Re: [OSM-talk-be] mailing list good practice (user's and software's)

[André Pirard]

On 2013-09-17 05:29, Marc Gemis wrote :
> André,
>
> in digest mode, your mails are replaced by a link to the html content.
> In non-digest mode your mails appear fine.
>
> The result is that I never read your mails on the tagging mailing list
> that I follow i digest mode. It's just "too much work" to open an
> additional page to see whether it's interesting enough to read.
Hi Marc,

Thanks for your report, but that's strange.
I always send my e-mails to the list in both text and html formats
(alternative in the same e-mail), so that everybody should be pleased. 
But they're not!
The text mode is (almost) perfectly readable on the archive server
,
also containing a link to the html version that they call an attachment
(they seem not to understand the word "alternative").
Of course, the tables that we sometimes need to send are pure garbage in
text mode.

I explained how I'm using a Gmail account as a perfect mailing list
archiver.
I also use the filters of Gmail as a perfect e-mail redistributor, like
a manually maintained mailing list, the only problem is that the number
of recipients is limited.

Definitely, that mailman is the most antediluvian and frustrating
software there is. A conspirator.

Please file a bug and ask them to work as well as Gmail and to implement
simple HTML filtering.

followed below ...

(1) archive server
lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-be/2013-September/004552.html for
those who prefer not to click

On 2013-09-17 13:23, ael wrote :
> On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 01:02:23AM +0200, André Pirard wrote:
>> On 2013-09-16 11:52, Glenn Plas wrote :
>>> If you want to be serious about this then a new topic should be
>>> initiated by sending a new mail instead of a reply with a new
>>> subject.  Every decent mailclient out there -usually- does not use the
>>> subject to 'thread' mails. instead it uses certain fields in the mail
>>> headers.  I noticed that mail-man (the mailing list handler of THIS
>>> list) does not seem to add those headers (in fact, they seem to be
>>> removed from outgoing mails, I cannot find those fields like below).
>> You're right, [but] my main gripe is against the mailing list software 
>> mailman
>> itself because it does not allow HTML.
> Please, please no. HTML should only be in an attachment if and only if
> it cannot be avoided. Apart from bloat, it is a security risk. Email != 
> HTML.
Attachment?
> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===1107514545383645585=="
>
> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
> --===1107514545383645585==
> Content-Type: *multipart/alternative*;
>  boundary="060707090800060503050609"
>
> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
> --060707090800060503050609
> Content-Type: *text/plain*; charset=UTF-8
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> 
> --060707090800060503050609
> Content-Type: *text/html*; charset=UTF-8
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> 
> --060707090800060503050609--
Can't you see that word *alternative***?  *You can choose***!!!
If you prefer to use text, please do, but do not prevent those who
understood HTML to use it!!!

Security:  correction: the security risk is Windows and similar software.
Read it: what I advocate is "simple html" for which there is absolutely
no security risk.
Those who launch a full browser, and especially an unsafe one running
Javascript and, worse, Activethings, to display *any html* e-mail take
as much risk as when displaying a Web page.
Using simple html or filtering e-mail to obtain simple html as I
suggested or interpreting only the simple part of html is perfectly
safe, especially on a virus resistant system like Linux or OS X.
Some may remember the RTF (rich text format) specification that people
that you may want to call crazy have used in e-mail before html existed
to allow what I advocate, for example writing a letter in e-mail.  No
one ever spoke of risk before RTF was abandoned and HTML deviated.
The mad thing is this (just an example):

X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3138


Monsieur ... 
 
Je vous rappelle ...

a s o for more than 50 lines,
switching to the same font font for every paragraph, even empty ones.
And Apple Mail is even worse.

They ignore the philosophy of simple HTML that is to use no font, just a
size number, no line width, the user adjusts to his convenience, etc...
Now here's Thunderbird doing more complicated:

  
.../li>
...
  
...
Cheers,

And here's an OSM simple HTML page speaking:


  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:bicycle?uselang=fr 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:bicycle?uselang=fr>">bicycle
 = yes
  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:foot?uselang=fr 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:foot?uselang=fr>">foot 
= designated
... 


that you can perfectly copy&paste like this (only for those wh

Re: [OSM-talk-be] mailing list good practice (user's and software's)

[André Pirard]

On 2013-09-17 01:40, Glenn Plas wrote :
> On 2013-09-17 01:02, André Pirard wrote:
>> On 2013-09-16 11:52, Glenn Plas wrote :
>>> If you want to be serious about this then a new topic should be
>>> initiated by sending a new mail instead of a reply with a new
>>> subject.  Every decent mailclient out there -usually- does not use
>>> the subject to 'thread' mails. instead it uses certain fields in the
>>> mail headers.  I noticed that mail-man (the mailing list handler of
>>> THIS list) does not seem to add those headers (in fact, they seem to
>>> be removed from outgoing mails, I cannot find those fields like below).
>>>
>>> example of those are :
>>>
>>> References: <20130914070031.83C7A1561AD6@server21>
>>> 
>>> <5236af60.2050...@byte-consult.be>
>>> In-Reply-To: <5236af60.2050...@byte-consult.be>
>>>
>>> This is what the (E)mailers usually use when exchanging mail
>>> correspondence (non mailing list) when hitting 'Reply'
>>>
>>> To be complete:  top-posting (putting comments ABOVE the previous
>>> messages) is usually really a big nono in the mailing list fields.  
>>> You should put follow-up comments BELOW the original mail. 
>>> Personally, It doesn't bother me too much, but on plenty of mailing
>>> lists people go absolutely nuts over that fact , more true on long
>>> email exchanges, as you need to read a long reply from bottom to top
>>> in order to follow the conversation.   Of course many clients let
>>> you sort using the subject field.
>>>
>>> If you make sure to bottom-post, automatically you'll be removing
>>> the non-relevant sections at the top to compact the response.  I
>>> admit , when being too quick, I'm a sinner too against that rule
>>> once in a while.  Some lists have their own requirements, but in
>>> general bottom-posting is considered Netiquette, top-posting isn't. 
>>> It makes you scroll twice to follow a conversation. (go down to find
>>> the start, then read up).
>>>
>>> English : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style
>>>
>>>
>> You're right, my main gripe is against the mailing list software
>> mailman itself because it does not allow HTML. It does archive a HTML
>> version of the archive but when you look at it on the server you see
>> HTML code.
>> By "allow HTML", I mean "simple HTML": text style, lists, tables etc,
>> not eccentric showy stuff.
>> I've sent an e-mail to mailman about this and they replied
>>
>>   * that we, technical people, do not need HTML because we don't use
>> it much.
>>
>
> I think you misunderstood my mail.  At the very bottom of that partly
> quoted mail I stated : .  I am very much against using html in mails. 
> I believe HTML belongs on a website, not a mail.  I prefer
> plain-text..  Sorry :)
>
> Glenn
No, I didn't misunderstand your e-mail and I said 'You're right'.
My topic is not what the users do but what mailman does and that's why
my quote is partial.
I restored the full English text here above, and no, what I had read
does not contain "I am very much against using html in mails" and my
text was not related to that phrase.
I collaborated with the ietf guys for e-mail and MIME+HTML and I can
tell you they are not dumb-asses.
Millions of people are using what they did.
People forget that the first reason to be of HTML is HT, hypertext
, which is as elegant as
necessary to write sensible text, relegating with links the details to
further reading. That does not belong only to Web site; some  people
even wrote HT books. It was also used in the precursors Gopher, WAIS etc.
I sometimes use titles and index in long e-mails. I rarely write Web
pages to send someone a message.
What the ietf intended to
 include in e-mail is the simple HTML I speak of, not the
extravagant one.
  It allows tables to be included in e-mail. It allows
HT links
to be used without interspersing text with ugly URLs.  It allows basic
formating. Your
  reference, which isn't at all against HTML, advocates
the  as a better way to quote text
to avoid paragraphs ending up like this one
or the last one you quote.   certainly does
not belong to websites!!!
See following e-mail.

Cheers,

André.




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Re: [OSM-talk-be] mailing list good practice (user's and software's)

[Marc Gemis]

André,

in digest mode, your mails are replaced by a link to the html content. In
non-digest mode your mails appear fine.

The result is that I never read your mails on the tagging mailing list that
I follow i digest mode. It's just "too much work" to open an additional
page to see whether it's interesting enough to read.

regards

m


On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 1:40 AM, Glenn Plas  wrote:

> On 2013-09-17 01:02, André Pirard wrote:
>
>> On 2013-09-16 11:52, Glenn Plas wrote :
>>
>>> If you want to be serious about this then a new topic should be
>>> initiated by sending a new mail instead of a reply with a new subject.
>>>  Every decent mailclient out there -usually- does not use the subject to
>>> 'thread' mails. instead it uses certain fields in the mail headers.  I
>>> noticed that mail-man (the mailing list handler of THIS list) does not seem
>>> to add those headers (in fact, they seem to be removed from outgoing mails,
>>> I cannot find those fields like below).
>>>
>> You're right, my main gripe is against the mailing list software mailman
>> itself because it does not allow HTML. It does archive a HTML version of
>> the archive but when you look at it on the server you see HTML code.
>> By "allow HTML", I mean "simple HTML": text style, lists, tables etc, not
>> eccentric showy stuff.
>> I've sent an e-mail to mailman about this and they replied
>>
>>   * that we, technical people, do not need HTML because we don't use
>> it much.
>>
>>
> I think you misunderstood my mail.  At the very bottom of that partly
> quoted mail I stated : Never use HTML mail.  I am very much against using
> html in mails.  I believe HTML belongs on a website, not a mail.  I prefer
> plain-text..  Sorry :)
>
> Glenn
>
> __**_
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>
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Re: [OSM-talk-be] mailing list good practice (user's and software's)

[André Pirard]

On 2013-09-16 11:52, Glenn Plas wrote :
> If you want to be serious about this then a new topic should be
> initiated by sending a new mail instead of a reply with a new
> subject.  Every decent mailclient out there -usually- does not use the
> subject to 'thread' mails. instead it uses certain fields in the mail
> headers.  I noticed that mail-man (the mailing list handler of THIS
> list) does not seem to add those headers (in fact, they seem to be
> removed from outgoing mails, I cannot find those fields like below).
You're right, my main gripe is against the mailing list software mailman
itself because it does not allow HTML. It does archive a HTML version of
the archive but when you look at it on the server you see HTML code.
By "allow HTML", I mean "simple HTML": text style, lists, tables etc,
not eccentric showy stuff.
I've sent an e-mail to mailman about this and they replied

  * that we, technical people, do not need HTML because we don't use it
much.
They obviously did not look at, for example,
  o the OSM Web pages
 in which
the tags and other data are in tables that we can copy&paste to
an e-mail,
  o nor at the plentiful number of links in Wiki Web pages
 or other
references: decency requests to use them in e-mail too so that
the reader finds the information with a click instead of a
Google search
  o nor simply this way to make a long phrase understandable
  * that the mailman's *default configuration* screens out the HTML for
security reasons
This is weird, because,
  o if I'm not mistaken, the recipients receive the full HTML
message anyway, only the archive is screened out and there's a
second full HTML copy that the obstinate user can manage to
display anyway
  o as said above, only dangerous HTML needs to be filtered out and
there must be code out there to plug in to do the filtering so
that the simple, innocuous HTML remains

Because of all that, what I have personally done is subscribing a Google
account to all my mailing lists and using filters on it to archive each
mailing list into its own respective folder. When I need to search my
archives, I simply open the wanted folder in IMAP
 mode
 with
Thunderbird .  Should I need to
reply, I, well, click Reply, which I don't know how to do with mailman.

I wish mailman were doing that filtering and IMAP service!
I would have shared my folders with you if Google had allowed
passwordless R/O access to them.

Now, more closely related to threading, Thunderbird must be an extra
decent program: it can display by subject *or* by thread.  Does it use a
special algorithm?  In a quick overview, I can't find a hitch in the
threading in OSM-talk-be. That is, not a message with a subject
different that the thread it's in.

Cheers,

André.


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Re: [OSM-talk-be] mailing list good practice (user's and software's)

[Glenn Plas]

On 2013-09-17 01:02, André Pirard wrote:

On 2013-09-16 11:52, Glenn Plas wrote :
If you want to be serious about this then a new topic should be 
initiated by sending a new mail instead of a reply with a new 
subject.  Every decent mailclient out there -usually- does not use 
the subject to 'thread' mails. instead it uses certain fields in the 
mail headers.  I noticed that mail-man (the mailing list handler of 
THIS list) does not seem to add those headers (in fact, they seem to 
be removed from outgoing mails, I cannot find those fields like below).
You're right, my main gripe is against the mailing list software 
mailman itself because it does not allow HTML. It does archive a HTML 
version of the archive but when you look at it on the server you see 
HTML code.
By "allow HTML", I mean "simple HTML": text style, lists, tables etc, 
not eccentric showy stuff.

I've sent an e-mail to mailman about this and they replied

  * that we, technical people, do not need HTML because we don't use
it much.



I think you misunderstood my mail.  At the very bottom of that partly 
quoted mail I stated : Never use HTML mail.  I am very much against 
using html in mails.  I believe HTML belongs on a website, not a mail.  
I prefer plain-text..  Sorry :)


Glenn

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