I read the INFOREP discussion about allowing more people to have the netwide signoff capabilities. There were a couple of problems in the discussion, starting with assertion that it was the TECHREP who had the ability to issue this command. The INFOREPS wanted equal power, shall we say. I don't think there are any evil plots being planned, so please don't call in the army. This topic has already spread to three other lists (NODEMGT, LIAISON and LSTSRV-L) and I think it needs some discussion. We (here I guess I am speaking just for BITNET, but I bet similiar, if different, problems exist for folks in Europe and Canada) need a better way to assign network responsibilities and priviledges to human beings. Different sites have different political setups and parcel duties out in different ways. The NAD here handles RSCS tables and knows about spool conditions on the various machines. The TECHREP (a different human) handles MAILER tables and BITEARN NODES updates. The INFOREP (me--another human--usually) maintains LISTSERV, all the network help info and deals with the users. Our BIRREP travels on business a lot. :-) Though we could really benefit from it, we don't use the netwide delete command at all because the NAD doesn't understand it. It's not his area of expertise (I don't understand I/O gens so we're even, I guess). He wants me to handle all that kind of junk, because I know more about it. I think that is perfectly legitimate and we ought to be able to decide who is going to have what duties at our site. I am not flaming Eric for giving the NAD this authority. It was the person whose userid was available in the tables Eric had to work with. I'm not suggesting that the INFOREP be given this authority instead of or in addition to the NAD, because that may not be the best for all sites. For the long term I think we need to shoot for some system whereby individual schools can assign network priviledges to individuals at their own discretion. That way you don't have to make a single employee handle a certain subset of duties simply because someone else decided that is what a TECHREP ought to do. Maybe it would be better at my site to have two different people handling RSCS and MAILER and yet another person doing LISTSERV. Maybe I have three different sys. progs. who do account deletions and they all need to be able to do a SIGNOFF (NETWIDE. It ought to be our choice, though. I know, I know. We'll have to redesign the tables and create new software to update them. LISTSERV and NETSERV and EVERYOTHERSERVE will have to be modified to handle the new tables. It will be confusing at first. But in the long run, wouldn't it provide better service? And then next year when we suddenly need someone at every site who has the authority to issue the BANG command to BANGSERV, we won't have to fight over which rep ought to do it and then re-redsign the tables to include a BANGREP. Get your flames in fast, I'm leaving for vacation next week. Steve Middlebrook Washington University, St. Louis