>Hello all,
>
>I have just created a list serve and Have a few questions...
>
>First the original name is too long and I would like to shorten it...Can
>I?

If no-one's subscribed to the mailing list yet and you haven't advertised
it under the old, long name then I would just delete the old list file and
create a new one with the proper name.  See the LISTSERV manual for
information on doing this.

Otherwise, this is probably the sequence of events I would use:

1) Issue a GET OLDNAME command.  This will lock the old mailing list and
send it to you, complete with subscriber information.

2) Copy and paste the old mailing list header and subscriber list into a
new email message.  Issue a PUTALL command as follows:

PUTALL NEWNAME LIST PW=createpw
*
* configuration junk
* [. . .]
subscriber1                           [options]
subscriber2                           [options]
[. . .]

Turn line wrapping off or else the code describing the subscription options
for the various mailing list members will be wrapped and cause screwups.

3) Wait for confirmation to come back that the above worked.

4) Next, make it so that commands and email aimed at the old mailing list
get forwarded to the new one.  To do that, PUT the oldlist back with the
following command:

PUT OLDNAME LIST PW=password
* Optional short description
* Owner= listowner@node
* New-List= [log in to unmask]

Nothing else should go in the header.

You can then advertise NEWNAME, but if anyone uses OLDNAME by accident it
should still pretty much work.

If there are old archives associated with the OLDNAME mailing list you may
wish to rename them for NEWNAME.  The details of how to do this probably
differ from operating system to operating systems.

>I would like anybody to be able to join...(maybe at my conformation)
>But I have people trying to execute the add command and it says that
>they are not the list owner.  I have changed the Subsciption= Open,
>Confirm.  What else to I need to change?

They should be using the SUBSCRIBE command, not the ADD command; I think
that's the problem.  (Hopefully I'll be corrected if it's not.)

-jwgh