> > about this and so forth.  But I really am seriously just asking
> > why MLMs that have similar but different syntax for a common set
> > of features couldn't or shouldn't share the same syntax for those
> > features.  The only answer I am getting so far is "because they
> > don't have the same syntax".
 
> A serious request deserves a serious answer.  These questions have
> been discussed so many times, that perhaps some of us have forgotten
> that there are new-comers to any list...
 
Yes, thank you for the response.
 
> Instead, I have always argued that the MLM's should become more
> flexible in what they accept (my suggestions have been accepted to
> some extent).
 
I think this is one of the things that bothers me most: where
MLMs could be more accomodating but aren't.  I'll use Majordomo
as an example, not because it is bad but because I am familiar
with it (Majordomo is the MLM I use).
 
Majordomo wants a subscription message in the format
"subscribe list [your@address]".  It explicitly checks for and rejects
messages in the Bitnet style "subscribe list your name", with a
message to the user that this is Majordomo and not Revised Listserv.
Now, if it is going to go to that trouble, why not just accept the request?
 
The reason I chose Majordomo is because it is in perl and is
easy to customize.  It was a one line fix to quietly accept the
Bitnet-style subscription request.  (Later I will fix it
to give an explicit response stating that it ignored the "your
name" part.)  It is another one line fix to accept "review"
in addition to Majordomo's "who" command.  And so on.
 
> You get the idea.  It wouldn't be perfect, but the MLM could reasonably
> reply to 99% of the requests it receives.  The problem is that doing
> this requires work on the part of the MLM authors.
 
True.  Hopefully fixes from other people can merge into the official
releases, which should offload the authors' workload.
 
- Alan
 
----                                                            ,,,,
Alan Millar            [log in to unmask]              __oo  \
System Administrator                                           =___/
MOSTLY harmless??!!