Hi, I need your input. The WOODS list has almost 600 members, so think about the ramifications to all 600 current members when you consider the following. For the last 18 months the WOODS list has been a "CLOSED, PRIVATE" list. This means that all new subscribers have had to "qualify" by giving me a reason to join the list, as well they have had to provide me with "references" and/or their complete name and postal address to become members. The reason I changed the list to a "CLOSED, PRIVATE" list was to stop a couple troublemakers from having access to the list. It had the additional benefit that it virtually stopped spamers from being able to use the list. You might think that this change would make it more difficult to administer the list. That has not been the case. Although there is more up front work to add a member, those who have joined have added to the WOODS family knowledge by posting intelligent, thought out messages, unlike some lists that get 50 messages a day of which only a handful are meaningful to the most list members. We have not had any flame wars or even any antagonistic messages during that time, although there has been some good, heated, intelligent discussions to resolve issues. My new real job will require me to be away during the week and I don't know what opportunity I will have to monitor the list and to respond to those who want to join. Consequently some new members could be required to wait a week for a response to their "subscribe". My feeling is that a week is too long to make them wait for a reply. Although improbable, other problems could arise with the administration of the list which would take me a week to get it straightened out. We have some options: ... Open the list, so that when new members send their subscribe message it will automatically add them to the list. This has some inherent problems, spammers will have easy access to the list, and troublemakers will easily be able to get on the list and cause trouble…. ... Appoint a new list moderator a team to monitor the list and make additions/changes as necessary. ... Leave things as they are and wait until the weekend for me to do the administrative stuff that needs to be done. ... and others, give me your ideas. But read the rest of the message first. Just a little information about new members. As most of you know I own/moderate about a dozen lists on multiple servers on the net. This is the only one that is really a public list that works as a "CLOSED, PRIVATE" one. On the other public lists I moderate only about 1 in 3 new members actually want to be on the list, most just join to see what it is about and leave (or want to in a few days). Of those who leave quickly 1 in 10 of them will create some problem before leaving the list. Those problems could be anything from nasty remarks and flame messages, to just stupid "get me off this list" messages even though they got instructions in the "welcome" message and two messages out of ten on the list give unsubscribe instructions. For the WOODS list I get about 20 subscribe messages a week, and reply with instructions to supply the reason they want to join and to send me their complete postal addresses and/or references. I actually only get the information from about about 20 % of those who sent the original "subscribe" messages. In addition to those who just wanted to "test the water' and spammers, some folks just don't feel confortable giving me that information and just don't join, but some could add valuble information to the list if they were members. Frankly; I'm only interested in input from those who have been on the list for more then 6 months, and are competent list users. If you don't know how to send me your thoughts privately don't reply at all to this message. Again, the WOODS list has almost 600 members, so think about the ramifications to all 600 current members when you consider this. DONOT reply to the list for this message, send your thoughts to me privately at cjl@email.com no later today, Monday Jan 17. Thanx for your input, Chris