It seems to me that most people who use Bitnet don't know how to use LISTSERV very well, judging by the number of them who send their subscription requests to the list address (with the wrong syntax, usually). Given that LISTSERV has to communicate with people on many different machines, I think that it has as good a user interface as we could reasonably expect it to have. But many people seem to have trouble figuring it out. Subscribers to my list often ask me how to get archives for the list, or how to unsubscribe. Yes, they got a message when they subscribed that explained all that, but it seems that they didn't realize they'd need to keep it around for future reference. Also, you have to be familiar with LISTSERV to know how to get a list of lists. (The procedure for getting a list of Internet lists is even more obscure.) There are probably a lot of people out there who would be interested in subscribing to your list or my list, but don't know that a list on this or that topic exists. Furthermore, there's no standard way for people to find out that LISTSERV exists in the first place, or that things like a list of lists would be available. The bottom line seems to be that if you're familiar with networks and servers, you'll do all right; if you've never used a computer before, you'll probably pick up what information you can (much of it incorrect) from other users around you, and even after a year you probably won't know how to take full advantage of what LISTSERV offers. I think that Bitnet needs a user interface similar to that of Usenet. People on Unix systems connected to Usenet can very easily find out which newsgroups are available to them; they can peruse back issues of these newsgroups, and subscribe to them if they wish, all without having to order any documentation from obscure servers. The software lets you know what your options are, and prompts you for them at appropriate times. I don't know whether I'm enough of a programmer to do it, but I think that similar software could be written for systems on Bitnet. A few different implementations might be enough to allow this software to run on most of the mainframes and minis on the network. The program could be menu-driven; it would maintain a list of lists and their descriptions, and would send appropriate messages to the necessary LISTSERVs (whose addresses the user would never have to know) for subscription, unsubscription, access to archive files, and the like. It would decipher LISTSERV-Punch format. Like the Usenet software, it would interface with your favorite word processor and take care of sending your messages to the right addresses. Such a user interface could bring Bitnet lists to a wider audience, and save everyone a lot of confusion. Does anyone else feel that this would be possible and valuable? Does anyone here have the know-how to do it? --Ben