Sorry I didn't explain what NOTIFY actually was -- I thought I had previously
done so in this list but it was  in a private mail. Well, the main problem when
"linking" LISTSERVs together  is that they tend to send  either an acknowledge-
ment or a copy  of the mail file (in the BITNIC-type case)  back to the sender.
If the sender  is a distribution list,  guess what will happen to  the mail? It
will get distributed... Hence a  second acknowledgement, which gets distributed
again, etc, etc. :-( My LISTSERV does not send back a copy of the original mail
but an acknowledgement  mailfile with "Subject: Ack:  original_subject"; and it
will NOT distribute anything with a subject starting with "Ack:". However, this
does not  cover the  problem of linking  BITNIC-type listservs  to FRECP11-type
ones, not  to mention the unnecessary  network load caused by  the acknowledge-
ment. Hence the NOTIFY userid@node ON  | OFF command, which allows the postmas-
ter to suppress notification mail (of all  kind -- this includes ADD and DELete
acknowledgements) to  the specified  userid. That  way a  FRECP11-type LISTSERV
linked to a BITNIC-type one as  "listener" will not send back anything. Linking
it as  "speaker" is tricky  because the BITNIC-type  LISTSERV will send  back a
copy of the mail to the LIST userid. Therefore any mail file with a filename of
"LISTSERV" and destined  for distribution is transferred to  the postmaster for
manual verification (  :-( ); he can CP  CHANGE it NAME X MAIL  and TRANSFER it
back to the server  if needed. There is of course no  problem with two FRECP11-
type LISTSERVs since the mail file comes from the list userid itself.
 
  Eric