I agree.  I want my listmembers to talk about the subject at hand, if they
develop some rudimentary listserv skills, fine.  If they want on or off and
can't or won't figure it out for themselves I do it for them.  In the long
run, its less of a headache to all involved.  It also keeps the other list
members from telling them how to do it, generating even more traffic.
Every so often I post a 'how to' message and refer them to our web page for
a more detailed explanation.

I also used to "LOUD" delete people as opposed to quiet delete them.  I
made a few mistakes and deleted a couple of people whose delivery problems
were transient and not permanent as I thought.  Of course they were
outraged and I had to spend more time reassuring them that they were
welcome on the list.  I now just quiet delete anyone that looks like they
have permanent mail problems.  I hope that if they want back on they will
make the effort to resubscribe.  Of course I don't have thousands of
members - just hundreds.  Gigantic lists must present headaches squared!!


At 08:50 AM 2/10/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Now compare that with the pain that the legitimate subscribers to your
>list, your LISTSERV host and their bandwidth must endure.  If you want to
>educate them, great.  But to make the rest of your subscribers have to
>endure one more piece of UNSUBSCRIBE me messages is somewhat cavalier IMHO.
>
>So the greatest service is done by DELETE the subscriber.  Or if you just
>want to be mean, set them to NOPOST so that they must stay subscribed
>until they figure out the magic words.
>
>This all supposes that they were subscribed to the list themselves and
>not added by a third party; or similarly that their current email address
>is the same as from which they subscribed.
>
>/Pete