A commonly encountered problem on BEE-L stems from LISTSERV's inability
to recognize slight variations in subscribers' addresses.  There are a
number of possible causes for this confusion, the most common of which
is a subscriber has changed service providers or has access from more
than one account.
 
For Instance, if Bea Keeper subscribed to BEE-L from her America Online
account, LISTSERV will 'know' her as [log in to unmask]
 
Now, if Bea (who works for the US government) posts to BEE-L from her
day job, LISTSERV will receive a post from [log in to unmask]
When this happens LISTSERV does not recognize Bea as a legitimate
subscriber and forwards her post to the ACTIVE list owner where it must
be approved or rejected.  If the list owner approves Bea's post LISTSERV
then distributes it to the list and it appears to Bea in her office that
her post made it through to BEE-L with no problem when actually it was
the list owner who intervened on Bea's behalf.
 
Taking this a step further, if Bea requests to search the BEE-L
archives from her office, LISTSERV rejects her SEARCH BEE-L
request and returns it to [log in to unmask] with a message
that Bea Keeper is not subscribed to BEE-L.  In this case LISTSERV
complains to Bea rather than the list owner and Bea is left confused,
especially when she goes home and submits the very same SEARCH BEE-L
request and gets what she is looking for!  That's because LISTSERV then
receives the request from [log in to unmask] and happily services Bea's
request because it came from the address known to the subscription
list!!!
 
The important thing to remember is that LISTSERV only recognizes
addresses as they are subscribed to the list.  [log in to unmask] is the
same person as [log in to unmask] but LISTSERV doesn't realize that.
LISTSERV only knows Bea as she is subscribed to the list.  Users with
more than one account can only access BEE-L from the account they used
to subscribe.
 
POP servers further compound the issue.  LISTSERV does not recognize
[log in to unmask] as the same person as [log in to unmask]
 
Proxies (software to expand an E-mail address) get even MORE
complicated!  LISTSERV will not recognize requests from
[log in to unmask]
even though software at work.gov can expand mail from BEE-L to deliver
it to Bea's desk!  LISTSERV is good but it's not THAT good.
 
Admittedly this is a cumbersome PITA (Pain in the Apiary) - I mean, I
can figure it out, why can't LISTSERV.  Why ask why?  That's the nature
of the beast.  By design LISTSERV places the responsibility to maintain
a user's subscription on the subscriber, then on the list owner.  There
is a not insignificant number of subscribers out there whose E-Mail
addresses are now slightly different than the address they used when
they subscribed.  If/When a subscription address is about to change, the
owner should SIGNOFF BEE-L from their old address and resubscribe from
their new address when it is activated.  If a subscriber does not do
this, LISTSERV then dumps that chore onto the list owner who now
routinely has to wade through 300+ messages every Monday morning to
clean things up.  If a user's address changes with no attention to this
'design feature', the only choices left to the list owner and the
subscriber is for the owner to delete the old subscription and then the
subscriber must resubscribe from their new address.
 
THIS IS A PLEA FOR HELP!!!  If your E-Mail address has changed since you
subscribed to BEE-L, please send mail to me personally at:
[log in to unmask]
requesting that I delete your old address.  Then you can resubscribe
from your new address.  For those who don't know what LISTSERV thinks
their subscription address is, send mail to:
[log in to unmask]
that reads:
QUERY BEE-L
LISTSERV will then either return to you a summary of your BEE-L
subscription options or will return to you a message to the effect that
you are not subscribed to BEE-L.  If you receive a message to that
effect, you are one of the subscriptions I am trying to clean up.
 
Sorry for the length of this administrivial plea.
Help if you can,
Aaron Morris