[Warning ... techie stuff approaching. Danger, Will Robinson!]
[Skip to the bottom 2 paragraphs if you can't stomach it.]
My anti-SPAM software (Spam Assassin 2.60) has been a bit over-zealous
lately, and has bounced a couple of 313 digests as presumed SPAM.
In investigating this, by accident I discovered the reason why there's been
problems for us Digest readers with certain messages from certain posters.
(Ian Cheshire, Come On Down! This Is Your Life!)
Basically, the problem is that the software ("ezmlm") on "Hyperreal"
that generates the Digests for us 313 digest readers generates said
Digests using an all-plain-text format - commonly signified by
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" (or "us-ascii")
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
in the MIME settings of the outgoing Digest e-mails (in the mail headers).
This means that for people who read the Digests, their e-mail clients will
treat the entire Digest as being plain ol' text, which ... well, it isn't.
The problem is that some of you lot aren't sending your messages to the
list in this vanilla plain-text format (or, alternately, its non-US-centric
version; namely ``charset="iso-8859-1"'').
Ian's messages, for example, are being sent from his WebMail service with
these MIME settings:
Content-type: text/plain;
charset="utf-8"
Content-transfer-encoding: base64
(Note: This is very commonly used - but for including *attachments*!
Why Ian is getting this setting for his regular messages, I have no clue.
I suspect his ISP's WebMail is set up "dumb" - to assume that every message
should be treated as an in-line "attachment" with possibly other
"attachments".)
This means Ian's "raw" messages are being pulled into the Digests as plain
text, so they end up showing up in the Digests as the raw base64 encoding:
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: (313) how do you mix
dG9saWV0cyBmb3IgeW91IHRoZW4gOikNCg0KCS0tLS0tT3JpZ2luYWwgTWVzc2FnZS0tLS0tIA0K
CUZyb206IHBsYWNpZCBbbWFpbHRvOm1hY2hlbHBAZGlyY29uLmNvLnVrXSANCglTZW50OiBGcmkg
[... lots of lines of base64 gibberish ...]
Here's another (different) example - Robert Taylor's messages go out with
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
The "quoted-printable" means that when his messages appear in the Digest,
they have "quoted-printable" artifacts like "=20" and "=" in the (plain)
text, making them somewhat less readable:
From: "Robert Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "placid" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <313@hyperreal.org>
Subject: RE: (313) how do you mix
[...]
Note:
Any views or opinions are solely those of the author and do not necessari=
ly represent=20
those of Channel Four Television Corporation unless specifically stated. =
This email=20
and any files transmitted are confidential and intended solely for the us=
e of the=20
individual or entity to which they are addressed. If you have received th=
is email in=20
error, please notify [EMAIL PROTECTED]
See what I mean?
"OK OK Greg ... stop the techie rubbish already", you're saying. Alright.
The bottom line is - I'm going to try and see if we can get the Digests
switched to a more "knowledgeable" type of format that can handle these
things auto-magically. (Basically, the real problem is, the messages
should either be auto-converted to Really Plain Text on the way to being
Digestified, or else the Digests should change, so that our messages can
be left alone and included as-is - but at least the reader's e-mail client
will *know* it because the MIME encoding info is left in, and thus it can
display each message properly given that info.) Then no one would have to
change a thing.
But in the meantime, all of you can do us Digesties a favor by checking on
the e-mail settings in your e-mail client - specifically, anything related to
MIME settings. If possible, change them to use either a charset of
"US-ASCII"/"us-ascii" or "ISO-8859-1"/"iso-8859-1" (not "utf-8"!), and to
use a "Content-Transfer-Encoding" setting of "7bit" (not "base64", and not
"quoted-printable" - if you can help it!). Us Digesties will thank you!!!
- Greg (Crawling into his bunker now to avoid the incoming shrapnel)
