On Sun, 5 Jul 1998 13:55:38 -0400, Eric C Oosting <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>I am managing a listserv site, that has many lists. One group that has
>about 40 or so lists requires a change in ownership in each list. My first
>thought was to edit each blah.list file doing a search and replace and
>making sure that the new owner and editer's address is padded with spaces
>so that the replacement is exactly the same size as what is replaced.
>(This is of course after a full backup tar of the effected lists is taken.
>:)
>
>The question is this: How bad is this?

listname.LIST files are binary files and should NEVER be edited manually.
Doing so is almost certain to cause them to crash.

GET/PUT is the only supported method of making such changes.

>Is there a better way to do it? This seems to happen to me about every 3-4
>months that I have to change the ownership or over several dozen lists.
>The first time I attempted to send the request via the mail and then edit
>the mails and send them back, but there must be a better way of making
>repetative changes like this.

University sites, with many 'class' lists should study the 'Clone Lists' in
sec 7.12.9 of the Site Mgr Manual.  This allows you to create a 'skeleton'
list framework and have LISTSERV 'copy' it to all related lists, greatly
reducing your maintenance in these cases.