I am a fan of LISTSERV. However, there are a few things that I think it
should (and perhaps does) do, but I can't figure out how to make it to
them. A recent message by Roger Fajman requests a feature related to a
function that I want. I want to add my request to the same chain in the
hope that a clever implementor can accommodate both requests with a single
feature. (Eric, unless there already is some way to accomplish the function
I'm requesting, I'd appreciate your adding it to the wishlist.)
 
My request: I have a list with many individual subscribers and some "site"
subscribers. By a "site subscriber" I mean a situation where there is one
subscription for an institution and that institution takes responsibility
for distributing the information to their members (through some method that
they control, such as a bulletin board system, a sub-list, a
communally-accessible database, paper printouts, etc.). I want to have a
closed list (that is,
     * Send= Editor          Editor= me@myhost,(listname)             ),
but I want to allow individuals at my site subscriber's institutions to be
able to send to the list. I know that the normal way to handle this is to
ask each of those individuals to subscribe personally and set his personal
subscription to NOMAIL. Instead, I would like to, in effect, add (something
like) a service area as an editor, either directly
* Editor= me@host,(list),*@site1.edu,*@*.site1.edu,*@site2.edu,*@*.site2.edu
or indirectly
* Editor= me@host,(list),Service(dummy-list)
  (where dummy-list was another list defined to have as its service
  area the set of domains from which I wish to accept posts to my list)
or any other way that accomplishes the effect described above
(unfortunately, I have not been able to get either of the above methods to
work).
 
In Roger Fajman's message of Thu, 2 Jan 1997 17:50:07 EST, he made a
proposal to ease having several service areas shared among many lists. He
wanted a way to have one definition for each of several service areas and
to use those service areas in a number of lists. The LOCAL service area
gave him one. Roger suggested having a list that defined its service area
and then being able to set up other lists so that they used the same
service area, for example with a syntax like
* Service= (xyz-l)
or perhaps (this is my suggestion)
* Service= Service(dummy-list)
 
It has been suggested that the ".ik" (include keyword) mechanism might
solve Roger's problem, but I don't see how it could solve mine.
 
/David M. Rosenberg        [log in to unmask]        1-617-253-8054