Topic drift. That's the problem. Your minority is going to be very happy if you create a topic header for them and let them subscribe only to that topic. But you have to tell them that topic drift is going to happen from time to time and they're just going to have to accept it. What happens is that someone who is NOT self-restricted to that topic will see a post and hit reply, but their response won't have anything to do with the topic. And those replies can grow and grow and grow. This tends to tick off the people who are just subbed to the special topic. Understandably. So on the one hand, you have to privately write those who commit topic drift and remind them not to do it, issue public statements that we must strive not to commit topic drift, and tell the folks complaining about topic drift that at leat it's better than before topics, right? The l-soft manual actually says that the only way to make topics work perfectly is to fully moderate the list -- that is, have somebody glance at the posts to make sure that the header and the content match. Lots of luck there. So -- if people can understand that mistakes will happen, just institute the topics. It has to be better for the group that wants FEWER posts, even if it isn't perfect. Mary Schweitzer WECAN lists -- http://www.cfids-me.org/wecan/ Sasyfras discussion list for CFIDS/M.E. -- http://www.cfids-me.org/sasyfras.html Disinissues discussion list for disability insurance issues -- http://www.cfids-me.org/disinissues.html