>
> I've been concerned about the responses to the question about disabling
> the NOMAIL option.  Some of the people who answered seemed more
> interested in telling the person who asked the question that he was
> foolish to want to do this than they were in helping him.  I can think of
> at least three distinctly different circumstances in which disabling
> NOMAIL would be appropriate for a list.  It would be a lot more useful to
> answer the question than to quarrel with the need for disabling NOMAIL.
>
 
I'm afraid I'm one of those who questioned the original poster's
purpose, and may have suggested he was "foolish".  My apologies if I
offended.  In fact, I can think of at least one instance where it would
definitely be advantageous:  I have used LISTSERV as a kind of class-wide LAN
for distributing announcements and conducting extra discussions with my
Old English class.  It is more efficient than handing out handouts in
class of announcements (more students read email religiously than come
to class!).  But they must remain set to MAIL in order for the list to
be beneficial.  So that would surely count as one instance.
 
>
> Now let me answer the original question.
>
>
> <paraindent><param>left</param>I don't know of any way to selectively
> disable the setting of NOMAIL without disabling the setting of other
> options.  You can disable all changes by locking the list.  Then you can
> unlock the list when you want to make changes.
>
But then the list will also not distribute mail until you unlock it, so
that probably is not the best solution.
 
> </paraindent>
>
> <paraindent><param>left</param>Another approach is to issue a SET
> listname MAIL FOR *@* command every day.  It is not hard on many systems
> to set up a script that will send a daily message automatically.   This
> does not keep the person from setting NOMAIL, but it insures that the
> setting will soon be changed back to MAIL.
>
That is a brilliant work around, I think.  Of course, if you have
subscribers with dual addresses (subscription from two addresses with one
set to NOMAIL to prevent double messages) you'd have to have the routine
set those back to NOMAIL at the same time.  And if you have a large
list, and do it all with the QUIET keyword, the program might have to
work somewhat, but at least you'd achieve the objective.
 
Bill
 
--
Dr. W. Schipper                     Email: [log in to unmask]
Department of English,              Tel: 709-737-4406
Memorial University                 Fax: 709-737-4528
St John's, Nfld. A1C 5S7