List Owner Duties

Being a list owner at the University of Illinois requires a fairly large amount of independence on your part. Specifically, this means that you must be willing and able to deal with the technical aspects such as:

• Error delivery reports - people frequently subscribe to lists and neglect to un-subscribe when they graduate, change jobs, or simply change email addresses. When this happens, Listserv will not be able to take posts or may not even be able to deliver mail to that person. You as a list owner will have to help these people by removing their old address from the list and adding the new address. Deleting all error messages from Listserv is not an adequate solution.

• Making minor edits to the list header - such as adding another list owner, changing default subscription options, etc.

• User requests - many people that subscribe to a list have no clue what is happening. They will need help subscribing, setting options, unsubscribing, and the like.

• Unwanted Mail policy - you need to become familiar with the Listserv at UIUC Unwanted Mail policy

You will also be responsible for dealing with whatever social problems that may occur from time to time on your list (eg. dealing with a subscriber who is being disruptive to the group, disagreements, flames, etc).

Also, it is not required, but highly recommended that you have at least two list owners for a list. This helps alleviate problems when you go on vacation, change jobs, etc.