LISTSERV's goal is to catch delivery errors to prevent mailing loops. Even with a "Safe= Yes" list with a return address of owner-listname, you are bound to hit a broken gateway which sends delivery errors to the 'Reply-To:' field and to need this safety net. People who tell you otherwise have no real world experience with e-mail. Now, there is no "standard" of any kind for delivery errors. There is certainly no standard that says a mailer quoting a rejected message should prefix the header fields with >+blank. The problem your users are having is that the mail program they use includes the original mail headers when they reply (maybe this is just a default option). This is a religious issue of course, but LISTSERV is designed for normal, non-techie users who are not particularly interested in knowing, for instance and to quote a shorter than average example, that the headers of the message I am now replying to were: >Return-Path: <@SEARN.SUNET.SE:[log in to unmask]> >Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin LISTSERV@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE > (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 5404; Tue, 27 Apr 1993 17:18:39 +0200 >Received: from SEARN.BITNET by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LISTSERV release 1.7f) with NJE > id 6947 for [log in to unmask]; Tue, 27 Apr 1993 17:18:21 +0200 >Received: from UA1VM.UA.EDU (NJE origin MAILER@UA1VM) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail > V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 5388; Tue, 27 Apr 1993 17:18:14 +0200 >Received: from ua1vm.ua.edu (NJE origin JFORD@UA1VM) by UA1VM.UA.EDU (LMail > V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 8118; Tue, 27 Apr 1993 10:21:04 -0500 >Return-Path: <@SEARN.SUNET.SE,@UA1VM.UA.EDU:[log in to unmask]> >Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]> >Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 10:09:47 CDT >From: James Ford <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Loopcheck question >To: eric@searn, lstown-l@searn >Sender: [log in to unmask] and at any rate they certainly don't want to see that trash *before* my actual comments. It is quite possible that there are users who find it vitally necessary to include this information at the beginning of each and every reply they make and are frustrated by LISTSERV's refusal to accept such messages, but unfortunately it is not possible to please everyone. Eric