Alan Hamilton <[log in to unmask]> said:
 
> The point in having two people receiving errors is that if one is
> suddenly taken ill or out of town, the other can take care of things
> -- especially if they copy one another on mail they send to listserv.
> Or they can switch off on alternate days, etc. without changing the
> list header.  I consider changing the list header a "dangerous
> operation" that I do only when I have to.  It's too easy to make a
> mistake and delete the header, or create a problem that isn't easily
> fixed without calling on the help of an overworked listserv manager.
 
I work with a group of people who run several lists connected
with the KIDLINK project.  Two of us served as primary owners of
our lists.  Normally each of us is responsible for about half the
lists.  When we go away, we switch all the lists to the other
person.
 
I have gotten over the nervousness I felt as a new list owner
about changing the header of the lists, but it was still a lot of
work to change over several lists when we switched back and
forth.  Now we have set it up so that the list owners are LISTS.
For half of our lists, we have this in the list header:
 
*  Owner= (KIDOWNA)
 
for the other half we have:
 
*  Owner= (KIDOWNB)
 
Each of these lists has a single subscriber.  Normally I'm the B
subscriber and my co-owner is the A subscriber.  When we want to
change list owners, we can do it with simple DEL xxx / ADD yyy
commands.  We set it up this way so that we could change owners
of serveral lists with one command, but this system could be used
to facilitate switching ownership of a single list.
 
We would be uncomfortable trying to coordinate actions if the
error messages went to more than one owner.  We are a few time
zones apart--he is in New Zealand and I'm in the Eastern US time
zone.  We do send CC's to each other of the messages we send to
postmasters.
 
We did have the help of our overworked listserv manager (Marty
Hoag) in setting this up, but now that it is done, I think this
system has reduced our need to rely on him for changes.
 
                          Peace,  Dan
 
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