I have to admit that I don't think the current methods are working.
I have been working recently with the SAS-L list.  It has over 170
subscribers and is distributed over 6 servers.  For various reasons,
only 4 of the servers are keeping notebooks.  Previously, only 1 had
a public notebook.  If you were on one of the 2 servers that did not
keep the notebook, then you had to know that the only server that would
honor your request, was the one server in Europe.  Not exactly good for
total network performance.  I don't have a solution.  I don't
think keeping a list of all subscribers at all peers is feasible.
(Possible, but at what price?)  I also think that the default for
lists that have open subscribtion should be public notebooks, not
private.  That alone would have solved the problem.  The notebooks weren't
specifically private, but defaulted to private.
  Harry