Hmmm... I read the whole (long) posting. Suppose there was an option on SUBscribe or SET to control whether the subscriber's name was shown on REView? If it's set to NOREVIEW (or PRIVATE or whatever), then REView would show reviewable names and "plus nnn PRIVATE subscribers". Could implementation of this suggestion maybe satisfy everyone? (The default would have to be installation definable; I'm sure that DB0TUI11 would set it to PRIVATE.) Personally, I seldom care about reviewing subscriber names. I'm usually interested only in the header, and I'm too lazy to look up the option to request the list header only. So what *I* find annoying is not the fact that I can't review the list of subscriber names, but rather the message to that effect that I get from some servers! How about changing the REView default to "header only"? I agree that it's better to >ask< someone if they're subscribed to a particular list. As postmaster of this system, I have a few listserv lists subscribed to local bulletin boards, so that any number of people can read them without having to fill up their personal "in" boxes. So I read some lists without showing up in the list of subscribers. In REViewing many lists, this seems to be common. So, yes, I echo the question: Can some of the people who feel this is so important explain why it's important? BTW, I run UCLA/Mail on this MVS system, and have some small, private lists. There is *no possible way* (short of looking at the startup parms) to determine who's on those lists. This is a side effect of a design problem->fix, but I now see no reason to change it. As an aside, in the U.S., lots of people give lip service to privacy. But when it comes right down to it, (in my opinion) privacy laws are largely ignored. For example, social security numbers were not supposed to be used for *anything* not directly related to accounting for social security. Now, virtually every form you fill out (credit application, job application, driver's license) wants social security number. Why? Because it makes it easy for companies and for government agencies to exchange information on people. This is clearly against the spirit of the law. Information on individuals should not be collected for the sake of having it. Only information that is actually required to perform the stated job should be collected, and it should be used only for the purpose stated when it was collected. LISTSERV's stated job is to deliver mail to interested subscribers, not to make that information available to anyone. (I think that I may have crossed over the line into something that should be discussed on ETHICS-L. But due to the volume of mail on that list, I seldom read it. It's the one that prompted me to write the bulletin board support!) /Leonard