>>         There is absolutely no indication that the LSoft folks are "forgetting"
>> email-based list functionality.
>
>Sorry, I disagree.  The emphasis these days seems to be on the currently
>popular "point 'n click" scheme as that is what sells, and if that is not
>compatible with the old procedure which has been used forever, too bad.

Would you be so kind as to point out these incompatibilities so that they can
be addressed prior to final release?

>The changes in this regard do not appear, to me, to be in the interest of
>making a better product, but cattering to the current whims of the buying
>public,

Your average member of the "buying public" is a techie who has been asked
by his management to set up some kind of mailing list (be it newsletter or
discussion) in order to offer a new service to his company's customers,
or to the general public. In most cases, at least half of the expected beneficiaries
are Internet novices who are still learning the basics - people like my father, who
still hasn't figured out how to save the JPEG files I am mailing him. As he uses
AOL and is in another country, I cannot give him step-by-step instructions and
found that it is much easier to put the files in question in a private web directory
somewhere and mail him the URL, as he knows how to launch that. The web
interface makes LISTSERV a much better product for people like my father,
and consequently for the majority of current buyers whose job is to cater to
the needs of Internet novices. I fail to see how the web interface degrades the
usefulness of LISTSERV to power users, since nothing has been taken away
and you can still do everything by e-mail, in fact the web interface is optional
and indeed there are sites which do not even bother to install it because they
have no need for it. Personally I use the web interface for some things and
ignore it for others, based generally on how quickly I can get the work done.
There is no doubt that an interactive archive search gets the job done faster,
at the same time if I want to set someone NOMAIL I hardly want to click
through menus and check radio buttons when I can get the job done in 20
keystrokes. But I don't think I should refrain from using the web interface just
because I know the e-mail syntax by heart.

  Eric