> I'm confused about one thing you (and another) said. You separate
> listowner and list administrator.
 
With LISTSERV going puplic, and more people signing on to this list,
I think it's worth replying to the list, even though the message
was private.
> 
> As a list owner, is your role considerably different than the
> administrator?
 
Yes, the adminstrator runs the computers and the overall programs,
I and other listowners at that site run our lists.  We are expected
to take care of our lists efficiently and bug the administrator,
who has hundreds of lists running on his LISTSERV(tm) system,
as little as possible.
 
 I  assumed, as an owner, you would deal with the members,
> answer their questions, fix their incorrect subscription addresses, etc.
 
Yes, that is what listowners do, as distinct  from the administrators.
 
> But now that I see your distinction, I wonder if those duties wouldn't
> be covered by the administrator…
> If so, what does the owner do? (A: buy the software?) My situation will
> require me and my one-person staff to be the owner and the
> administrator. 
 
We're talking apples and oranges here.  You are talking buying the
software, installing it, maintaining it and playing listowner.
I am talking of the old environment where the list is run on a
BITNET linked computer system, they got LISTSERV for free as part of
the package.  The university pays for running the basic stuff that
keeps the lists going and the listowners take care of the rest,
with an occaisional assist from the administrator/maintainer/postmaster.
(Hey, could we please go back to calling them list postamasters, as
we used?  Might be less confusing.)
 
If you are both administrator and listowner, as more are comming to be,
I can't help you.  All I can speak to is the listowner part.
 
There are a lot of new subscribers to this list and more and more of
them are doing it all.  The old timers on this list aren't used to
that, we're used to the heirarchy:
 
Eric Thomas
NAD (node administrator)
list postmaster (in charge of all the lists at the site, often hundreds)
listowners (responsible for their own lists and subscribers)
subscribers (the hoard out there that never pays attention to instructions)
 
So, if you are asking about combining postmaster and listowner with
software you have bought or licensed, a lot of us really can't tell you
anything useful except about the listowner part.  And our administrators
probably can't tell you much usefull about that end as they are used to
big systems running hundreds of lists. 
 
As to strictly listowner work, I can take care of two proffesional lists,
combined sub of around 5000, combined traffic 50 - 80 per day, errors
100 - 1000+ per day, answering every question asked, correcting the
problems that crop up, etc. in about 4 hours, if I concentrate on it.
Usually I spread it out, and fortunately I don't often have to do both
lists single handed.  Boilerplate replies would help speed things up
but I don't like them, everyone gets a custom written reply.
 
Douglas
       Douglas Winship   Hays County, Texas  [log in to unmask]
                    Secondary AUTOCAT Listowner
                              MEDLAB-L