>My co-listowner and I are confused, and hope someone can enlighten >us. We are maintaining a number of lists, each with multiple topics. >If we set a subscriber's topics to ALL on any given list, are we >telling the list to send that subscriber every post that is sent to >the list, or are we defining a new topic named ALL which will only >receive posts directed to ALL:blahblahblah? ALL is a pseudo topic. When you SET TOPICS: ALL, it is as if your turned on each existing topic. Thus when a distribution has any or no topic, it is distributed to that user. Now if a poster sends a mail with Subject: ALL: blahdyblah it isn't clear to me whether that particular ALL: is the "OTHER" (undefined) pseudo topic or a shorthand notation for any of the predefined topics. My guess is that it is the "OTHER." >In the alternative, is there a way to set Default-Topics so that new >subscribers are added without subscribing them to any topics? I >know it sounds wierd, but this option would be helpful for some >scripting that my co-listowner is doing. Sure: * DEFAULT-TOPICS= NONE /Pete Weiss at Penn State