| Date: 26 Aug 1992 10:24:34 -0500
| From: Dan Wheeler <[log in to unmask]>
| Message-id: <[log in to unmask]>
|
| Gerhard Gonter <[log in to unmask]> asks:
|
| > Subject: is there something like query * (netwide ?
| >
| >   is there an easy way to find out to which lists a user is subscribed?
| > I need to find out where our NETNEWS machine gets mail from.
|
| I certainly hope not.  I would rather not make it easy for people
| to get a profile of the interests of subscribers.  I would regard
| this as an invasion of privacy and would start setting CONCEAL on
| my subscriptions.
|
|                           Peace,  Dan
|
| <<  Daniel D. Wheeler          Internet:  [log in to unmask]  >>
| <<  University of Cincinnati     Bitnet:  wheeler@ucbeh       >>
 
     I agree that a
                         QUERY * (NETWIDE
command, available to all users, could constitute or enable an
invasion of privacy, but as the owner of multiple lists on one server,
I'd very much like to have access to the local
                     QUERY * FOR userid@site
command that ListServ postmasters have now.  When a person on one of
my lists has a problem UNSUBscribing or SETting a subscription option
because, for instance, their node or domain name has been changed and
ListServ no longer recognizes their From: address, it would be very
convenient for both the user and the listowner if the listowner could
do a
                    QUERY * FOR user@oldaddress
to identify what other list(s) of hers/his might also be affected.
 
     If the code could be modified to check the QUERY-generating userid
against the Owner= fields of that ListServ's lists, so that listowners
could only do QUERY * for their own lists, it would both facilitate the
listowner's ability to take care of her/his own lists (thus potentially
relieving the ListServ postmaster of a spot of trivia) *and* prevent even
a local invasion of privacy of a listowner doing a QUERY of lists not
her/his own.
 
                                                    John