The only solution I can think of is either a gateway system that receives the messages and replaces the dash with a colon, or then the use of a DISTRIBUTE job to bypass this nonsense. I realize neither is practical, but then there are always going to be mail systems where users don't have full control over their subject field. For instance, I know mail systems that translate "Re:" to the local language before sending. LISTSERV can't possibly know about all the national variants of "Re:", and won't detect the topic properly in this case either. There are also a lot of mail systems where the subject is always "INTER OFFICE MEMORANDUM" or equivalent, no matter what the user types. Some categories of users just don't have access to their subject field when sending outside the organization. Eric