Charitable Listserv sponsored by L-Soft