I auto-free several lists here, either with entries in the WAKEPARM FILE on VM or with the AT command on NT. I don't do this for just any list, but if I trust the listowner and the daily-threshold is reasonable, I'll be glad do it. The only chance for a screw-up seems to be if the list is intentionally held for some reason. The listowner would have to tell me, or set the threshold to zero or something. In the event of a quota-exceeded or file error the list is just held again -- this hasn't been an issue for us. Of course, there are other nutty games to play. In once case we set the threshold quite low, but HOLD and FREE the list a couple of times a day. The HOLD/FREE combination has the side-effect of resetting the daily posting counter to zero, thus, in effect, the daily threshold is much higher. We were afraid of people mail-bombing that list, so this seemed to be a good way to handle it yet also allow periods of high activity. In another case we send out digests more of less on demand by having a script which manipulates the data in DIGESTS.FILE. This is a digest-only list (which is enforced with an exit) and the moderator sends out the digest when he feels it appropriate. Of course, I wish there were defined interfaces to do some of these things, but I acknowledge that our situations are a bit unusual and understand that there are more urgent priorities. Bill