On Mon, 18 Jan 1993 10:36:29 EST Stan Horwitz said:
>It seems to me that any list owner should first approach his/her Listserv's
>Postmaster with any questions regarding list ownership. It is my experience
>that most Postmasters are more than willing to help their list owners with
>any problems running a list.
 
When I am approached regarding the creation of a list, I point out that
although it will take some work on the part of the listowner, we will be
glad to help.
 
We REQUIRE every listowner to attend a 3 hour talk on how to run a LISTSERV
list.  We talk about how LISTSERV works, how to maintain a list, and explain
the various options available to them (i.e. the meanings of the header
keywords, how to customize messages, etc.).  Of course, some time is spent
explaining how to track down errors.
 
When the listowners are ready, I help them to customize the list and set up
the initial configuration.  I usually also list myself in the Errors-to=
line for a while (with their permission, of course) to help them out with
the first few batches of error mail.
 
I do all this because I *thought* the time spent would pay off in the long
run.  I'm not sure that this is really the case - I am often asked the same
questions over and over again, some listowners ignore error mail, and some
hardly ever even log on!  Others, of course, are wonderful, so I suppose
my care and help do help sometimes.
 
The most frequent problem I have encountered is that many list owners are
totally unfamiliar with CMS and XEDIT.  I try to spend some time with them
privately to help out with that, perhaps assigning someone else to the task.
Usually this helps.  Sometimes it doesn't.
 
All in all, I'd say that supporting LISTSERV takes up an *incredible* amount
of my time, as well as the time of our user support staff.  I'm not really
saying that this is bad - LISTSERV is a very visible and useful application -
though I'm not sure management would agree with me.
 
 
Bill Gruber
City University of New York Computer Center