I have over the last couple of weeks received messages "bounced" to me by the robot, with a more or less incomprehensible error message that suggested that there was something in the message body that shouldn't be part of the message.

Yeah!  Had no idea what it meant.

After a little research, I learned what was happening:  folks were apparently hitting "reply" and including the entire text of the original message into the reply, including all the headers (From:, To:, etc.).  Those headers generally have addresses that point back to the list.

Apparently, including those headers can agitate the robot, so the LISTSERV software incorporates
" mail-loop avoidance code" and when it sees headers that it thinks it generated itself, it bounces the message to the list owner (me).

It's easy to avoid that bouncing.  When you reply, don't send the whole message.  Delete all but a couple of lines, so we'll know what you're replying to, then put  your response after the quoted material.

Actually, that's pretty good list etiquette, anyway.  Using "quoted" replies keeps all the messages shorter, and makes it easier to keep track of long exchanges.

If you're still with me, thanks for taking the time to read all the way to the end.  If what I said didn't quite make sense, send me an off-list message -- [log in to unmask] -- and I'll try to make my explanation clearer.

Cheers!
~kent graham