At 04:42 11/5/98 -0800, Stephen C. Nill said:
|        I've just implemented the use of Topics on all my lists (running
1.8d).
|I've read the manual but cannot find reference to any particular rules for
|the Topic word in the subject.

Don't forget the LSTOWN-L archives:

http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?S1=lstown-l

|        I know that using the Topic word in upper case, followed by a colon,
|works.  But what I wonder is, does Listserv need any particular format for
|the Topic word, and can the Topic word be located anywhere in the subject
|to be "read" by Listserv?  (If there is a section in the manual that you
|can point me to, I'll happily go there.)

It takes three distinct processes to use the TOPICS features:

1) list-owner creates an appropriate set of TOPIC operands in the list
definition

2) poster selects (types) the appropriate topics in the appropriate syntax

3) subscriber having selected (SET) his/her subscription distribution
preferences

The poster can use a short-hand notation for the selected topic(s) IFF
that short-hand "resolves" to a unique topic definition e.g., if I (as
list-owner) defined topics AABC, AADE and a poster selected topic AA, it
would resolve to the implicit topic OTHER.  If on the other hand he had
selected AAB, it would resolved to the topic AABC (as would AABC itself).
 As far as I am aware, there is NO case sensitivity (and shame if there were).

A posting can have multiple topics, which are separated by the token
'comma' and the end of the (list of) topic is the token 'colon' followed
by whitespace and the rest of the normal subject text.

Key to understanding the use of topics is to remember that the matching
of poster's selected topic(s) and subscriber's SET options is based upon
the logical OR -- in order to decide if this is a posting that the
subscriber WANTS to receive.