>Once  again,  it's  time  for  me  to  complain  about  this  ridiculous
>"Validate= All commands" behavior.
 
David,  this is  not the  default setting.  If you  don't like  it, don't
specify it  explicitly. "Validate= All"  means you  want your list  to be
safe, which  in turn means  that a  hacker should not  be able to  add or
delete people, period. What do you  do if, tomorrow morning, you find out
that the 5  most important local lists  you had (you know,  the ones with
important people at  your site, people at the level  of your boss's boss)
no longer have  50 subscribers but instead point  to LINKFAIL@BITNIC, and
the relatively  confidential note your  boss's boss  posted to it  in the
morning was distributed  to the world? You wouldn't like  that to happen,
would you?  Well that's what  "Validate= All" and  "Subscription= Closed"
are for. It  doesn't make sense for  all lists, but for some  lists it is
desirable.
 
>I could easily  send mail that looks like it  comes from ERIC@SEARN, and
>it would be automatically be distributed to all list members.
 
That's if the list is "Send= Public", which doesn't match the "profile" I
have described above.
 
>I could subscribe to the list (and 100 other lists as well) as "Stubborn
>Mule" <ERIC@SEARN> so that Eric would be flooded with mail.
 
That's again if the list is "Subscription= Open", which doesn't make much
sense for "Validate= All".
 
  Eric