It's not so much the "JOBS" function that is interesting, but the DISTRIBUTE. JOBS packages up units of LISTSERV work in a method that allows for the hundreds (?) of LISTSERV host machines to work on a task. In this particular case, it would be a DISTRIBUTE [MAIL] function which is used to distribute ... mail to a bunch of folks. The LISTSERV DISTRIBUTE function often makes use of the LISTSERV distributed peer backbone to accomplish this work. This architecture was built upon the Bitnet paradigm where it was cheaper / quicker to distribute a few jobs across an NJE/RSCS network so the the resultant mail was sent from a host closer to the intended recipient minimizing backbone bandwidth which was much more limited and slower in the 70's thru late '80s. Typically this was done by "batching" multiple recipients in a single transmission from the distributed sending host to the receiving customer mail host. A somewhat underutilized function was for a user to build their own Distribute Mail job to send a one-time mailing instead of creating a genuine LISTSERV list. Today, obviously, that function IS controlled due to the proliferation of spammers and their tendency to abuse mail transmission functions. Various "routing" (through the LISTSERV hosts and RSCS links) was made by multiple layers of software packages i.e., LISTSERV, MAILER, and RSCS itself. Today that has been somewhat replaced by removing MAILER and RSCS components and replacing them via DNS MX Resource Records, other third-party forwarding agents, spam and A/V filters, and sun-spots. /Pete