On Thu, 29 Apr 2004, Pete Weiss wrote:

>At 18:33 04/28/2004 Wednesday, Brett Lettice wrote:
> >I agree, the current format of archives makes the removal of a single
> >message a rather cumbersome process, something that I have to go through all
> >to regularly. As a future enhancement request could archive management tools
> >be added to the listserv platform - something available at a list owner
> >level in the web interface?
>
>List-management is highly subjective; many folks believe you should never
>alter the archives.  Archive editing is a slippery slope, especially as a
>personal time-sink.  To a certain degree, it is even a exercise in
>futility especially if there are third-party (and unregulated, even
>personal) archives.
>
>I would be hard pressed to remember if I've ever done such a thing in the
>more than a decade of operating lists (that's not to say that I've never,
>I just can't recall).

I couldn't agree more. Something is wrong if Listserv archives need to be
modified manually on a regular basis. My experience is similar to Pete's.
In the twelve years or so that I have been administering Listserv
installations, there can't be more than three or four times in that entire
period when I have been called upon to remove an unwanted postings and of
those, I think only one was for human generated content, the others were
viruses that managed to get into the archives.

Ocassional requests of this nature come to me from the help desk here
(maybe one request every other year). My response is typically to refer
the list owner to the faq file.