Hmmm ...email sent twice is not getting through, so I will post directly.
Thank you Mark.
I found my solution. Simplifies things. People do not have to even think about subscribing…..
When I consider that most of my subscribers from my current announcement only lists on Mailerlite and dadamail will already have their addresses mass-added by me, I do not really need to worry about the two kinds of signups at all that much. Since they will be coming from my website, where I have news and current affairs content, all I need to do is link to the discussion tied to the article in question. And then let them comment/reply. I can manually post a comment if they are newcomers or if they are old timers with a new address not yet registered. LIke this:
Do not list on list of lists. No reason to have it as everyone will come from my site.
Make an open archive.
Link from website article to the corresponding topic to discuss it.
Majority of readers are already subscribers to old announcement list on mailerlite. So they will assume all they have to do is reply.
When they, or anyone, click on the article at https://www.tokyoprogressive.org/remembering-the-tsushima-maru-disaster-75-y... they get taken to the discussion topic at https://list.tokyoprogressive.org/hyperkitty/list/discuss@list.tokyoprogress...
They click REPLY to add a comment and their email sends.
If their email address is registered, the comment gets through.
If not (non subscriber or old subscriber with new address), I make sure it is a legitimate message and add them as a subscriber.
They get a notice automatically telling them how to post.
OPTIONAL STEP I probably do not need to bother about adding their names to the signup for Hyperkitty but I could optionally add them to https://list.tokyoprogressive.org/accounts/signup/?next=%2Fpostorius%2Flists... with a temporary password. They get a note to confirm. Or probably just enough to send them a note suggesting they might want to sign up to be able to use the archives to post. My list is probably not going to benefit from stressing over the different ways to register.
How does that sound? I tested with a test address and it seems to work. I just need to add a note to my website remniding them to add their name to the end of their post as it does not automaically add their email if I have to approve.
paul