Eric - I like the idea of regularly scheduled digests with a cap on the size of the digest which would force a digest out before the time elapses. Kicking out a digest at that point would have the benefit of spreading the network load out and keeping people informed sooner of a high traffic discussion (as opposed to waiting the entire time period then chopping up the digest). Thanks for adding the digest capability... Would the addition of a "cap" change the scheduling of the regular digest in any way? For example, if I have a weekly list that kicks off every Sunday but hits its limit on Tuesday, would the next digest still be scheduled for the next Sunday? This may depend on implementation details but I think I like that approach. It keeps a regular schedule "framework" with additional digests interspersed as needed due to the load. Finally, if some list editors are interested, I wrote a very simple-minded REXX EXEC which creates digests from note or Rice Mail NOTEBOOKS (it would probably work from archives too but I don't think I've tried that). For example, I save list searches sent to our new-list list in a notebook and create a digest every few weeks. Since the DIGEST EXEC just creates a file you can edit the digest as you wish before sending it (in fact I've wrapped a local exec around the process to generate mail to the list with the digest imbedded). While my DIGEST EXEC isn't totally RFC1153 compliant, it should allow any reasonable "bursters" to pick it appart ok (it worked with the RFC1153 author's software anyway). And it provides a starting point to you could make it more compliant if you wish. I'm sure there are other programs that do this same thing (I know someone was working on a CMS PIPEs version). If you'd like a copy of "DIGEST EXEC" you can get it from LISTSERV on NDSUVM1 (eg. tell listserv at ndsuvm1 get digest exec ) or via anonymous FTP to vm1.nodak.edu after CD LOCSOFT then GET DIGEST.EXEC . Marty