On Mon, 18 Jan 1993 10:36:29 EST Stan Horwitz said: >It seems to me that any list owner should first approach his/her Listserv's >Postmaster with any questions regarding list ownership. It is my experience >that most Postmasters are more than willing to help their list owners with >any problems running a list. When I am approached regarding the creation of a list, I point out that although it will take some work on the part of the listowner, we will be glad to help. We REQUIRE every listowner to attend a 3 hour talk on how to run a LISTSERV list. We talk about how LISTSERV works, how to maintain a list, and explain the various options available to them (i.e. the meanings of the header keywords, how to customize messages, etc.). Of course, some time is spent explaining how to track down errors. When the listowners are ready, I help them to customize the list and set up the initial configuration. I usually also list myself in the Errors-to= line for a while (with their permission, of course) to help them out with the first few batches of error mail. I do all this because I *thought* the time spent would pay off in the long run. I'm not sure that this is really the case - I am often asked the same questions over and over again, some listowners ignore error mail, and some hardly ever even log on! Others, of course, are wonderful, so I suppose my care and help do help sometimes. The most frequent problem I have encountered is that many list owners are totally unfamiliar with CMS and XEDIT. I try to spend some time with them privately to help out with that, perhaps assigning someone else to the task. Usually this helps. Sometimes it doesn't. All in all, I'd say that supporting LISTSERV takes up an *incredible* amount of my time, as well as the time of our user support staff. I'm not really saying that this is bad - LISTSERV is a very visible and useful application - though I'm not sure management would agree with me. Bill Gruber City University of New York Computer Center