Personally, I only do this if having the material in question in the archive would infringe on a third party's intellectual property rights (eg pirated software) or if there is enough such material to justify the decision on technical grounds (ie to save precious resources). Otherwise I always tell people that I'm sorry, but it's too late and people saw it anyway, etc. The problem is not really deleting the original message, you may not like having to do that but at least the request is not morally questionable. The problem begins when someone replies to the "oops" and quotes part or whole of the original, and the victim then demands that you remove that other person's message as well (and all followup messages, for as long as the sun shall rise, etc), since they all contain excerpts from the original text. You have to draw the line somewhere, and this is where I draw it, because I don't see by what right you can demand that a third party's contribution be deleted, especially if it does not just insult your heritage and leave it at that but, as is often the case, does include a meaningful, if perhaps a bit heated, discussion about the issues raised in the "oops" message. Some people will settle with removing the quoted text, but this makes the follow-up message look out of context and often it suggests that the third party is the one who started the name-calling fest. Again, making a third party look bad to protect someone who screwed up is just not something that I find legitimate. Someone will start asking for a copy of the CENSORED message and there will be 200 "Me too!" Plus of course the oncoming discussion about UNACCEPTABLE CENSORSHIP on the list and isn't it time to start a new list where freedom of speech is respected, etc. Eric