As far as I recall, the reference to auto-del and validate have to do with list defaults, not what you can explicitly customize. AUTO-DEL is ineffective for non-conforming mail transfer agents, so depending on the nature of the bounce, it might be a NOP. As far as hosts that bounce over the weekends + holidays, you'll want a DELAY that is sufficient to cover that period + maybe two days more. Likewise, take into account the number of message that are likely to be generated so that they might cause a bounce. There has been lots of previous discussion: pros+cons and suggestions to the developer on this topic. Maybe in the .MIL or other .COM sites, things are different, but ... My takes on this are if a subscriber from a site that does not maintain good network connectivity then subscribes to an active list, thus causing much more work for the list-owner, then they should either be set to a DIGEST (if one is supported), be set to NOMAIL, be unsubscribed, or have their system made MORE available. -- co-owner: INFOSYS, TQM-L, CPARK-L, ERAPPA-L, JANITORS, LDBASE-L, et -L URL:mailto:[log in to unmask] "I get paid by the millisecond"