Following recent discussions on LSTOWN-L, I'm posting a filtering
configuration that I've adopted (using Eudora) that has greatly reduced
hassle for me.  Perhaps other list owners will find it useful, too...

Note that my header lines dealing with "hands-free bounce processing" are set:

* Renewal=         2-Monthly,Delay(7),Probe
* Auto-Delete=     Yes,Full-Auto,Delay(5),Max(5)

First, create 2 new mailboxes: "In Listserv Error Reports" and "In Listserv
Advisory Reports" (of course, you can call them anything you want).  Then
set up these filters in this order:

If FROM: contains L-SOFT and SUBJECT: contains ERROR REPORT FROM then
transfer to IN LISTSERV ERROR REPORTS and then skip rest

If FROM: contains L-SOFT and SUBJECT: contains RENEWAL MONITORING REPORT
then transfer to IN LISTSERV ADVISORY REPORTS and then skip rest

If FROM: contains L-SOFT and SUBJECT: contains ERROR MONITORING REPORT then
transfer to IN LISTSERV ADVISORY REPORTS and then skip rest

In a nutshell, you can pretty much ignore anything in the Advisory Reports
folder, since it will just contain messages about who's been probed and/or
dropped automatically.  These messages are only really useful to you in
case somebody writes wanting to know why they've been dropped from a list
by the Listserv software.  You can then search through the old Advisory
Report messages and find out what happened to them and when.

Messages that end up in the Error Reports folder are the result of bounces
or other errors that Listserv software can't process automatically, and
which you need to act upon.  Having a separate folder for these messages
allows you to skip from one to the next and detect patterns more easily.
If somebody's account is generating errors day after day, you then must
manually delete them.

For what it's worth, after you set this up, you'll note (quickly) that most
of the messages in your Error Reports folder will be from AOL, since their
message errors are generated in a form that Listserv can't decode on its
own.  However, as was also discussed on LSTOWN-L, rumor has it that AOL is
in the process modifying its error message format to conform to what
everybody else uses and what Listserv software understands and can handle
automatically.

-- John