[Listadmins] HTML on Mpls-issues list

[Fred H Olson]

Hi David Mpls-issues <mpls@mnforum.org> ,

I just browsed the last month or so of messages of Mpls-issues
and noticed your request to not post html - which does indeed
not archive well much of the time.

Just thought I'd apprise you of my experiment with this...

In early October of 2001 I configured mailman to reject messages
with html attachments. I get notified that there is a message with a
"suspicious header" and have to "tend" it like postings from
non-subscribed addresses.  What I have been doing so far is
discard the message AND send a copy to myself (owner - just a mouse
click).  Then I  add the canned preamble and edit the preamble a bit 
to include the orig poster's name and address:
(I'm thinking of starting to add the posters last name to the subject 
line when I forward a message to the list.  This would allow our
subject line serach engine to find messages they wrote...)

Joe Blow <user@foobar.com>
is the author of the message below. 
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson@cohousing.org> 
because the message included HTML ;      PLEASE do not post HTML, see
   http://csf.colorado.edu/cohousing/2001/msg01672.html
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

and post it.

Results so far:

     HTML  TTL
Oct:   10  235
Nov:    4  187
Dec:    6  142

It has not been too bad, certainly some / most people have learned and
reconfigured their mailers.  I think a few people have posted HTL
repeatedly tho I have not bothered to check systematically yet.  I think a
perso or two have lapsed (somehow gotten THML posted after having "fixed"
the problem.

I have one poster who has "vcard" attachements that are getting rejected
along with the HTML.  This is yet to dealt with other than posting with a
modified / apologetic preamble.

There is software to strip html - I have not pursued it.

Please email me if you want details.

The new Nbhd-tc (Nbhd-L) running on listserv at tc.umn.edu
looks like it might handle attachments well enough that I may allow 
them.  I dont have enough experience there yet.

Fred

Cohousing-L Info Page :
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-L

--
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411   (near north Mpls)
fholson@cohousing.org 612-588-9532 (7am-10pm Cent time) 
List manager of Cohousing-L & Nbhd-tc  Ham radio:WB0YQM          
More info:   http://www.mtn.org/~fholson/sig-detail.htm