On Fri, 27 Nov 1998 05:15:57 -0800, "Stephen C. Nill, J.D." <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>        So I ask those who have offered this solution to correct me if I have
>misunderstood the PRIMETIME recommendation.  Otherwise, sending a message
>at Midnight or any other time should simply be done with a good email
>client or possibly using the Probe to carry the message.  If midnight is
>the time, I suggest changing the timing of the sending out of digests from
>midnight to some other time, so that Listserv will not delay sending out
>the midnight posting in question for even a few seconds or minutes.  And if
>the list is an edited list, I'd enter the sender of that message as an
>"Editor=" parameter in the list headers, so that it will bypass "moderation."
>
>        Please correct me if I am wrong, folks.  I'm learning too.

There is no such keyword as PRIMETIME in List Headers.  It is a server-wide configuration setting.  Your guess as to it's use is correct in that it is a hold-over from days long gone when computers
had little capacity and might be very busy with (for example) accounting functions during the day, etc. and the server admin would want to force all list traffic to be distributed in off-hours at
night.

Probe has nothing to do with any of this.  You can, of course, use a timing feature of some email program, but not all programs offer this feature.

If you want the list posting (typically for a one-way, announce-only list) to go out at  20:00 then you would set this in the List Header for that list:

Prime= "Mon-Fri: 00:00-19:59; Sat-Sun: -"

LISTSERV's internal "clock/calendar" for Prime= starts on Monday.  You must account for all hours of the day and all days of the week.  The above setting would cause LISTSERV to release List mail at
20:00 on Monday through Friday and at anytime on the weekend.  (All times are based on the server's clock and timezone.  If that is remote from you, you may need to adjust the times accordingly for
what you want to happen.)  Note that the prime-time definition stops one minute short of the actual desired "release time".  If you set it to the exact time. you will instead delay the mail release
for 1 hour.

Additional things to increase security for one-way lists like this are

Daily-Threshold= 1

Send= Editor,Hold,Confirm
Editor= [log in to unmask]

We very STRONGLY recommend you use the 'confirm'.  This increases security and ensures that only the authorized person(s) are posting to the list.  But more importantly, it prevents mail loops that
happen when some remote mail program is broken and 'reflects' the message back to the List Address in such a way that it appears to be coming from the authorized Editor and so gets posted to the list
and distributed again and again and again.  Not good for your customers... 8-(

You can quite safely set your list to release at Midnight.  Usually LISTSERV takes not more than about 5 minutes to send out digests and then will do the list mail in proper turn.