The docs for gnus-summary-line-format mention that "%U" produces "R", "K", "-", or " ". However, they fail to mention "r", for example. The first clue I could find about that mark was in "9.18.4 Spam and Ham Processors" of all places, where it drops the hint that "r" means "explicit delete" (!). Users *really* need a little table that gives a complete guide to the built-in marks, so that when they look at the summary buffer, they know what it means. Same goes for the other Gnus buffers that support marking, BTW. K and U in the server browsing buffer are confusing as well. Package: gnus Version: 5.110018 No Gnus v0.18 GNU Emacs 23.3.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin, NS apple-appkit-1038.35) of 2011-03-09 on black.porkrind.org 200 news.gmane.org InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.5.1 ready (posting ok) 101 Capability list: VERSION 2 IMPLEMENTATION INN 2.5.1 AUTHINFO USER HDR LIST ACTIVE ACTIVE.TIMES DISTRIB.PATS HEADERS NEWSGROUPS OVERVIEW.FMT OVER POST READER STARTTLS .