>But setting my ACK option doesn't work for a peer list wuch as this,
 
This is  caused by the UIUCVMD  server beeing at  1.4c level. It works  for 1.5
and  better. W.r.t.  the  X-something idea,  it is  already  used by  LISTSERV:
internally it passes options to a peer list via a 'X-LSVOPTS' tag.
 
>                                                       The mail ACK
>options is better for most users because they a) can set their own
>default and b) have a documented way to change it.
 
They can also with LISTSERV (and it  *is* documented -- in the LISTSERV memos).
I don't think that  using the Acknowledge-To tag would be  a good idea, because
this changes  the semantics  for the  tag (i.e.,  it is  not clear  what Ack-To
means when mailing to a distribution list:  acks from the server you mailed to,
from all  peer servers, from  all servers used ›if  never mail is  hanldled via
DISTRIBUTE!,  or from  all  recipients  ›aaughhhh :-)  !).  I  tend to  believe
that  those  tags were  not  designed  to  interface  with mechanisms  such  as
list  servers,  but only  for  personal  correspondence  -- person  to  person.
 
Jose M. Blasco
 
P.S. I  agree with  you, it's a  pain having  to rely on  the owners  to change
your options.  Perhaps the checking for  Validate=All could be bypassed  in the
case  of  options  changing  --  I   cannot  see  any  security  problem  here,
probably an informative note sent to the owners would be sufficient.