On Fri, 1 May 1992 11:20:26 EDT "Paul M. Karagianis" <KARYPM@SJUVM> said:
 
>There  was a  second  limiting factor  that I  think  may merit  further
>discussion, the use of Send= Public. (...) I would have assumed that you
>had to be a member of a group to address that group and I don't find the
>default of Send= Public intuitivly obvious.
 
You will  find that the  use of public vs  private is a  mostly religious
issue in  the majority  of cases. There  are cases where  one of  the two
settings is undoubtedly the right one,  but most of the time the question
is an open one. There are several factors to consider:
 
- If you have "Send= Private" but  "Subscription= Open", you are going to
  irritate people  as this  is not  a very logical  setting: it  does not
  prevent anyone from posting something, it  just means you have to go to
  the trouble of subscribing and then signing off.
 
- Many people have  unstable e-mail addresses, which change  based on the
  phase of the moon or whatever.  There are many addresses that will work
  for writing to them,  but the one that shows up  in their 'From:' field
  will last  only a few months.  "Send= Private" is an  inconvenience for
  them, if they  are not technically-oriented people it can  be a serious
  one. If they are influent, it can  be a serious problem as they may not
  give you a choice.
 
Personally I  prefer to use  "Private", as it prevents  random irrelevant
messages  and is  an additional  safety against  mailing loops.  However,
there are cases where  it can be an inconvenience for  the list owner due
to  numerous requests  to "delete  this address  and add  this one"  (the
addresses in question  are, of course, never less than  40 bytes long and
impossible to spell properly the first time).
 
  Eric