Hiya, I run an 800+ member list and we haven't had a clueless unscribe sent the the list in at least a year. I too believe in education and a multipart approach. and it's worked for my list. 1) My list is set to where they have to confirm their subscription request. I've revised the mail template to where the subscription confirmation message includes a paragraph that indicates that it's their responsibility to keep the list a cool place to interact and instructions to read the list guidelines *prior* to joining the list and points them to the list web page. This also has worked well for dealing with the problem of people being subscribed to the list via spoofed mail. 2) all new subscribers are by default set to review. I've revised the mail template to send a blurb reminding them that it's their responsibility to keep their posts consistant with list guidelines (link to list web page) and tells them that their post will be released to the list if it's consistant with list guidelines, else they will be asked to revise and resubmit. It also tells them that after they have demonstrated that they can keep their posts consistant with list guidelines the editor will set their options to where they will be able to send mail directly to the list. It is the member's responsibility to help keep Sex-L a cool place to be. If you consistently violate the list norms (contribute to flaming, etc), you will no longer be allowed to participate in the discussions. That means that since the only people who can post directly to the list have paid attention, the clueless unscribes generallly show up in the posts to be reviewed and I send them my standard "how to unsub" blurb which tells them to get back with me if they can't get it to work. I have developed a set of standard responses to one liners, flames, quoting problems, html, etc, so it generally take less than 30 minutes per day to review posts from newbies and nip any problems in the bud. FYI, my standard informational blurbs are linked from http://okcforum.org/~editor/ Feel free to customize and use them if you want. 3) we have a bottom banner that points to the list web page http://www.topchoice.com/~psyche/lists/sex-l.html which provides info on using the list, including a reminder of specific posting conventions in the section on how to send mail to the list. This combination has worked well for us. As far as flaming goes, they get a warning, if they don't cool it, they're set to nopost. I send a notice to them and to the list that they're on nopost status untill they convince me that they will keep their posts consistant with list guidelines. That works well too. *grin* Haven't had to do that in a while either. *knock on wood* Out for now, Betty