On Oct 21, 2011, at 11:21 PM, Lindsay Haisley wrote:

> The list is configured with mime_is_default_digest set to MIME, which I
> assume sends digests with each post as a separate attachment (I've never
> subscribed to the digest for this list, so I don't really know).  I had
> assumed that this might address this problem, but apparently not.

It's not done as a separate attachment, it's done as separate MIME bodyparts, 
which some MUAs might render as "an attachment" -- particularly, the more 
brain-dead ones.

> One of two things needs to happen.  Either the list server should refuse
> and bounce posts with no MIME text/plain part, or some more intelligent
> configuration of Mailman needs to be available so that posts within a
> digest will render properly under these circumstances.  Maybe a more
> recent version of Mailman can do this, I don't know.  Any suggestions
> would be appreciated.

Mailman can flatten HTML to plain text on ingest, and when the MIME format 
digest is generated, that should look mostly kinda semi-sorta correct -- at 
least, on the majority of less brain-dead MUAs.  For MUAs that don't generate 
text that can be flattened, that should result in what would appear to Mailman 
to be an "empty" message, which should be silently dropped.  Some users might 
wonder what is happening to their messages, if they're submitting with a really 
brain-dead MUA.

Of course, there is still the issue of what to do with any real attachments 
that might have been included.  Mailman can silently strip those, or it can 
scrub them and put them in the archives, replacing the actual attachment 
content with a link to the scrubbed attachment in the archives.

All of this can be done on the version of Mailman that you have today, but more 
recent versions of Mailman might have other advantages that you might also 
appreciate.

> I rather dislike HTML-enhanced email (to put it gently).  There's no
> fixed standard for it, and what renders one way in one mail reader
> renders some other way in another mail reader, and it confuses the hell
> out of list servers.  But people will use it, increasingly it seems, and
> insist on doing so, so somehow this kind of problem needs to be dealt
> with.

I think that the tools are already there for the bulk of list admins to deal 
with the bulk of problems.

The only outstanding major issue that I know of that we can't fix right now is 
the handling of appending footers to MIME-formatted messages which can be 
rendered by some brain-dead MUAs as separate "attachments".  So far, the 
consensus has been that we won't kowtow to those brain-dead MUAs, and if the 
users in question can't deal with these separate "attachments", then the list 
admins are going to have to forgo putting footers on messages as they are being 
passed through the system.

--
Brad Knowles <b...@shub-internet.org>
LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>
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