On Thu, 6 May 1999 17:49:30 +0100, Deborah Cresswell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>once a posting has been delivered to all the subscribers. 

Not to be picayune, but there is no reliable mechanism with SMTP mail to know
that the mail has actually been delivered to the subscriber.  LISTSERV will
sends it's completion report to the poster, when it finished handing off the job
to the outbound mailer program.  There could be a problem there that LISTSERV
knows nothing about and cannot report on.  Even the outbound mail server logs
will only show handoff to the first MX delivery point.  Mail could still be
lost, folded, spindled, and mutilated within a corporate, institutional or ISP's
internal mail system.  Even once it gets to the user's mailbox, they may never
read their mail.  You just have to trust that it gets there, and indeed it does
most of the time!  Some days its a miracle.  8-)