I went searching on listowners help and this is the answer. As you can see Rootsweb doesn't intend to fix the problem, so put in a subject. Donna "There isn't any bug at work here--really. Blank subject lines coupled with short messages in the message body will result in SmartList "tagging" the message as an attempt to subscribe. It doesn't even have to be a full moon. And more often than not SmartList will be correct--so there isn't anything that needs fixing here."