On Thu, 19 May 1994 09:13:45 EDT John Hannum <[log in to unmask]> said:
 
>Hmmmm. Eric, thoughts?
 
What can I say... This is all a  matter of balance. If you make your list
confidential,  jerks won't  find  out about  it, but  on  the other  hand
neither  will the  people you  may  be trying  to attract  to enrich  the
discussions. It  really depends on  what the  list is about.  Setting the
list to  private also blocks out  the bozos, but alienates  the countless
users who have to depend on incompetently managed systems for mail. I can
name at least one public e-mail account provider whose system gives you a
different userid  every time you  log in, and  whose staff is  not really
interested in  solving this problem. Of  course users have the  option of
switching to another provider, my point was just to show that even people
whose job is to  run large-scale mail servers may not  be able or willing
to set them up properly...
 
  Eric