On Aug 6, 19:02, Eric Thomas wrote: } Subject: Can the stupid SCIFAQ-L discussion stop now? } I would like this ridiculous discussion to stop, now, because everything } has been said. Much of your side of the conversation to date has been dismissing arguments simply because they're from usenetters (you have no idea what my background is - I was building mainframe BITNET style mailers over 13 years ago) or putting words in my mouth. That last message of yours where you presumed to restate my position was a marvel. A marvel of what I decline to state. } It can't know which messages come from usenet and which don't, so it } can't give special treatment to usenet messages. But it can know. 100% reliably. Amazingly simply. The secret? You tell it. SCIFAQ-L carries ONLY USENET-originated traffic. It carries ONLY USENET FAQs. USENET FAQs are subject to being repeatedly sent without any change. Therefore, by definition, the SCIFAQ-L listserv can know 100% that every single article it sees are from USENET where bounces are an extreme annoyance. All you have to do is provide a way by which Una can tell his LISTSERV not to bounce duplicates. Just add the following parameter to the owner setup: BounceDuplicatesTo={poster, owner, nobody} Just this one trivial change will get Una, me, L. Detweiler and a large number of faq-maintainers off your back. It isn't even USENET-specific, so it's equally applicable for someone wishing to LISTSERV other similarly duplicatable messages. At the same time you can certainly make "poster" the default - so it won't alter your precious BITNET LISTSERV behaviour in any way. Do everybody a favour and simply add it. Otherwise, when someone finally gets around to LISTSERVing news.answers, you'll get a flood of complaints that'll blow this list right off the air and into the next galaxy. But you get your wish. Even if I wanted to continue the discussion, I can't because I'm going away for two weeks. Enjoy your vacation. -- Chris Lewis; [log in to unmask]; Phone: Canada 613 832-0541 Psroff 3.0 info: [log in to unmask] Ferret list: [log in to unmask]