>Hi all,
>
>I have seen this question asked before in the list, and never responded to.
>However, we have client who is adamant that we change the subscribe Command
>Confirmation message which currently reads:
>
>Your command:
>
>   SUBSCRIBE {listname) Anonymous
>
>has been received. You must now reply to this message (as explained below)
>to complete your subscription. The purpose of this confirmation procedure
>is to check that the address LISTSERV is about to add to the list for your
>subscription is reachable. This is a typical procedure for high-volume
>lists and all new subscribers are subjected to it - you are not being
>singled out. Every effort has been made to make this verification as simple
>and painless as possible. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.
>
>(etc.)
>
>This, I take it, is somehow created from the CONFIRM1 template, but it
>looks like the text noted above is not part of the editable text in the
>template.

Right.  If you look at the default template you'll see there's a
variable called "&INFO" which is used a few times.  Basically &INFO
is set by LISTSERV on the fly to hold any customized information that
LISTSERV puts in the command confirmation.  When LISTSERV receives a
SUBSCRIBE  command for a Subscription=Open,Confirm mailing list &INFO
is exactly the text you quote starting at:

| has been received. You must now reply to this message (as explained below)

If &INFO is not set then the template says to simply put

| requires confirmation.

>Is there any way to change this description?  The client
>complains that it is too long and confusing and he wories that some
>subscribers can't figure it out and therefore do not complete their
>subscription.  I don’t think it is all that confusing, but it is long and
>it should be able to be adjusted to meet the various needs of different
>list groups (i.e., dumbed down).
>
>Any input would be appreciated.

There are a couple of approaches to this.  Editing this template is
tricky and I recommend testing your modifications extensively with a
few different commands before using a customized template for an
important mailing list.

Approach #1:

At this point in time I believe that &INFO is _only_ set in response
to subscription requests.  (Be aware that this could potentially
change in future versions of LISTSERV; I don't know how likely this
is.)  You can take advantage of this by just changing the part of the
template that says:

| .bb &INFO ^= ''
| &INFO
|
| .eb

(which says 'if &INFO contains any text then put the text it contains
here') to say:

| .bb &INFO ^= ''
| desired text for subscription requests
|
| .eb

(which says 'if &INFO contains any text then put "desired text for
subscription requests" here').  Note that in the default template
this text is proceded by "Your command: [command]" or "Your commands:
[commands]" so if this is the only change you make to CONFIRM1 you'd
want to make the text you substitute complete those sentences.

Approach #2:

This gives you more flexibility and seems to me to be less likely to
break in future versions of LISTSERV, but there are no guarantees.
It's also more complicated than the above and is probably easier to
screw up.

This approach takes advantage of the fact that &CMD stores the
command being confirmed (assuming that you're not confirming multiple
commands via 'OK BEGIN'/'OK END').  So you can insert specialized
responses for various commands as follows:

| .bb &CMD ^= ''
| .bb &CMD =* 'SUBSCRIBE *'
| response to SUBSCRIBE command
|
| .eb
| .bb &CMD ^=* 'SUBSCRIBE *'
| Your command:
|
| .ce &CMD
|
| .bb &INFO = ''
| requires confirmation. (or whatever you want the response to a generic
| command to be)
|
| .eb
| .bb &INFO ^= ''
| &INFO
|
| .eb
| .eb
| .eb
| .bb &CMD = ''
| Your commands:
|
| .dd &CMDLIST
|
| .bb &INFO = ''
| require confirmation. (the response for multiple commands)
| .eb
| .bb &INFO ^= ''
| &INFO
|
| .eb
| .eb

"&CMD =* 'SUBSCRIBE *'" means "If &CMD starts with 'SUBSCRIBE '" (and
"&CMD ^=* 'SUBSCRIBE *'" means "If &CMD doesn't start with 'SUBSCRIBE
'").  The same trick can be used with other commands, though I'd test
it with different forms of the command (REV vs. REVIEW vs. review,
etc.).

For information on how the various commands (.bb, .eb, .ce, etc.)
work see section 9.3 of the List Owner's Guide.

Thanks,
--
Jacob Haller, Technical Support
L-Soft international, Inc
http://www.lsoft.com/