On Fri, 1 May 1992 11:20:26 EDT "Paul M. Karagianis" <KARYPM@SJUVM> said: >There was a second limiting factor that I think may merit further >discussion, the use of Send= Public. (...) I would have assumed that you >had to be a member of a group to address that group and I don't find the >default of Send= Public intuitivly obvious. You will find that the use of public vs private is a mostly religious issue in the majority of cases. There are cases where one of the two settings is undoubtedly the right one, but most of the time the question is an open one. There are several factors to consider: - If you have "Send= Private" but "Subscription= Open", you are going to irritate people as this is not a very logical setting: it does not prevent anyone from posting something, it just means you have to go to the trouble of subscribing and then signing off. - Many people have unstable e-mail addresses, which change based on the phase of the moon or whatever. There are many addresses that will work for writing to them, but the one that shows up in their 'From:' field will last only a few months. "Send= Private" is an inconvenience for them, if they are not technically-oriented people it can be a serious one. If they are influent, it can be a serious problem as they may not give you a choice. Personally I prefer to use "Private", as it prevents random irrelevant messages and is an additional safety against mailing loops. However, there are cases where it can be an inconvenience for the list owner due to numerous requests to "delete this address and add this one" (the addresses in question are, of course, never less than 40 bytes long and impossible to spell properly the first time). Eric