On 12 Jan 2004, Douglas Winship <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > When "topics" was introduced, I thought "nifty idea." The more I learned > about how it worked the less my enthusiasm. I would not use "topics" > for any list, knowing how little attention subscribers pay to even the > most clear instructions, and the complexity, with little benefit, with > which the listowner must contend with "topics." > > A good idea which soured due to the complexity of implentation. > We have a number of announcement lists which use the topics feature. Most are lists of students, and the topics usually correspond to class levels. For example, a hall director can use a topics-enabled list to send a message only to freshmen or sophomores, or to send a message to all residents. We provide the owners of topics-moderated announcement lists with instructions for doing bulk adds in a manner that ensures that appropriate topics are set for all subscribers. -- Paul Russell Senior Systems Administrator University of Notre Dame