On Fri, 14 Jul 1995 17:10:13 +0200 Eric Thomas said:
>All the information except for this field is displayed by QUERY. The last
>activity field  is set on  a lot of  occasions, including posting  to the
>list. I know that  many list owners have been using  it as a subscription
>date field and complained vehemently  about its encoding. However, it has
>never  been a  subscription  date field,  it's a  field  used to  monitor
>renewal  requests and  it  contains  either a  last  activity  date or  a
>scheduled deletion date. If someone can  make a case for having access to
>its field for what it *actually* represents,  I will add an option to the
>QUERY command to display it.
 
Even though it gives only a latest-bound on the subscription/modification/
renewal date, it can be useful for detecting situations like NOMAIL users
who have been in that state for a long time.  (It won't catch them if they
are posting, confirming, or changing their settings, but it will catch the
forgotten NOMAILed subscriptions.  Assume for the sake of argument that
renewal processing won't apply to these particular subscriptions for any
of several possible reasons.)  In the particular cases I am considering,
the lists are pure distribution lists, so the average user will never post.
 
If there is to be an option to display the "last activity" field, there
should also be documentation of what activities update it.  Subscribing,
we know; also CONFIRMing, SETing, being sent a renewal notice (which
changes the meaning as noted above), and now posting (which may not be
new, but it's news to me).  Are there any other significant events which
are treated as activity that we should know about before we judge whether
the field is of use to us?
 
Mark R. Williamson, Rice U., Houston TX; [log in to unmask]