From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 1 04:10:44 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id DAA10354; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 03:58:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.ect.uce.ac.uk (mail.ect.uce.ac.uk [193.60.138.236]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id DAA10345 for ; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 03:57:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from ect.uce.ac.uk [193.60.136.24] by mail.ect.uce.ac.uk with Novonyx SMTP Server $Revision: 1.76 $; Mon, 01 Feb 1999 11:49:15 +0000 (BST) Message-ID: <36B5993B.D3A8EE88@ect.uce.ac.uk> Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 12:08:27 +0000 From: Richard Kay Organization: UCE X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (WinNT; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ivan Pope , List-Managers@greatcircle.com Subject: diseconomies of spam References: Your message of Tue, 26 Jan 1999 10:18:17 +0100. Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Ivan, Cc: list-managers I'm glad Paul's activities got you to tighten up your act, even if you seem to resent having been made to do this. Every spam sent is a 10 cent cost spread over all users of the Net. I make my money by supporting people to use the Internet too, but the more useful this is the better I can help them and the better this is for my job. Deny spammers these services (for whatever reason) and you become part of the solution. Provide them with any kind of help and you are part of a problem which has to be dealt with if those who make their living providing Net services are to provide useful services to end users. Without useful services there is no living to be made from the Net for any of us. How many spams does a person have to receive before the time sorting these and deleting them outweighs the usefulness of what they do want to receive ? I think most would give up somewhere between 10 and 100 a day. And how many people on the Net would pay service providers or support engineers to keep them on without a useful email service ? Paul Vixie is doing a great job in taking action to keep ISP and other support staff in a living by being able to provide services other people find useful. It's really got nothing to do with religious fundamentalism - as far as I can see this is all down to simple economics whether you choose to see it that way or not. Richard Kay Rich.Kay@uce.ac.uk Ivan Pope wrote: > > Oh, spare me from the Zealots. From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 1 05:09:49 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id EAA11217; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 04:55:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id EAA11210 for ; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 04:54:51 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id HAA21075 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 07:54:03 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990201075402.B15047@gsp.org> Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 07:54:02 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: List Managers Subject: Re: Spam definition References: <199901311803.MAA22001@celery.tssi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <199901311803.MAA22001@celery.tssi.com>; from Mike Nolan on Sun, Jan 31, 1999 at 12:03:30PM -0600 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, Jan 31, 1999 at 12:03:30PM -0600, Mike Nolan wrote: > I prefer the designation UCE instead of spam, 'unsolicited [bulk] commercial > e-mail'. This includes get-rich-quick schemes, sex sites, and so forth. This is not a correct definition. UBE is preferable to UBE. Here's why: > The three major characteristics of UCE are that they are never requested > by the recipient and not often welcome, The "U" stands for Unsolicited; whether or not the mail is welcome is of no significance whatsoever. > that they are always sent to mass > quantities of people (generally at trivial costs), The "B" stands for Bulk. The cost involved is not relevant. > and they always have profit as a motive for the sender. The presence or absence of profit is not relevant. Why make these distinctions? Because the words "welcome" and "profit" involve analysis of the content, and the definition of spam (as UBE) is content-free, and must remain so. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 1 07:24:52 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id HAA12642; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 07:02:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from firefly.cisco.com (firefly.cisco.com [171.69.63.22]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA12635 for ; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 07:02:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from kenny-pc.cisco.com (ricochet-17.cisco.com [171.68.11.209]) by firefly.cisco.com (8.8.5-Cisco.1/8.6.5) with SMTP id HAA22265 for ; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 07:08:06 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199902011508.HAA22265@firefly.cisco.com> X-Sender: kenny@firefly.cisco.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.0.2 Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 07:01:03 -0800 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Kenny Paul Subject: Re: Spam Police (Give me a break!) In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990131184123.03ecaab0@127.0.0.1> References: <3.0.32.19990131093210.00b61880@mail.netnames.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >At 10:09 AM 1/31/99 +0000, Ivan Pope wrote: >I am also still waiting for anyone's definition of 'spam'. This is about the lamest attempt at feigning innocence that I've seen, outside of the OJ trail and Clinton's lack of crotch control. Regards, Kenny Paul "live from the BART CART" From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 1 12:06:13 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA16904; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 11:36:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from cyberq.quality.org (cyberq.quality.org [199.181.80.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA16897 for ; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 11:36:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (help@localhost) by cyberq.quality.org (8.9.0/8.9.0) with SMTP id OAA04987 for ; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 14:42:07 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 14:42:07 -0500 (EST) From: "Bill Casti (System Admin)" To: List Managers List Subject: Re: Spam Police (Give me a break!) In-Reply-To: <199902011508.HAA22265@firefly.cisco.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk 1. Spam n : (trademark) a tinned luncheon meat made largely from pork 2. spam /vt.,vi.,n./ [from "Monty Python's Flying Circus"] 1. To crash a program by overrunning a fixed-size buffer with excessively large input data. See also {buffer overflow}, {overrun screw}, {smash the stack}. 2. To cause a newsgroup to be flooded with irrelevant or inappropriate messages. You can spam a newsgroup with as little as one well- (or ill-) planned message (e.g. asking "What do you think of abortion?" on soc.women). This is often done with {cross-post}ing (e.g. any message which is crossposted to alt.rush-limbaugh and alt.politics.homosexuality will almost inevitably spam both groups). 3. To send many identical or nearly-identical messages separately to a large number of Usenet newsgroups. This is one sure way to infuriate nearly everyone on the Net. 3. Spam v. To abuse any network service or tool by for promotional purposes. 4. To crash a program by overrunning a fixed-size {buffer} with excessively large input data. [From: http://work.ucsd.edu:5141/cgi-bin/http_webster?spam] Regards. Bill On Mon, 1 Feb 1999, Kenny Paul wrote: > >At 10:09 AM 1/31/99 +0000, Ivan Pope wrote: > > >I am also still waiting for anyone's definition of 'spam'. > > This is about the lamest attempt at feigning innocence that I've seen, > outside of the OJ trail and Clinton's lack of crotch control. > > > > > > > > > > > Regards, Kenny Paul > "live from the BART CART" > > From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 1 12:48:34 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA17570; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 12:34:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA17563 for ; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 12:34:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA25624 for ; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 14:39:58 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA32707 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 14:39:56 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902012039.OAA32707@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: Spam definition To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 14:39:55 -0600 (CST) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Rich Kulawiec wrote: > The "B" stands for Bulk. The cost involved is not relevant. Rich, I will defer to your expertise on UBE versus UCE, though I have to confess I have not seen that term before, or perhaps not recognized it. However, I am not particularly active in the anti-spamming effort, because I feel that playing an elaborate game of fox and hounds is for others, younger and more technically oriented than I, though I'm quite happy to benefit from their labors, so if that's where it comes from, I would probably not have seen it previously. (And I suspect the word 'spam' is here to stay, anyway, despite disagreements over its precise definition.) I disagree that the cost factor is irrelevant. If it cost bulk e-mailers 10 cents per message to do it, or even ONE cent, we probably wouldn't be having this whole discussion, would we? But if it cost one cent each for me to send out my mailing list traffic, with over 500,000 messages delivered (traffic x subscribers) in a busy month, I probably wouldn't be doing what I do, either, at least not the way it currently functions. That's why I'd like to see some kind of economic pricing model for net traffic. Unsolicited messages are paid for by the sender, solicited messages could be paid for by the recipient. I've asked, many of my subscribers would WILLINGLY pay one cent per message delivered, should such a facility be possible, though some would undoubtably go away and others would move over to my lower-volume news-only subset. Sender based content filtering would likely become more of a necessity under such a transfer of payments system, too. Example: I run two sports lists, and this Wednesday is national letter of intent signing day in football, so that topic dominates both lists ever January and early February. Yet there are some subscribers who don't have much interest in whether Joe High School is said to be leaning towards this school or that, they'd rather read about when spring practice starts, whether Notre Dame will be on the schedule in a few year, etc. So, a mailing list management system that recognizes which messages are about recruiting and sends them only to the subscribers who have requested recruiting traffic messages in their profile would seem highly desirable. (Actually, I'd like such a beast NOW, anybody know of one?) And if was somehow possible for the author of list traffic to share the cost of distributing those messages, I suspect a lot of the flamefest traffic would go away quickly, too. And the cost allocation information could be used as a sorting factor in mail readers, mail I _paid_ to receive would certainly go towards the top of my list, mail I didn't solicit towards the bottom. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 1 13:57:55 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA18243; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 13:19:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu (BROCCOLI.GRAPHICS.CORNELL.EDU [128.84.247.53]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id NAA18235 for ; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 13:19:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from graphics.cornell.edu (LOCALHOST) by broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu with ESMTP (1.37.109.16/16.2) id AA053064252; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 16:24:12 -0500 Message-Id: <199902012124.AA053064252@broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Rich Kulawiec Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL is horribly broken this morning In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 31 Jan 1999 09:29:58 EST." <19990131092958.A12965@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 16:24:12 -0500 From: Mitch Collinsworth Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >> AppliedTheory [our network provider] has worked with Sprint [Applied >> Theory's network provider] overnight on the issue, >> as AT did not have a route to AOL networks on our backbone. Sprint >> informed AT that AOL is making software and routing changes on >> their network. This is causing significant changes in how Sprint >> and AppliedTheory are receiving the routes to AOL and ICQ. > >This appears to have no relationship to the problem that I (and others) >experienced. The information I provided clearly shows that mail was >received by AOL's mail server(s), and clearly shows that it was returned, >thus indicating a functional, if not optimal/robust network path. > >It's pretty obvious that AOL broke their mail servers; I'm waiting to >see if they acknowledge their error and provide an explanation for it. Rick, you may be right. I agree that on the surface it appears to have no relationship to the problem described. However depending on how AOL's e-mail is handled internally it is certainly possible that it does. I have no idea how their e-mail systems are engineered, but if the mailboxes are not kept on the systems that MX for the domain, and the routing problems kept the MX systems from communicating with the mailbox systems, then we have the makings for bouncing mail at the MX systems due to inability to verify mailbox status. -Mitch From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 2 01:29:10 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id BAA27362; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 01:02:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from dns.cyberlink.ch (dns.cyberlink.ch [193.246.253.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id BAA27355 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 01:02:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from quill.thinkcoach.com (gate6-93.cyberlink.ch [212.55.195.93]) by dns.cyberlink.ch (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA02423 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 10:08:07 +0100 Received: (from norbert@localhost) by quill.thinkcoach.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA00657; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 09:48:42 +0100 Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 09:48:42 +0100 Message-Id: <199902020848.JAA00657@quill.thinkcoach.com> From: Norbert Bollow Prefer-Language: de, en, fr To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-reply-to: <199902012039.OAA32707@celery.tssi.com> (message from Mike Nolan on Mon, 1 Feb 1999 14:39:55 -0600 (CST)) Subject: Re: Spam definition References: <199902012039.OAA32707@celery.tssi.com> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Mike Nolan wrote: > But if it cost one cent each for me to send out my mailing list traffic, > with over 500,000 messages delivered (traffic x subscribers) in a busy > month, I probably wouldn't be doing what I do, either, at least not the > way it currently functions. > > That's why I'd like to see some kind of economic pricing model for > net traffic. Unsolicited messages are paid for by the sender, solicited > messages could be paid for by the recipient. Yes. And those who still send me unsolicited mail should be made to pay me something like $1 per message for my giving the message so much attention that I decide to press the 'delete' key. (Yes, my time is valuable.) Of course when I appreciate someone's mail I'll be happy to press a 'refund' key which pays them back the money they had to pay for getting my attention. It should be easy enough to build an email program which will not go to the next message until the 'delete' key or the 'refund' key has been pressed. The tricky part is to design and implement protocols for automating these payments in a way which is secure and still reasonably efficient. I'll be happy to hear from anyone who is willing to invest some time into thinking this through. May blessings from the eternal God surprise and overtake you! Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow, Zuerich, Switzerland. Backup e-mail address: NB@POBOX.COM From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 2 06:03:23 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id FAA03068; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 05:45:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id FAA03061 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 05:45:47 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id IAA04102 for List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 08:52:35 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990202085233.A3874@gsp.org> Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 08:52:33 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: List Managers List Subject: Re: Spam Police (Give me a break!) References: <199902011508.HAA22265@firefly.cisco.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: ; from Bill Casti (System Admin) on Mon, Feb 01, 1999 at 02:42:07PM -0500 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, Feb 01, 1999 at 02:42:07PM -0500, Bill Casti (System Admin) wrote: > 3. Spam v. To abuse any network service or tool by for promotional > purposes. This is an incorrect definition: it's overinclusive, because it covers a broad range of abuses other than UBE, and it's underinclusive, because it does not cover UBE sent for non-promotional purposes. One correct definition is the one I provided yesterday. It is narrowly written, it is context-free, it excludes questions of motivation, and it defines spam in terms of action, not in terms of speech, which is a necessary precursor toward an effective discussion of spam issues. (Otherwise, the discussion wanders off into irrelevant areas such as censorship.) ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 2 06:46:12 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id GAA03652; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 06:34:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from mercury.rev.net (mercury.rev.net [206.67.68.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA03645 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 06:34:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from bernie.rev.net (bernie.rev.net [206.67.68.5]) by mercury.rev.net (8.9.2/8.9.1) with SMTP id JAA28467 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 09:40:33 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199902021440.JAA28467@mercury.rev.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 09:44:51 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Spam definition Reply-to: bernie@fantasyfarm.com In-reply-to: <199902012039.OAA32707@celery.tssi.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 1 Feb 99, at 14:39, Mike Nolan wrote: > I disagree that the cost factor is irrelevant. If it cost bulk e-mailers > 10 cents per message to do it, or even ONE cent, we probably wouldn't be > having this whole discussion, would we? I certainly agree. I think that the cost-recovery model NSF left us with has been a REAL double-edged sword. UCE/UBE is clearly the bad part of it, and... > But if it cost one cent each for me to send out my mailing list traffic, > with over 500,000 messages delivered (traffic x subscribers) in a busy > month, I probably wouldn't be doing what I do, either, at least not the > way it currently functions. In addition to things like FTP archives, online software/patch distribution (and IRS tax forms :o)). YMMV as to whether web pages with 1 meg of graphics or streaming video and audio are good things or not, but they probably would hardly exist if the sender had to pay. > That's why I'd like to see some kind of economic pricing model for > net traffic. Unsolicited messages are paid for by the sender, solicited > messages could be paid for by the recipient. This is the obvious solution and the only problem with it is that there's no real infrastructure for it [and everyone will jump up and down and complain that "the net has always been free"]. If the net switched over to some kind of "pay for what you use" structure, the direct implication would be that you'll get a bill from your ISP for all of the bandwidth you generate and the resources you use. Indirect implication: things like TUCOWS and the various real-audio sites and document archives and such won't be able to work the way they do any more. What'll have to happen in that case is just like it is with every other medium: you would have to "subscribe" and just as you have to pay the bill to receive Scientific American in your USMail, you'd have to pay the bill to receive your favorite mailing list via email. Folks running mailing lists would have to handle billing and cost-allocation in a means very much like the way in-print publishers do. For simple stuff [FTP and email] it seems simple enough. The web would be a different matter [although, maybe it would be better if folk actually had to think twice about putting multi-hundred-K images on their $@#$%@#$% web pages :o)], but you'd have to do something to put in bandwidth limits [else some hacker could run you broke by just running a bot to access your web page ten million times]. I've never understood a useful pricing model for usenet, but the thought of some kind of 'poster pays' to make those cretins flooding it with hundred-meg copyright infringements have to actually PAY to do it couldn't be bad. there'd be a lot of changes in the various details [e.g., unrestricted mailing lists would probably be a thing of the past: no matter who pays for it, when someone actually has to *pay* if some bozo sends a megabyte attachment to a list that goes to a thousand people, folks will want to have some kind of control] I've been associated with the Internet for a VERY VERY long time, and it has -never- made sense to me that it has never had a proper cost recovery model that involved paying for what you use (I lay this problem on NSF's doorstep; the situation was arguably different for DCA and ARPA, but there was never any excuse, IMO, for NSF not to put in proper accountability/accounting). What's interesting is that it'd be relatively easy to do: every router and gateway already keeps enough statistics to be able to generate bills for the next person 'downstream'. Scary/intriguing thoughts, but it ain't gonna happen, more's-the-pity, and so we're still left with the mess... /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 2 07:01:08 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id GAA03756; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 06:46:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from mercury.rev.net (mercury.rev.net [206.67.68.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA03749 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 06:46:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from bernie.rev.net (bernie.rev.net [206.67.68.5]) by mercury.rev.net (8.9.2/8.9.1) with SMTP id JAA30825 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 09:52:47 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199902021452.JAA30825@mercury.rev.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 09:57:06 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Spam definition Reply-to: bernie@fantasyfarm.com In-reply-to: <199902020848.JAA00657@quill.thinkcoach.com> References: <199902012039.OAA32707@celery.tssi.com> (message from Mike Nolan on Mon, 1 Feb 1999 14:39:55 -0600 (CST)) X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 2 Feb 99, at 9:48, Norbert Bollow wrote: > Yes. And those who still send me unsolicited mail should be made to pay > me something like $1 per message for my giving the message so much > attention that I decide to press the 'delete' key. (Yes, my time is > valuable.) Oh, PULLEEEZ. This is a hard enough topic to discuss without this kind of rhetoric. It takes one second, maybe two, to delete a mesage. Are you gonna try to argue that your time is REALLY $2k+/hr valuable? Even if you spend a princely ten seconds to decide to dump something, your $1 works out to >$300/hr. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 2 11:01:33 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA06672; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 10:37:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from cyberq.quality.org (cyberq.quality.org [199.181.80.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA06665 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 10:37:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (help@localhost) by cyberq.quality.org (8.9.0/8.9.0) with SMTP id NAA04608 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 13:43:32 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 13:43:31 -0500 (EST) From: "Bill Casti (System Admin)" Reply-To: "Bill Casti (System Admin)" To: List Managers List Subject: Re: Spam Police (Give me a break!) In-Reply-To: <19990202085233.A3874@gsp.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Take it up with the site that provided the definition (it was noted at the end of the definition listings), not with this list. Bill On Tue, 2 Feb 1999, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > On Mon, Feb 01, 1999 at 02:42:07PM -0500, Bill Casti (System Admin) wrote: > > 3. Spam v. To abuse any network service or tool by for promotional > > purposes. > > This is an incorrect definition: it's overinclusive, because it covers > a broad range of abuses other than UBE, and it's underinclusive, because > it does not cover UBE sent for non-promotional purposes. > > One correct definition is the one I provided yesterday. It is narrowly > written, it is context-free, it excludes questions of motivation, and > it defines spam in terms of action, not in terms of speech, which is a > necessary precursor toward an effective discussion of spam issues. > (Otherwise, the discussion wanders off into irrelevant areas such as > censorship.) > > ---Rsk > Rich Kulawiec > rsk@gsp.org > From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 2 11:16:19 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA06713; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 10:41:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA06706 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 10:40:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA10075 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 12:47:01 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA20604 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 12:46:58 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902021846.MAA20604@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: Spam definition To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 12:46:58 -0600 (CST) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Bernie Cosell wrote: > In addition to things like FTP archives, online software/patch > distribution (and IRS tax forms :o)). YMMV as to whether web pages with > 1 meg of graphics or streaming video and audio are good things or not, > but they probably would hardly exist if the sender had to pay. For most webpages, FTP sites and mailing lists, I think the receiver would have to pay the transaction fee, but that could vary as well. I would think most sales.com sites would be more than willing to pay or split the access cost to get the business. And if I can buy from foo.com and they pay the web access charge, or from bar.com and I pay it, and the merchandise price is essentially the same, who do I buy it from? Next question? This might put streaming audio and video at risk, but they represent rather high bandwidth-per-user use of the Internet anyway. And I should add that I'm a _user_ of streaming audio, to do things like listen to sportcasts and classical music, I'm just not sure what pricing model makes sense for these, or what transaction fees would work. But I'm willing to pay $12.95 to watch a PPV football game on TV, would I pay $2.00 to listen to it on realaudio? Probably. And would I pay that same $12.95 to get a streaming video feed of it when my %$#@ cable company chooses not to carry that game? You betcha! But I think the satellite folks will lock up the video/audio segments of the streaming feed marketplace in the long run, so it may become a nonissue through the evolution of technology. > This is the obvious solution and the only problem with it is that there's > no real infrastructure for it [and everyone will jump up and down and > complain that "the net has always been free"]. Of course the net has NEVER been free, it's just that for most users the big bills go to somebody else. But I remember widespread predictions of the death of the net when the NSF funding dried up, and that didn't happen. > Folks running > mailing lists would have to handle billing and cost-allocation in a means > very much like the way in-print publishers do. Not if a true transaction based transfer of payments system could be set up, like long distance phones. If I run a website or an information repository of some kind I get a fraction of a cent per hit from the user, then the business of PROVIDING information starts to pay for itself, even for some mailing list owners, most of whom aren't in it for the money. The Chicago Tribune is apparently in the process of changing its website, articles more than a day old will cost $1.95. At that price, they'll never get any money from me. But even at a couple of cents per article, I'd be more than willing to continue to browse through their archives daily. > bandwidth limits [else some hacker could run you broke by just running a > bot to access your web page ten million times]. On a recipient-based payment site, let 'em, and when the bill arrives by Brinks truck at the end of the month, that's the end of that! On a sender-based site, some kind of limits would need to be in place, but I believe that web server techology has already addressed this issue somewhat. And since the END USER needs to be identified somehow as part of the billing process, rather than just the IP address, it should be possible to discriminate between a horde of AOL users and a hacker. There are privacy issues to deal with, as well as identification, authentication, and security issues, but I think they are all resolveable. Most are issues that people are trying to solve anyhow, it just requires enough people with a vision of what to do with all the pieces and enough people who have influence to make this the next generation of the net. And there WILL be a next generation, for a variety of reasons, and a generation after that, and in one of these transformations maybe we can make this part of the model. I'm patient, the net isn't going away, nor are the problems this attempts to address. > there'd be a lot of changes in the various details [e.g., unrestricted > mailing lists would probably be a thing of the past: no matter who pays > for it, when someone actually has to *pay* if some bozo sends a megabyte > attachment to a list that goes to a thousand people, folks will want to > have some kind of control] Somebody has to pay now, it just isn't always me or my subscribers. And yes it will require beefing up mailing list software, but that's not a bad idea even under the current pricing model. (And that's a different thread.) > relatively easy to do: every router and gateway already keeps enough > statistics to be able to generate bills for the next person 'downstream'. > Scary/intriguing thoughts, but it ain't gonna happen, more's-the-pity, > and so we're still left with the mess... I'm not so sure it's an impossible task, but it is going to be perceived as an unreasonable one, especially at first. But as someone once said, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. I'm kind of a broad concept guy on this, I have little if any of the technical knowledge or skills to make it actually work, and am probably too old to master all the internal details, too. But I think I see the possibilities here, and will even be in a position in a few weeks to devote some time to structuring the concept to the point where the real technicians can start to think about it. And it's interesting, the last time I floated this idea on this list I was roundly shot down by most everyone else. Either they've given up on me as being a crackpot or just maybe the idea isn't so stupid sounding this time around? Norbert Bollow was willing to set up a forum for discussing this idea last summer, but I was tied up on some other projects and unable to do it justice at the time. It sounds like we've got two or three other people willing to be involved, maybe we can start to get something going this time, at least to the point where we can attract the interest of people who do have enough influence or see the commercial potential here. (The person who figures out how to make it work and lands the contract to run the transfer of payments clearing center could be the next Bill Gates.) A question for those of you who are academics or conference attendees on a regular basis. Is there some technical or academic conference where this might be a viable session topic? -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 2 14:02:02 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA09198; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 13:49:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from maximpact.net ([151.196.219.220]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id NAA09191 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 13:49:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (ken@localhost) by maximpact.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id QAA16056 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 16:47:34 -0500 Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 16:47:33 -0500 (EST) From: Ken Gourlay X-Sender: ken@maximpact.net cc: List Managers List Subject: Re: Spam Police (Give me a break!) In-Reply-To: <19990202085233.A3874@gsp.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Why don't we just use "UBE", since that's self-explanatory, instead of the vague (and trademarked) term "spam"? I've been keeping my mouth shut mainly because I didn't feel my contributions were worth further clutturring your mailboxes, but since I'm doing exactly that now, I'll tell you a story. I've only had one encounter with UBE as a system administrator and Internet resource reseller. One of my clients resold some web space and an e-mail POP box to another gentleman who immediately proceeded to send out several thousand (or more?) unsolicited messages (amusingly with the title "RE: Information you requested"). Neither myself, my client, nor my network service provider, had any idea that this was going on. Yet, when I checked the next day, I had an insulting message on my voicemail, and a couple dozen canned threats, form letters, or simple insults in my mailbox. My client woke up with 400 such messages. Fortunately, we were able to simply deny the genlteman further access to his POP box or web space and the threats stopped. But I was rather distressed, frustrated, and annoyed by the response from the public and their ISPs. It seems that every one of them was fighting spam with spam. I did getone or two polite and well-considered threats, but most of the responses to the bulk e-mail were merely insulting and generally not well-thought out. In many cases they were generic responses to bulk e-mail with a copy of the message they received tacked on to the end. Now, I know that I can't expect people to spend a long time sending a customized formal complaint for each message they receive, but it's frustrating to me the type of responses I got. Personally, I've never had a problem with unsolicited e-mail (less than 5-10 a week usually). the problems I've had are with people complaining (like on a ne-mail list when someone posts something off-topic and I get 50 messages saying "don't post that stuff" and then "don't respond to everyone on the list" and finally "don't tell everyone to stop responding to everyone on the list"). I'm sure I'm not an adequate cross-sample of the net population, but to me it seems that the problem is not spam but rather people's lack of tolerance. ---------------------- Ken Gourlay Chain Communications ---------------------- On Tue, 2 Feb 1999, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > On Mon, Feb 01, 1999 at 02:42:07PM -0500, Bill Casti (System Admin) wrote: > > 3. Spam v. To abuse any network service or tool by for promotional > > purposes. > > This is an incorrect definition: it's overinclusive, because it covers > a broad range of abuses other than UBE, and it's underinclusive, because > it does not cover UBE sent for non-promotional purposes. > > One correct definition is the one I provided yesterday. It is narrowly > written, it is context-free, it excludes questions of motivation, and > it defines spam in terms of action, not in terms of speech, which is a > necessary precursor toward an effective discussion of spam issues. > (Otherwise, the discussion wanders off into irrelevant areas such as > censorship.) > > ---Rsk > Rich Kulawiec > rsk@gsp.org > From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 2 21:23:34 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA14915; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 21:11:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA14908 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 21:11:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA40688 ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 21:20:33 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <19990202085233.A3874@gsp.org> Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 21:16:28 -0800 To: Ken Gourlay From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: Spam Police (Give me a break!) Cc: List Managers List Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 4:47 PM -0500 2/2/99, Ken Gourlay wrote: > Now, I know that I can't expect people to spend a long time sending a > customized formal complaint for each message they receive, but it's > frustrating to me the type of responses I got. > Personally, I've never had > a problem with unsolicited e-mail (less than 5-10 a week usually). I'd guess that if you had more of a UBE problem personally, you'd understand why you get form letters and other less pleasant stuff. I don't *like* getting that stuff, but I understand where most of these folks are coming from. I have been known to send out an occasional "if you really want this fixed, you need to learn how to ask appropriately", but to be honest, it's not worth the time and hassle. As Bill Cosby once said, "Parents don't want justice. They want quiet". As a receiver of UBE, I want quiet. As someone who deals with UBE complaints from the other side, I also want quiet. Which means just resolving issues and not getting into arguments about the message with the messenger. Some folks deal with things less rationally than others -- some with cause, some because they're idiots. Just like real life, where sometimes disagreements get talked out, sometimes people get into fights, and sometimes people get shot over parking places. I don't plan to prove myself ethically right, but unable to say so because I got shot (real or virtually). Life's too short. > someone posts something off-topic and I get 50 messages saying "don't post > that stuff" and then "don't respond to everyone on the list" and finally > "don't tell everyone to stop responding to everyone on the list"). Thats' why all my list rules are very explicit about others not playing topic cop,a nd why I enforce that very heavily. It can upset the folks who pull that stuff, but it also keeps those meta discussions from getting out of control. And as I point out to them, if they want to enforce the rules, they better know the rules, and the first rule is, "don't do that" -- and since it's part of the formal rules, they can whine, but ignorance is no excuse... -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 3 00:22:59 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id AAA16960; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 00:12:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from beat.kiss.fi (beat.kiss.fi [193.65.198.40]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id AAA16949 for ; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 00:12:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost by beat.kiss.fi (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA21746 for ; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 10:18:01 +0200 (EET) X-Authentication-Warning: beat.kiss.fi: tuupola owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 10:18:00 +0200 (EET) From: Mika Tuupola To: List Managers List Subject: Re: Spam Police (Give me a break!) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 2 Feb 1999, Ken Gourlay wrote: > out several thousand (or more?) unsolicited messages (amusingly with the > title "RE: Information you requested"). Neither myself, my client, nor my > network service provider, had any idea that this was going on. Yet, when > I checked the next day, I had an insulting message on my voicemail, and I had a bit same kind of encounter. A spam was sent through a company I used to work for before. I was still mentioned as Technical Contact in ripe data so whois gave my name, address and phone number. This whois data was posted by some antispam activist to one antispam USENET newsgroup suggesting that people should not email the company but to call these phonenumbers. Personally I dont find this any better than spamming itself. -- Mika Tuupola tuupola@appelsiini.net Appelsiini Networks http://www.appelsiini.net/ From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 3 02:37:41 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id CAA19800; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 02:31:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from minbari.netnames.net (minbari.netnames.net [195.40.150.125]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id CAA19790 for ; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 02:30:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from [195.40.150.140] (ivan.netnames.co.uk [195.40.150.140]) by minbari.netnames.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA05562; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 10:34:15 GMT X-Sender: ivan@human.netnames.net Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199902021440.JAA28467@mercury.rev.net> References: <199902012039.OAA32707@celery.tssi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 10:29:19 +0100 To: bernie@fantasyfarm.com From: Ivan Pope Subject: Pay for use? Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >I've been associated with the Internet for a VERY VERY long time, and it >has -never- made sense to me that it has never had a proper cost recovery >model that involved paying for what you use (I lay this problem on NSF's >doorstep; the situation was arguably different for DCA and ARPA, but >there was never any excuse, IMO, for NSF not to put in proper >accountability/accounting). What's interesting is that it'd be >relatively easy to do: every router and gateway already keeps enough >statistics to be able to generate bills for the next person 'downstream'. >Scary/intriguing thoughts, but it ain't gonna happen, more's-the-pity, >and so we're still left with the mess... I think that if there had been a 'pay for all use at the individual point' system, there would be no Internet. There would of course be proprietory networks for business etc and people would still be trying to get us to subscribe to various services and no doubt we would. Of course, every business does pay for its traffic. One of the reasons the Internet has worked so well is because its made us all think very hard about how to pay for the services that we know the Internet should provide. That's not to say there shouldn't be restrictions on some activities, but again this forces us to be creative. But, to say that we should have had 'pay for what you use' from the start misses the point that there would be no Internet if that had been the case. Ivan From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 3 06:36:38 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id GAA24557; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 06:17:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from ctc.swva.net (ctc.swva.net [165.166.123.19]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA24549 for ; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 06:17:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from default (pem-43.swva.net [208.140.224.155]) by ctc.swva.net (8.9.0/8.9.0) with SMTP id JAA20321 for ; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 09:23:09 -0500 Message-Id: <199902031423.JAA20321@ctc.swva.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 09:23:05 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Pay for use? Reply-to: bernie@fantasyfarm.com In-reply-to: References: <199902021440.JAA28467@mercury.rev.net> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 3 Feb 99, at 10:29, Ivan Pope wrote: > >I've been associated with the Internet for a VERY VERY long time, and it > >has -never- made sense to me that it has never had a proper cost recovery > >model that involved paying for what you use (I lay this problem on NSF's > >doorstep; the situation was arguably different for DCA and ARPA, but > >there was never any excuse, IMO, for NSF not to put in proper > >accountability/accounting). What's interesting is that it'd be > >relatively easy to do: every router and gateway already keeps enough > >statistics to be able to generate bills for the next person 'downstream'. > >Scary/intriguing thoughts, but it ain't gonna happen, more's-the-pity, > >and so we're still left with the mess... > > I think that if there had been a 'pay for all use at the individual point' > system, there would be no Internet. It is water long over the dam, but I think you're wrong. If, when NSF started up CSNET [and later set up the NSFnet backbones and the regionals], they had set up a billback scheme, so that schools got billed according to the traffic they generated, I don't think the Internet would have died at all, any more than that schools don't provide phones because the phone company bills them for usage, or that they don't subscribe to journals because they have to pay to receive them. I think it would have worked out just fine, but certainly been different. While the 'billing machinery' was small and a the community relatively closed [since in the end NSF was picking up most of the bills anyway via grants] there would have been ample time to sort out various policy matters [how to pay for mailing lists... how to pay for FTP archives, and then later how to pay for IRC, how to pay for usenet, how to pay for the web, etc]. I don't think the per-transaction cost for normal things would have worked out to being very large [how much can it cost to send a 1K email message on a T3?] and would have only discouraged the applications that were REAL bandwidth hogs and were arguably useless [like the clowns at MIT who walked around with video cams on their heads all day, or the real- time-video of some student's pet iguana]. Even then, schools could get grants to research whateveritwas and just pay for the bandwidth [just as they have to actually budget for, and pay for, every OTHER resource they consume, from pencils to photocopies to trips to conferences] for research they fund. The MIT media lab had to pay for *EVERY*OTHER* resource it consumed, -except- the network communicatiosn bandwith its applications ate; why should that one addition resource/expense have been a show stopper? Places like Amazon and buy.com and friends would trivially pay the minor transaction costs to run their web sites [although they might thing twice about the fancy graphics]. Just think how it would've been if the folk that designed X-windows had been doing so with a mindset of pay-for-the- bandwidth-it-uses rather than "everyone using X will be on a 100meg LAN". Places like NPR [and other 'real audio' providers like ABC, CNBC, etc] routinely *expect* to pay for all of their other communications costs [satellite links, 800-dialins, etc], why would having to pay for their internet services be a make-or-break situation? My guess is that personal accounts would end up being like today's cell- phone accounts are: there woudl be a LOT of different plans, but instead of having just "connect hours" [and sometimes "web page storage"] bundled in, they'd also have some "base bandwidth". For your $19.95 a month, you get 5 megs/month of data transfer or some such. I think it all would have been doable [indeed, just barely, conceivably _still_ could be doable] and I don't think it would've killed the internet at all. The key things that make the internet work are *NOT* [IMO, of course] the huge bandwidth hogs. > ... There would of course be proprietory > networks for business etc and people would still be trying to get us to > subscribe to various services and no doubt we would. I think you've got this wrong. There already *WERE* proprietary networks pre-CIX/pre-regionals. Prodigy, CIS, etc. They were *dieing* to interconnect with the "real net" and I just don't believe that a pay-for- usage model would have deterred them. THey might have some kind of two- tier setup [which, in fact, AOL had for quite a while: AOL-local email was free, but you paid for internet email [but they got it wrong, of course, since you paid to *receive* internet email]]. > Of course, every business does pay for its traffic. One of the reasons the > Internet has worked so well is because its made us all think very hard > about how to pay for the services that we know the Internet should provide. Foo!!!! One of the reasons the internet has worked so well is *just*the*opposite*. Folks approached it with a "bandwidth is free, how can I make a buck" attitude or at the least with a "bandwidth is free, what neat/fun/useless thing can I *do* with that bandwidth" [and so you get InternetPhone and the Fax handlers and folks selling software and discovering that they can save $10 on each item in handling/admin/shipping costs because sending their stuff out over the internet "is free", not to mention iguanacam and friends]. > But, to say that we should have had 'pay for what you use' from the start > misses the point that there would be no Internet if that had been the case. I think we're doomed to disagree on this, but you might expand on why you think that's the case rather than just saying it ex cathedra. I actually think the Internet would have progressed *exactly* as it did, only perhaps a bit more slowly, a bit more deliberately, and with a bit more attention to utility/bandwidthconsumed. The gov't sites would've been on the net anyway, and their internet costs would just be budgeted just like every other cost they incur now [printing, phones, personnel, etc]. the schools certainly would've been on, as I outlined above. Maybe we wouldn't have MUDs, maybe not IRC [or perhaps it woudl've been different], but they'd all be there. The schools that leaned on NSF to start CSNET would certainly not have backed off if they were just given a bill for what they used --- schools already had to deal with that for EVERY other resource they provide for their students and staff, from photocopiers to journal subscriptions to conferences to research projets. BUT: what it woudl have done would have almost certainly made schools be -responsible- for their use, and cut down on the really crazy "let's eat more bandwidth because it is fun and free" hacks they pursued [where iguanacam is probably my favorite exemplar for that kind of thing, and just think that there might not have been as much of a "september effect"] Businesses were *dieing* to get connected and they would surely have connected right up as soon as it became legal. It would have been a bit different of course: more services like the handful of "subscription" services we have now and fewer of the "take all you want for free" ftp/document sites, but even for that many companies would realize that their handling/shipping costs would be so much lower via the Internet they'd probably eat the costs anyway. Certainly the 'retail' places would [the buy.coms, amazons, cdnows, etc]. The only potential question for me is "civilian" presence. Would there be the flood of everyone and their aunt to the Internet? I think the answer is yes: I think that "ISP accounts" would come bundled with more "free" bandwidth than almost any normal user would use and I also don't think [because I have a LOT of faith in the resourcefulness of the business world] that they'd be put off because everything *on* the internet would be so expensive. Maybe they'd have to pay a small fee to "browse the Louvre", but what's the problem with that? And think about some other things: if sysops got *billed* for their net usage, do you think there'd be many open/anonymous servers misconfigured out there? And so in addition to [IMO] doing a lot to cut down on spam, it'd also [again, IMO] have put a BIG crimp in the hacker-attack problems. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 3 18:50:12 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA04222; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 18:23:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA04193 for ; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 18:22:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA37600 ; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 18:32:35 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 18:26:38 -0800 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: More on ListZone. Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Well, I checked ListZone and my lists were still there, so I fired off a second, less-friendly note. Which they answered within the hour with a fairly snotty response. The key piece being: > Your assumption is completely incorrect. We did not ignore your first > request. Your lists are removed from our production database. > > We just have not sent out an e-mail yet to those who, like you, made this > request. I'm sorry that you were too impatient to wait another a week or > two for your acknowledgment. (note of record. I mailed my first request to be removed on the 22nd. today is the third. Just under two weeks. I don't think that's being impatient. I think that's being kind...) > > On another note, it is unfortunate that you do not wish the large number of > internet users that will access our site to be able to find your mailing > lists, which might be of interest to them and help your beleagured company. > I might also add that your lists are in other mailing list databases, > including LISZT.com and Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists > (www.neosoft.com/internet/paml). Boy, these folks REALLY make me want to work with them... My response to their response was: >>Your assumption is completely incorrect. We did not ignore your first >>request. Your lists are removed from our production database. > > I checked five minutes before sending the second message. They were > there at that time. > >>On another note, it is unfortunate that you do not wish the large number of >>internet users that will access our site to be able to find your mailing >>lists, which might be of interest to them and help your beleagured company. >>I might also add that your lists are in other mailing list databases, >>including LISZT.com and Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists >>(www.neosoft.com/internet/paml). > > Yup. They're there because I agreed to put them there. Ask first > next time. And you should get your act together. The first list you > added to your database of mine had been dead for months. The next > two I checked had significant data errors that made the entries > useless. > > If you can't get it right, don't bother doing it. And don't do it > without asking first. > > If you'd gotten at least SOME of the basics right, I wouldn't have > been nearly as unreceptive. But you're doing me no favors here, so > don't feel bad that I don't feel grateful for whatever it is you're > thinking you're doing, because right now, all I know is it's some > unknown group of people who haven't identified themselves who > screwed up their data entry and didn't ask permission. > > Not a good first impression, Andy. So far, no good impression at all. And assuming they aren't lying about removing me from their database, I guess that's it. But just between you and me, I'll go back in a bit and check.... If you haven't gotten satisfaction from these folks, I guess rattling their cages is going to be necessary. My first note was a polite request. My second note was a formal cease and desist. I guess that caught their attention. Still not at all impressed (and no, they haven't responded to my last note, nor do I expect them to. I also still have no clue who they are, what they plan on doing with this date, why the site exists, and how they got the data in the first place, but....) -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 3 19:21:16 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA04787; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:04:50 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id TAA04779 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:04:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from darius.concentric.net (darius.concentric.net [207.155.198.79]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA20715 for ; Sun, 31 Jan 1999 11:57:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from mcfeely.concentric.net (mcfeely [207.155.198.83]) by darius.concentric.net (8.9.1a/(98/12/15 5.12)) id PAA00913; Sun, 31 Jan 1999 15:02:34 -0500 (EST) [1-800-745-2747 The Concentric Network] Received: from wildchild (ts004d37.tul-ok.concentric.net [206.173.148.193]) by mcfeely.concentric.net (8.9.1a) id PAA10235; Sun, 31 Jan 1999 15:02:31 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199901312002.PAA10235@mcfeely.concentric.net> From: "Angus" Organization: Down On DaFarm To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 14:02:53 -0600 Subject: Re: Spam Police Reply-to: angus1@cris.com In-reply-to: <199901310918130950.0077236B@pcc.net> References: <3.0.32.19990131093210.00b61880@mail.netnames.co.uk> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01a) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > It's a very grey area, IMO, and probably scares legit people away from > setting up newsletters, some that I might like to be on. Jeanne, I don't quite understand why people would be scared away from staring newsletter type lists.. all they would have to do, is what many organizations and people have done.. allow people to subscribe if they are interested and unsub if they find they aren't.??? ...Cleo angus1@cris.com From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 3 19:36:36 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA05126; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:15:19 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id TAA05116 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:15:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from triceratops.com (triceratops.com [206.83.162.235]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id WAA15924 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 22:40:05 -0800 (PST) From: johnjohn@triceratops.com Received: (qmail 406 invoked by uid 100); 3 Feb 1999 06:43:24 -0000 Message-ID: <19990202224323.D21737@triceratops.com> Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 22:43:23 -0800 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: Spam Police (Give me a break!) References: <19990202085233.A3874@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: ; from Ken Gourlay on Tue, Feb 02, 1999 at 04:47:33PM -0500 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, Feb 02, 1999 at 04:47:33PM -0500, Ken Gourlay wrote: > Why don't we just use "UBE", since that's self-explanatory, instead of the > vague (and trademarked) term "spam"? Ummm... because that would mean that the topic was still being discussed? -- John White johnjohn@triceratops.com PGP Public Key: http://www.triceratops.com/john/public-key.pgp From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 3 19:50:56 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA04987; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:12:21 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id TAA04977 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:12:19 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA18514 for list-managers; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 13:37:48 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199902012137.NAA18514@honor.greatcircle.com> From: mcb@greatcircle.com (Michael C. Berch) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 13:37:48 +0000 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: list-managers Subject: The spam discussion Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk While the discussion of political and legal issues involving spam have been interesting, I think it should be pointed out that List-Managers is not a general-purpose spam/anti-spam discussion forum. There are a number of such forums on the Net, both mailing lists and newsgroups, and much of the recent discussion really belongs there. Discussions of spam and anti-spam techniques and policies as they affect the management, maintenance, and use of Internet mailing lists are of course welcome. General political/legal/policy arguments about spam should be taken elsewhere. When this issue has arisen in the past, this has been the overwhelming consensus of the list members. (Needless to say, the above remarks are not directed toward any particular individual, faction, or position.) Thanks, -- Michael C. Berch List-Managers list manager mcb@greatcircle.com / mcb@postmodern.com From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 3 20:05:49 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA04860; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:07:16 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id TAA04850 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:07:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.networkone.net (mail.networkone.net [209.144.112.75]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA03989 for ; Sun, 31 Jan 1999 22:36:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from jet (assured-01-106.ln.networkone.net [209.144.118.107]) by mail.networkone.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id WAA16927 for ; Sun, 31 Jan 1999 22:42:40 -0800 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990131224142.01021910@ptw.com> X-Sender: juniper@ptw.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 22:41:42 -0800 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: jet Subject: Re: Spam Police In-Reply-To: <199901312310.PAA23087@honor.greatcircle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 03:10 PM 1/31/99 -0800, you wrote: >I am also still waiting for anyone's definition of 'spam'. >Thanks, >Ivan > I'd much rather hear why netnames has seen fit to send their advertisements, -repeatedly- to several non-commercial mailing lists to which I subscribe. I believe that satisfies any common definition of 'spam', so I doubt any of us need to give any further explanations of your actions. You provide a haven for spam drop-boxes. People, in general, don't like it. You've chosen your profession so, quit whining that some of us disapprove and live with your choice, as we live with our choice to block out some of the domains you house. Ultimately, it's the decision of an ISP's users, whether they wish to stay with an ISP who blocks spam. If they want to receive it, they'll go to an ISP who accepts it, don't you think? From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 3 20:22:14 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA04875; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:07:52 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id TAA04867 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:07:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from ifolk.iserver.net (ifolk.iserver.net [192.41.44.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA12458 for ; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 06:48:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from patroon ([160.43.47.9]) by ifolk.iserver.net (8.8.5) id HAA29057; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 07:53:43 -0700 (MST) From: "Tom Neff" To: Subject: Memo on the spam issue Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 09:53:56 -0500 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2212 (4.71.2419.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.0810.800 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <199902010900.BAA05643@honor.greatcircle.com> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I was away for a week and it was interesting to read this whole debate at a sitting. You have my permission to reproduce what follows anywhere you like, as long as you do it in entirety or at least in context. --------- MEMO ON THE SPAM ISSUE Let me state at the outset that I dislike spam as much as anyone here, and specifically in a List-Managers context, I hate its being sent to my lists -- or to individuals whose addresses have been harvested from my lists. While I agree that an excuse-laden "spammer speak" exists, I notice that what you could call "spambuster speak" is also being perfected by well-meaning folks who have, in effect, declared jihad over the issue, and gird for battle each day, ready to browbeat anyone stupid enough to get into an argument with them on this subject instead of doing something useful like spamming fraudulent stock offers or sorting the sock drawer. For example: "The Internet" is not really threatened by spam, a/k/a unsolicited commercial email (UCE), not in five years or five decades. "The Internet" is just IP traffic using a set of application protocols, of which SMTP (email) uses a small bandwidth fraction, even with spam included. Infrastructure is being built at a breakneck pace to accomodate Web and post-Web traffic whose volume dwarfs that of older protocols, no matter what it's used for. Email gets a free ride, now and for the indefinite future. If it were turned off completely -- and who can say for sure that it won't be -- the Internet would keep on mushrooming. What _is_ threatened by "spam" is the old-fashioned, unspoiled privilege of having a real-world email address that's publicly known and discoverable throughout the Net by any nice person who needs it, and yet when you open your In-box in the morning there's nothing there except friendly personal and business messages from people you actually want to correspond with. As the ALL IN THE FAMILY theme went, "Those were the days." (Of course those really _weren't_ the days, because most people didn't have email yet as they do now - it was basically an interesting and promising toy, unless you were lucky enough to work in one of the little academic-industrial circles where the Net was born. I don't begrudge those folks their good fortune, but we should realize the limitations of the model they worked under.) When I go to my US Postal Service mailbox in the morning, probably 60% of what's there is unsolicited, and another 20% is sheer boilerplate (oh great, another J.Jill catalog, why did we ever order that turtleneck?). Even the stuff I "expect" seems to be mostly waste paper (Reaching Out To You: A Colorful Monthly Newletter From Your Electric Company -- GAAACK!); actual personal or business mail from people I know would be lucky to break the two-percent mark, except at Christmas - and even those are often xeroxed "family newsletters" lately. But I don't declare war over it -- why not? Because (1) postal commerce is REGULATED. I know I won't get HOT STEAMY PORN NOW brochures, because an expensive army of postal cops sees to it; and (2) I'm not PAYING to receive mail by the piece or the pound. More junk mail from Pennysaver and Hold Everything just means I don't have to buy starter logs for the fireplace. By comparison, Internet commerce is unregulated; and while I don't like listening to sleazeball operators defend "free speach[sic]" any more than the next person, I worry about what babies we would end up throwing out with their bathwater. As any of us list managers who have received silly "No relaying, die spammer" Sendmail error messages from some overzealous net.paranoid's site (in response to a perfectly good Digest or membership probe) can attest, one person's Useful Content can all too easily look like another person's UCE Spam when the suspicion level rises high enough. Here's a question: if the Net were so tightly regulated that spammers were automatically busted by an expensive army of content cops, could YOU get anything useful done without wallowing in red tape and cautious triple-checks of every word you said? More to the point, should the small fraction who answer that question today with a light-hearted "yes, no problem!" - because for them the Net basically still IS a toy - automatically have the right to call the shots? I'm just asking. If the answer's yes, then email ultimately remains a toy -- and the market will find another protocol. If the answer's no, then we need some solutions. The argument that users shouldn't have to pay extra to download unsolicited junk email is more persuasive, but why should it apply just to commercial messages? I shouldn't have to pay to download 15K re-quoted Digests that bounced off some yokel's misconfigured mailer. I shouldn't have to pay to download urban-legend FCC petitions or "I know this is off topic but you just have to laugh at this one!" mailroom humor that's chain-forwarded from clueless semi-strangers who happen to have my address. I shouldn't have to pay for any email I didn't specifically expect, request, or pre-authorize. But who IS going to pay for it - Oprah Winfrey? A slush fund at MAE-EAST? Until and unless we adopt some kind of sender-pays model that supports preauthorized COD for subscribing users, we are always going to have this problem. And I'm not sure that kind of model will ever happen. More likely, Web-induced bandwidth explosion is going to finesse the issue by making it so cheap to get ANY amount of mail, solicited or otherwise, that the postal-mailbox analogy once again applies: you may grumble at the junk, but it's not impoverishing you. In the meantime, we are in a chaotic interregnum with a few recognizable features, and a few things we can do. One, users do have some options to protect themselves against spam, like publishing a Bigfoot or Pobox address and letting those services do the filtering. Unfortunately, (a) configuring this properly with a garden variety ISP like Netcom or AOL or MSN is just tricky enough to be out of the reach of most users; (b) the well-meaning cabal of net demigods who call the email shots today didn't invent that approach, don't use it themselves, and generally hold it in dim regard; and (c) it is actually subject to occasional abuse by hit-and-run spammers, which means that your own legitimate stuff may stop being delivered. There are also spam protections in recent versions of Sendmail, but this is an arms race and users seldom have any choices over how it's being waged in their name. Two, there is a code of conduct for ISP's, partly self propelled but also partly "enforced" by a volunteer strike force of net.cops who watch for abuse. Vanity domain forwarders (like our friend at NetNames) should remember that virtual hosting is still hosting: if someone uses your machines to forward spam mail OR spam responses, you are abetting spam and you should stop it lest you put your legitimate customers at risk. Arguing about it here will do no good whatsoever; the domain will be added to the watch lists and undoing it will take months. Having said this, I must admit (and the soldiers of the jihad should realize) that it's MUCH harder to catch a receive-side drop box than a send-side spam forwarder. You end up playing fireman to every user's complaint -- usually after the fact and after the damage has been done. Hardened spammers hit once and move on. What can we do? (1) Create more resources for users, like help on installing spam protection and info on where to report abuse. Teach rather than browbeat. (2) Create more resources for list managers and net admins to share, like registries of legitimate list publishing points so that our distribution can survive as the barriers keep rising, and libraries of configuration tricks and explanatory message texts for use in handling spam/noise issues. Beat your swords into FAQ files. (3) Pressure companies to incorporate flexible spam protection in their own products - and to prevent unnecessary junk email on their own services. (One example is warranty registrations and free-trial surveys that bury a sneaky "Please send me junk mail" checkbox down at the bottom, turned ON by default, and sometimes even RE-enabled after you turned it off, when you have to correct an entry before submitting!) (4) Read more, learn more, think more, reinvent the wheel less, re-argue the flat earth less, and just generally behave like good people when we can. Life's too short. As I say, pass this on at will. Happy Groundhog Day. -- Tom Neff tneff@panix.com From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 3 21:36:01 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA06626; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 21:08:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA06613 for ; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 21:08:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA10684; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 23:14:28 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id XAA19692; Wed, 3 Feb 1999 23:14:26 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902040514.XAA19692@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: Pay for use? To: bernie@fantasyfarm.com Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 23:14:26 -0600 (CST) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <199902031423.JAA20321@ctc.swva.net> from "Bernie Cosell" at Feb 3, 99 09:23:05 am Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Bernie, thanks for a much better written synopsis of Internet history and alternate theories of reality than I could have come up with on my own. > Places like Amazon and buy.com and friends would trivially pay the minor > transaction costs to run their web sites [although they might thing twice > about the fancy graphics]. If anything, I think a transaction pricing model might have sped up the development of commercial traffic on the net, and the acceptable use guidelines might have gotten modified quicker, though perhaps it wasn't large-scale viable until the killer app, the web, came along. > Businesses were *dieing* to get connected and they would surely have > connected right up as soon as it became legal. Which might have happened a bit faster, since the backbones would have seen commercial transaction billing as a revenue source. > And think about some other things: if sysops got *billed* for their net > usage, do you think there'd be many open/anonymous servers misconfigured > out there? And so in addition to [IMO] doing a lot to cut down on spam, > it'd also [again, IMO] have put a BIG crimp in the hacker-attack > problems. And just because it's always been that way (even if it hasn't, really), that's no reason to say that it must forever stay that way. The one lesson we never seem to learn in the computer industry is that limits of any kind exist mostly to be exceeded or made archaic, whether that be 640K memory, the IP address space, or in this case the pricing model. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 4 10:00:34 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA19665; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:41:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from dns.cyberlink.ch (dns.cyberlink.ch [193.246.253.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA19658 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:41:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from quill.thinkcoach.com (gate6-65.cyberlink.ch [212.55.195.65]) by dns.cyberlink.ch (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA13151 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 18:47:36 +0100 Received: (from norbert@localhost) by quill.thinkcoach.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA03857; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 18:46:55 +0100 Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 18:46:55 +0100 Message-Id: <199902041746.SAA03857@quill.thinkcoach.com> From: Norbert Bollow Prefer-Language: de, en, fr To: list-managers@greatcircle.com In-reply-to: <199902041547.QAA03402@quill.thinkcoach.com> (message from Michael C. Berch on Mon, 1 Feb 1999 13:37:48 -0800) Subject: Re: The spam discussion References: <199902012137.NAA18514@honor.greatcircle.com> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Michael C. Berch , the List-Managers list manager wrote: > There are a number of such forums on the Net, both mailing lists and > newsgroups, and much of the recent discussion really belongs there. Yes... last time this topic came up I was the one who suggested this, and I created a mailing list named 'rationet' for discussing this idea of rationally designing a new suite of protocols which would allow every network service to be associated with an exchange of some "virtual money". Unfortunately the discussion died intead of moving to the new list. Maybe we'll have better luck this time? Anyone who is interested in discussing this further, please send a command 'subscribe rationet' to majordomo@thinkcoach.com - please help to keep the discussion alive :) -- Norbert. From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 4 10:42:24 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA19691; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:43:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from minbari.netnames.net (minbari.netnames.net [195.40.150.125]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA19683 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:43:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from ivan3.netnames.co.uk (ivan3.netnames.co.uk [195.40.150.142]) by minbari.netnames.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id RAA15634 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 17:46:55 GMT Message-Id: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> X-Sender: nnuk-ip@mail.netnames.co.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 17:39:49 +0000 To: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com From: Ivan Pope Subject: List tool question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk If anyone still wants to talk to me after that Spam thing that just happened, I have a question. It's really why I joined this list in the first place. We all know that the tools available to us for running and managing lists are inadequate. Spam is just one facet of this. I have always found the absoluteness of lists a pain: what I mean by this is the existence of lots of semi-parallel lists on subjects that cross over a lot. I don't really want to belong to all of them, but cross posting is an art, not a science. And then there are those times when lists go all pear shaped and I'd rather not be on them (spam debates anyone?). But I'm nervous to sign off in case I don't get back on again (memory lapse etc). And then there is the knowledge that there are probably a lot of people out there who I would like to see on this list, but I don't know how to invite them (or even who they are, and its not my list even). All in all, I think we are missing a large part of the potential of the Internet because our tools are primitive. So what tools would you like to see added to mailing lists? How do you see mailling lists evolving? Where do we go from here? Will lists merge with other forms (eGroups for example has done something to evolve the form, if not much). I ask these questions because its been bugging me for a few years now and I want to think about solutions. Thanks in advance for your input. Ivan From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 4 18:56:44 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA25985; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 18:40:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from isns2.shasta.com (isns2.shasta.com [207.16.64.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id SAA25976 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 18:40:23 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 24699 invoked from network); 5 Feb 1999 03:42:58 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO J) (207.16.67.12) by mail.shasta.com with SMTP; 5 Feb 1999 03:42:58 -0000 Message-ID: <000c01be50b2$616d33e0$064310cf@J.R.Molloy> Reply-To: "J. R. Molloy" From: "J. R. Molloy" To: , "Ivan Pope" Subject: Re: List tool question Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 18:50:25 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Ivan Pope wrote, >All in all, I think we are missing a large part of the potential of the >Internet because our tools are primitive. Do inferior craftsmen blame their tools? The Internet misses a large part of our potential when we fail to create sufficiently compelling content. Cheers, J. R. Molloy ><((((º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><((((º>¸. ·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·..><((((º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><((((º> Evolution of Complex Adaptive Systems: hyperplexity-subscribe@onelist.com ·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·..><((((º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><((((º> ><((((º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><((((º>¸. From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 4 22:24:39 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA28147; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:48:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA28140 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:48:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA39446 ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:59:06 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:54:58 -0800 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: A bit of a gloat. Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Excuse me for a bit of a gloat, but I hit a nice milestone today. The number of subscriptions on the lists I operate broke one million today. Which is truly fun, since I remember when there weren't a million people on the net, worldwide. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 4 22:40:57 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA28138; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:48:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from isns2.shasta.com (isns2.shasta.com [207.16.64.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id VAA28131 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:48:27 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 13667 invoked from network); 5 Feb 1999 06:51:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO J) (207.16.67.11) by mail.shasta.com with SMTP; 5 Feb 1999 06:51:14 -0000 Message-ID: <000601be50cc$aee8dec0$0b4310cf@J.R.Molloy> Reply-To: "J. R. Molloy" From: "J. R. Molloy" To: Subject: Re: List tool question Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:58:50 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Chuq Von Rospach wrote, >The big problem is, we built hammers years ago, and put a lot of >effort into making really good hammers. But we're just now doing the >same for screwdrivers and table saws, so we tend to use the hammer >for everything, even if other technologies make more sense. "other technologies"? Name three. --J. R. From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 4 22:58:58 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA27949; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:26:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA27942 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:26:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA08722 ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:36:45 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <000c01be50b2$616d33e0$064310cf@J.R.Molloy> Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:27:07 -0800 To: "J. R. Molloy" , , "Ivan Pope" From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Do inferior craftsmen blame their tools? The Internet misses a large part of > our potential when we fail to create sufficiently compelling content. On the other hand, if all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail. Mailing lists are a really nice hammer, but not everything lends itself to being a nail. For many years, we've used mail lists to distribute information because mailing lists were what we had. Lists are very good for some things, but that doesn't mean they're appropriate for all things. The big problem is, we built hammers years ago, and put a lot of effort into making really good hammers. But we're just now doing the same for screwdrivers and table saws, so we tend to use the hammer for everything, even if other technologies make more sense. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 4 23:02:08 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA28156; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:49:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA28149 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:49:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA33330 ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:59:33 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:52:55 -0800 To: Ivan Pope , list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 5:39 PM +0000 2/4/99, Ivan Pope wrote: > I have always found the > absoluteness of lists a pain: what I mean by this is the existence of lots > of semi-parallel lists on subjects that cross over a lot. I don't really > want to belong to all of them, but cross posting is an art, not a science. This is in reality a feature, not a bug. The parallel aspect of lists is wonderful, because of its encouragement of diversity. Imagine living in a city iwth one bar, where both the bikers and the sports fans have to live together (along with the gays, the singles, the drunks, the cops, and everyone else). How well does that work? Not very. Instead, even though all of these bars are parallel, in that they serve the same basic purpose (people go there to drink and socialize), nobody suggests we should do away with all those bars, nor do people feel they should be in all of the bars, in case they miss a conversation they might want to be part of. One of the realities of the internet you have to learn to deal with is that there are going to be discussions going on you won't run into, just like the discussions going on in bars around the city. the positive of the Net is that you literally CAN be in dozens of "bars" at once -- then the trick comes to finding time to soaking up all of the conversations (and dumping the ones you don't care of). Rather than complain about the sheer number of conversations, since that's tilting at windmills, rejoice in it, and use it to your advantage -- find those bars that you find most interesting adn useful, stay in those, and jetison the rest. > So what tools would you like to see added to mailing lists? How do you see > mailling lists evolving? Where do we go from here? First, much of what goes on as far as discussion lists is moving to the web, and will continue moving to the web. But second, the web is going to suck up mailing lists as it does. I've spent a good chunk of time on this with a web-forum vendor, and there's some really nice web-discussion/email integration over the horizon. If it works the way we expect it will, it's gonna be fun. Stay tuned, since I can't talk about details yet. But if you don't like how mailing lists work, web forums are the next step forward. But be aware, it won't solve your basic complaint -- there are still going to be dozens of bars you wish you had time to spend time in. But that diversity is a good thing, not a bad thing. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 4 23:13:46 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA28702; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 22:37:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from kachina.jetcafe.org (kachina.jetcafe.org [205.147.43.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA28695 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 22:37:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from ee-nt (eckert@netcom11.netcom.com [192.100.81.121]) by kachina.jetcafe.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id WAA17817; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 22:44:13 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990204215700.00a8dc80@pop.climber.org> X-Sender: eckert@pop.climber.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 21:57:00 -0800 To: Ivan Pope From: SRE Subject: Re: List tool question Cc: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At last, something useful. At 05:39 PM 2/4/99 +0000, Ivan Pope wrote: >So what tools would you like to see added to mailing lists? How do you see >mailling lists evolving? Where do we go from here? I'd like to see more done with sublists and superlists. Listserv has the idea of "topics", that allow people to pre-filter list traffic at the server (but only if posters agree to use topics properly). Anyone with a capable mail client can do similar filtering (based on subject line syntax) at the receiving end but that's less efficient. Anyway, topics to pre-filter msgs aren't enough. What you really need is a way to logically group recipients without the artificial boundary of who is on which list. Here's a real example: I run Climber.Org, which currently has over 20 email lists and over 700 people subscribed (some to many lists). How do I send a message to all 700 people? If I send to all the lists, some people will get 10 copies. I'll get 22 copies. Ouch. In this case I need a super-list that avoids duplicates if you are on more than one list to which I send the message. With 22 lists, it's not reasonable to pre-determine all possible combinations... with fewer lists it would be possible to have a periodic update job that created combo lists, but then how would you determine when a post should go to which list? The best way would be to have list management software "notice" the set of lists being copied, and auto-create the combo list on the fly. Even if you had THAT, how would you catch the posts that are sent to each list one at a time instead of with a long CC or TO list? If anyone has implemented anything CLOSE to what I described, I'd love to hear about it. SRE mailto:eckert@climber.org | http://www.climber.org/eckert/ Info on peak climbing email lists mailto:info@climber.org Before email, five carbon copies were the maximum extension of anybody's ego. From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 02:46:15 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id CAA03123; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 02:24:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from minbari.netnames.net (minbari.netnames.net [195.40.150.125]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id CAA03116 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 02:23:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from [195.40.150.140] (ivan.netnames.co.uk [195.40.150.140]) by minbari.netnames.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA05392; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:27:10 GMT X-Sender: ivan@human.netnames.net Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:26:46 +0100 To: Chuq Von Rospach From: Ivan Pope Subject: Re: List tool question Cc: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >At 5:39 PM +0000 2/4/99, Ivan Pope wrote: ... the existence of lots >> of semi-parallel lists on subjects that cross over a lot. I don't really >> want to belong to all of them, but cross posting is an art, not a science. > >This is in reality a feature, not a bug. The parallel aspect of lists >is wonderful, because of its encouragement of diversity. > >Imagine living in a city iwth one bar, >One of the realities of the internet you have to learn to deal with >is that there are going to be discussions going on you won't run >into, >Rather >than complain about the sheer number of conversations, since that's >tilting at windmills, rejoice in it, and use it to your advantage -- >find those bars that you find most interesting adn useful, stay in >those, and jetison the rest. I'm not complaining and I do rejoice in the number of conversations. If anything, I want to encourage more. But - it is often difficult to get the real value from lists because of their rather blunt nature. I have often seen very interesting people leave lists in disgust because they don't want to deal with the noise. I think my issue was with the rather blunt nature of lists - one is either on them or off them. This is a bit different to bars where you can drift around, pick up on conversations, move from place to place. Anyway, I don't like to use real world analogies when talking about the Internet - its such a potentially different environment that it seems we should try to invent new tools. Of course, there are many perfectly fine mailing lists and then there are lists that are like panning for gold. >But if you don't like how mailing lists work, web forums are the next >step forward. But be aware, it won't solve your basic complaint -- >there are still going to be dozens of bars you wish you had time to >spend time in. But that diversity is a good thing, not a bad thing. I think my basic complaint is that we can't take advantage of the diversity out there without killing ourselves with traffic noise in the attempt. Of course moving the same concepts to the Web isn't going to solve that. I think we need much more subtle tools to do that. I was trying to think out loud about what they might be. Cheers, Ivan Ivan Pope ivan@netnames.com NETNAMES * The INTERNATIONAL DOMAIN NAME REGISTRY http://www.netnames.com UK Freephone 0800 269049 180-182 Tottenham Court Road London W1P 9LE UK +44 171 291 3900 +44 171 291 3939 Fax It's not about building a better mousetrap, it's about redefining the mouse. From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 08:19:02 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id HAA09042; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 07:53:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from kirkwood.hoosier.net (kirkwood.hoosier.net [206.106.64.12]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA09035 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 07:53:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (lev@localhost) by kirkwood.hoosier.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA07148; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:56:38 -0500 Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:56:38 -0500 (EST) From: P Kayak X-Sender: lev@kirkwood.hoosier.net To: Ivan Pope cc: Chuq Von Rospach , list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List tool question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, 5 Feb 1999, Ivan Pope wrote: > >At 5:39 PM +0000 2/4/99, Ivan Pope wrote: > I think my issue was with the rather blunt nature of lists - one is either > on them or off them. This is a bit different to bars where you can drift > around, pick up on conversations, move from place to place. Newsgroups, for some of us, are the not so hard-edge option. > > >But if you don't like how mailing lists work, web forums are the next > >step forward. But > >there are still going to be dozens of bars you wish... This may be misleading. It steers us away from established, tradition-or-habit/known channels. A friend of mine - at least a couple years ago - was participating in large chat groups. (He is a teacher of electronics & finishing an advanced degree in sociology.) Was asking me about telephone lines - since his connection out in the countryside was weaker than mine. His group, besides exchanging typed commments and file file transfers, was starting to want to pick up a telephone and call someone - while modem contact was maintained. Of course this is not in the direction of multi-conversations in a bar, where it is easy to turn off and leave - but multiconversationss at one table. > I think my basic complaint is that we can't take advantage of the diversity > out there without killing ourselves with traffic noise in the attempt. > Of course moving the same concepts to the Web isn't going to solve that. I > think we need much more subtle tools to do that. I was trying to think out > loud about what they might be. I agree noise is a serious concern. And I enjoy hearing you say subtle tools could be to get through it. ('Get through' can be a ham radio phrase.) > Cheers, > Ivan > The terse is sometimes poetic. - Paul To have doubted one's first principles is the mark of a civilized man. : - Oliver Wendell Holmes : :....................................................................: From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 09:17:04 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA09802; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:43:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.america.net (smtp.america.net [199.170.121.14]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA09786 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:43:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from Margy (max1-9.shoreham.net [208.144.253.11]) by smtp.america.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id LAA27990 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 11:49:55 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4.1.19990205112003.00b46750@wingate> X-Sender: margy@wingate X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 11:24:34 -0500 To: From: Margaret Levine Young Subject: Re: List tool question In-Reply-To: <000c01be50b2$616d33e0$064310cf@J.R.Molloy> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Ivan Pope wrote, >All in all, I think we are missing a large part of the potential of the >Internet because our tools are primitive. I agree! I realized a few months ago that I want an e-mail program that will display by mailing list messages in a very different way that my personal messages. I want to be able to track who posts on what topics, who posts how often, who I've decided to ignore, who I particularly like, etc. Yes, yes, I know that Usenet newsreaders have most of those features, and that I can hack together such an e-mail program with UNIX tools, but that's not the point. If programs were widely available that were designed to make it easy to participate in an e-mail-based discussion -- supporting the user's efforts to keep track of who's who and what we're talking about -- mailing lists would be far more useful. Margy Levine Young Coauthor of "The Internet For Dummies," 5th Ed. and "Windows 98: The Complete Reference" Looking for kids' videos? Check out From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 09:17:04 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA09801; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:43:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.america.net (smtp.america.net [199.170.121.14]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA09788 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:43:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from Margy (max1-9.shoreham.net [208.144.253.11]) by smtp.america.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id LAA27993 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 11:49:58 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4.1.19990205112629.00b4b3d0@wingate> X-Sender: margy@wingate X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 11:28:53 -0500 To: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com From: Margaret Levine Young Subject: Re: List tool question In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > So what tools would you like to see added to mailing lists? How do you see > mailling lists evolving? Where do we go from here? I'd love to see much better tools (probably web-based) for list managers and site managers. As a site manager, I'd like to be able to see current and historical statistics for all the lists, be flagged when a list manager changes certain list settings, be flagged when lists fall below set thresholds of subscribers and/or traffic, and be able to ask questions like "Which lists are moderated?" or "Which lists does John Smith manage?" easily. Margy Levine Young Coauthor of "The Internet For Dummies," 5th Ed. and "Windows 98: The Complete Reference" Looking for kids' videos? Check out From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 09:34:20 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA10175; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 09:02:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA10168 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 09:02:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA36422 ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 09:12:33 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:42:44 -0800 To: Ivan Pope , Chuq Von Rospach From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Cc: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 10:26 AM +0100 2/5/99, Ivan Pope wrote: > But - it is often difficult to get the > real value from lists because of their rather blunt nature. I have often > seen very interesting people leave lists in disgust because they don't want > to deal with the noise. What you consider blunt others would consider energized. The best lists are ones with strong character and personalities. That's because the best lists have people who are interested in them and involved in them. And that implies an energy level. And when you have people with strong interest and feelings in a subject, there are going to be disagreements. And disagreements get blunt. Lists without aspects of this bluntness tend to be rather boring, and to be honest, don't tend to have a lot of interesting material. To stick to my bar analogy and see if I can push it to a level of silliness way beyond it deserves, what you're asking for is the excitement of a biker bar, but you're demanding the bikers be polite in your company. Life just doesn't work that way. The best information comes from people with the knowledge of the subject, and with that knowledge comes a opinion and attitude. And trust me, you can't get the knowledge without getting some of the opinion and attitude that comes with it. You also get people with strong opinions and no knowledge, but that's also part of real life. Just spend time in a sports bar and you'll see them all over the place. > Anyway, I don't like to use real world analogies when talking about the > Internet That's too bad. Because the internet IS part of the real world, and comparing on-line paradigms to real world ones helps us understand them. Both by how the comparison works and where it fails. > Of course, there are many perfectly fine mailing lists and then there are > lists that are like panning for gold. And isn't that just like the real world? > I think my basic complaint is that we can't take advantage of the diversity > out there without killing ourselves with traffic noise in the attempt. Sure you can. But I think you're looking in the wrong place. you're looking at server technologies to solve your problem. What you really want is an intelligent client agent to sift through this and give you the parts you want. No server will solve that -- every user will want their own version of it. Customized agents were hot three or four years ago, but faded, because they are amazingly tough to build well (and you can't put clickads on them). But go take a look at Apple's Sherlock as one small step in that direction. It's truly cool. One long term system I'm working on is a way to allow us to mass-distribute information customized on a per-user basis. You'll NEVER do that via mail lists, but once other technologies mature we'll be able to do it. But even THAt doesn't solve your problem on a global scale. you'll still need client technologies both to filter and sift and evaluate, but also to go searching for information sources to add to the input stream for your filters. (and none of this is new. Go read Shockwave Rider, published back in 1976, and see just how close he got...) > Of course moving the same concepts to the Web isn't going to solve that. I > think we need much more subtle tools to do that. I was trying to think out > loud about what they might be. You want an electronic personal secretary, who reads your inbox, throws out the junk mail, and files everything else in mailboxes marked "urgent", "useful" and "I don't know".... -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 09:48:26 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA10467; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 09:29:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.ect.uce.ac.uk (mail.ect.uce.ac.uk [193.60.138.236]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA10460 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 09:29:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from ect.uce.ac.uk [193.60.136.24] by mail.ect.uce.ac.uk with Novonyx SMTP Server $Revision: 1.76 $; Fri, 05 Feb 1999 17:20:11 +0000 (BST) Message-ID: <36BB2CE6.AF681D48@ect.uce.ac.uk> Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 17:39:50 +0000 From: Richard Kay Organization: UCE X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (WinNT; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ivan Pope CC: Chuq Von Rospach , list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List tool question References: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > I think my basic complaint is that we can't take advantage of the > diversity > out there without killing ourselves with traffic noise in the attempt. > Of course moving the same concepts to the Web isn't going to solve > that. I > think we need much more subtle tools to do that. I was trying to > think out > loud about what they might be. > I heard of a proprietary discussion list server used internally within ICL to discuss tech support with an interesting feature in this connection. Everyone on the list gets to see the first posting for a new thread and if they are interesed in this registers the fact with the list server by asking to have further messages in that thread sent to them. Possibly this could be handled by forwarding an empty message with same or similar (within certain bounds) subject line to the listserver. So if the list generates say 10 new threads a day, recipients need only receive 10 messages - plus followups to the threads which interest them. Usefulness of this protocol would depend upon those continueing a thread renaming it when the topic discussed diverges sufficiently to justify a new named thread. Richard Kay From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 10:24:33 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA11077; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:03:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA11070 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:03:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA33090 ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:12:03 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <000601be50cc$aee8dec0$0b4310cf@J.R.Molloy> Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:49:41 -0800 To: "J. R. Molloy" , From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 9:58 PM -0800 2/4/99, J. R. Molloy wrote: >>effort into making really good hammers. But we're just now doing the >>same for screwdrivers and table saws, so we tend to use the hammer >>for everything, even if other technologies make more sense. > > "other technologies"? Name three. Web-based discussion forums. Real-time chat. Whether web based or whatever. Streaming audio. Streaming video. That's off the top of my head. Some of these, like web forums, are now maturing. Some, like the streaming technologies, are just starting to be looked at seriously. I could probably toss a few more in there if I stopped to think about it for a while, but what the heck. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 12:48:38 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA12878; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 12:00:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from maximpact.net ([151.196.219.220]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA12869 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 12:00:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (ken@localhost) by maximpact.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA14457; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 14:58:43 -0500 Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 14:58:43 -0500 (EST) From: Ken Gourlay X-Sender: ken@maximpact.net To: "J. R. Molloy" cc: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List tool question In-Reply-To: <000601be50cc$aee8dec0$0b4310cf@J.R.Molloy> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Yes, J. R., there are other technologies besides mailing lists. web pages web-based discussion boards search databases FAQ sheets FTP sites chat rooms and those are only some of the well-developed technoligies. The really exciting stuff comes in when you look at technologies that haven't been used much, or technologies that haven't been used at all. Consider, for example, the following sorts of questions: what would it be like if subscribers could search or filter list content to get only the information they want, rather than wading through thousands of irrelevent messages? How could we combine real-time chat rooms with ongoing list discussions, and with what benefits? How can we use "superlists" and "sublists" to make communication with the right people easier and more effective? How can web technologies benefit online discussions more? How might an interactive and dynamic FAQ sheet work? With the speed that technology changes, it seems short-sighted at best to assume that any one technology is the best for any particular task. ---------------------- Ken Gourlay Chain Communications ---------------------- On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, J. R. Molloy wrote: > > Chuq Von Rospach wrote, > >The big problem is, we built hammers years ago, and put a lot of > >effort into making really good hammers. But we're just now doing the > >same for screwdrivers and table saws, so we tend to use the hammer > >for everything, even if other technologies make more sense. > > "other technologies"? Name three. > > --J. R. > From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 17:59:07 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA16642; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 16:14:23 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id QAA16632 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 16:14:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from exchange.di.com (exchange.di.com [209.64.54.3]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA29558 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 23:24:08 -0800 (PST) Received: by exchange.di.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2232.9) id <1HS6DF4H>; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 23:30:32 -0800 Message-ID: From: Todd Day To: "'List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM'" Subject: flat rate world Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 23:30:31 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2232.9) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk If SPAM is the penalty I have to live with for living in a "flat rate" world, I'll take it. Flat rates are what allow some of the coolest websites out there to ride invisibly on the coattails of corporate and educational sites. Flat rates are what allow the "little guys" to reach a wide audience. Long distance is just 3-5 years from going to a flat rate system. Hell, it has kinda sorta happened already. Why take the net in the opposite direction, just to stop SPAMmers? -todd- From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 18:08:32 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA16404; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 16:09:10 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id QAA16396 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 16:09:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from FSM-1.PICA.ARMY.MIL (fsm-1.pica.army.mil [129.139.96.87]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id FAA16000 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 05:17:35 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 99 8:26:56 EST From: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: A viral issue for you to be aware of Organization: SADARM SPICE Team, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ Message-ID: <9902040826.aa04448@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk One of my lists got hit yesterday by the so-called Win32/Ska.A worm . This sucker slipped by our attachment filters because it replicates by uuencoding itself and making that uuencoded (ie, text file) the BODY of an outgoing mail msg. No MIME or other info is included with it. You can filter on the header line it adds: X-Spanska: YES Or on the beginning of the uuencoded data, which reads: begin 644 (I'm filtering, in majordomo, on /^begin 6/i) Just FYI... Tom Coradeschi, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer http://k-whiner.pica.army.mil/info-labview/info-labview.html From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 18:22:41 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA16498; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 16:11:24 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id QAA16488 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 16:11:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from darius.concentric.net (darius.concentric.net [207.155.198.79]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id PAA24118 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 15:55:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from mcfeely.concentric.net (mcfeely [207.155.198.83]) by darius.concentric.net (8.9.1a/(98/12/15 5.12)) id TAA17233; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 19:01:45 -0500 (EST) [1-800-745-2747 The Concentric Network] Received: from wildchild (ts002d18.tul-ok.concentric.net [206.173.148.78]) by mcfeely.concentric.net (8.9.1a) id TAA28165; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 19:01:42 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199902050001.TAA28165@mcfeely.concentric.net> From: "Angus" Organization: Down On DaFarm To: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 18:02:08 -0600 Subject: Re: List tool question Reply-to: angus1@cris.com In-reply-to: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01a) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > managing lists are inadequate. Spam is just one facet of this. I have > always found the absoluteness of lists a pain: what I mean by this is the I've had so little spam come via the lists I own or subscribe too.. that for me, anyway, it's not a problem. I think Listserv seems to offer some pretty good protections from that... or as good as it can get on the net... and of course making use of those protections are up to the listowner and the subscribers too I guess. Spam I get in spades from web access harvesting and from those #$#(&% that harvest web pages themselves ... but in all these years.. I can easily count on one hand I think.. the spam I've gotten because of email lists. ...Cleo angus1@cris.com From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 18:38:01 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA16653; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 16:14:34 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id QAA16645 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 16:14:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from exchange.di.com (exchange.di.com [209.64.54.3]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id AAA00275 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 00:12:55 -0800 (PST) Received: by exchange.di.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2232.9) id <1HS6DF4Z>; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 00:19:20 -0800 Message-ID: From: Todd Day To: "'List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM'" Subject: RE: flat rate world Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 00:19:19 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2232.9) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk BUT: what it woudl have done would have almost certainly made schools be -responsible- for their use, and cut down on the really crazy "let's eat more bandwidth because it is fun and free" hacks they pursued [where iguanacam is probably my favorite exemplar for that kind of thing, and just think that there might not have been as much of a "september effect"] Sorry for my previous post that was clearly off topic. I'll try to tie it in here. How many of us list managers would run their lists if they had to pay for every message they sent? I know I wouldn't. I would have to actually start running a business, billing everyone on my list for receiving the message so I could recover my costs. Then I might not feel like letting just anyone browse my list archives for free, either. I don't see this economic model being very compatible with advancing a powerful form of communication. When you don't have to worry about paying for every letter you type, you are much more likely to express yourself better and more completely and in ways you might not have thought about before. It is my firm belief that the vast amount of bandwidth available on tap to all comers is what makes the Internet such an exciting communications device in the first place. -todd- From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 19:15:39 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA18318; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 18:34:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA18311 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 18:34:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA15428 ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 18:43:55 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <000601be50cc$aee8dec0$0b4310cf@J.R.Molloy> Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 18:18:53 -0800 To: Ken Gourlay , "J. R. Molloy" From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Cc: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 2:58 PM -0500 2/5/99, Ken Gourlay wrote: > Yes, J. R., there are other technologies besides mailing lists. gopher! we forgot gopher sites! (ducking) > FAQ sheets Forgot that, and it's an important one. It is, likely, THE KEY way to generate and propogate knowledge bases over time. List experts come, babble, and burn out, but as long as you can keep the FAQ updated, you can survive having your resident know-it-all get married and decide to have a life.... >> >The big problem is, we built hammers years ago, and put a lot of >> >effort into making really good hammers. But we're just now doing the >> >same for screwdrivers and table saws, so we tend to use the hammer >> >for everything, even if other technologies make more sense. >> >> "other technologies"? Name three. Someone's so used to hammers they've decided no other tools exist! (grin) -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 19:27:54 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA18300; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 18:33:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA18293 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 18:33:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA19512 ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 18:43:52 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990205112003.00b46750@wingate> References: <000c01be50b2$616d33e0$064310cf@J.R.Molloy> Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 18:16:17 -0800 To: Margaret Levine Young , From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 11:24 AM -0500 2/5/99, Margaret Levine Young wrote: > I agree! I realized a few months ago that I want an e-mail program that > will display by mailing list messages in a very different way that my > personal messages. I've had that for years. I use eudora, but any mail client with even rudimentary filtering can do this. I filter all of my mail lists into separate folders, one per list. I even take it futher using procmail -- since I read my personal e-mail address both at home and at work, I use a set of procmail rules to parse out e-mail between mail to be left at home, and mail to be read at work, so that stuff (like list-managers, for instance) that I don't want to deal with at work during the day doesn't even appear in my mailbox until I'm ready for it. By filtering all of the list mail out of my main mailbox, I can easily ignore it until I'm ready to read lists, so none of it gets in the way of the "real" e-mail. > I want to be able to track who posts on what topics, who > posts how often, who I've decided to ignore, who I particularly like, etc. Ignoring is also trivial with rudimentary filters. > If programs were widely available that were designed to make it easy to > participate in an e-mail-based discussion -- supporting the user's efforts > to keep track of who's who and what we're talking about -- mailing lists > would be far more useful. these tools have existed for a while -- Eudora, Claris eMailer, most mail clients do a huge part of what you're asking for, and have. On the unix side, there are mailers like Pine, or you can move to procmail if you want to get really fancy. This technology actually isn't new, unless you use AOL's mail. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 5 23:18:42 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA23270; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 23:04:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from ns1.foothill.net (ns1.foothill.net [206.170.175.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA23255 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 23:04:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from monkeys.com (rfg.foothill.net [207.212.142.41]) by ns1.foothill.net (8.9.0/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA04785; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 22:52:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from monkeys.com ([127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.9.1/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA24923; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 23:12:19 -0800 To: angus1@cris.com cc: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List tool question In-reply-to: Your message of Thu, 04 Feb 1999 18:02:08 -0600. <199902050001.TAA28165@mcfeely.concentric.net> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 23:12:19 -0800 Message-ID: <24921.918285139@monkeys.com> X-Deadbolt-Note: Deadbolt(tm) Personal E-Mail Filter, Version 0.96 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message <199902050001.TAA28165@mcfeely.concentric.net>, "Angus" wrote: >Spam I get in spades from web access harvesting and from those #$#(&% that >harvest web pages themselves ... Please visit: http://www.e-scrub.com/wpoison/ fetch it, install it, and that should innoculate your site from any further harvesting by spammers. -- Ron Guilmette, Roseville, California ---------- E-Scrub Technologies, Inc. -- Deadbolt(tm) Personal E-Mail Filter demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/deadbolt/ -- Wpoison (web harvester poisoning) - demo: http://www.e-scrub.com/wpoison/ "Ping can be used offensively, and it's shipped with every windows CD" -- Steve Atkins From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 01:33:40 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id AAA24474; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 00:54:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.greatbasin.net (mail.greatbasin.net [207.228.35.39]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id AAA24467 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 00:53:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from default (rno-max6-56.gbis.net [207.228.61.184]) by mail.greatbasin.net (8.9.2/8.8.8) with SMTP id BAA01298; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 01:00:26 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199902060900.BAA01298@mail.greatbasin.net> From: "Jim Poston" Organization: The Information Dirt Road To: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 01:02:05 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: sub/superlist (Was Re: List tool question) Reply-to: jim.poston@usa.net CC: SRE In-reply-to: <3.0.5.32.19990204215700.00a8dc80@pop.climber.org> References: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 4 Feb 99, at 21:57, SRE wrote: > I'd like to see more done with sublists and superlists. Same here. > If anyone has implemented anything CLOSE to what I described, I'd > love to hear about it. The Pegasus Mail support lists are close to what you've described. There are separate sublists for PM-Win, PM-DOS, Mercury, etc. Any mail that goes to those lists is automatically echoed to the PMAIL list (the superlist), which also accepts mail to it. The downside is that some users who don't quite have the concept down send messages to a sublist, and also to the master list. Then the master list ends up with dupes. This is all happening at LISTSERV@BAMA.UA.EDU. -- Jim jim.poston@usa.net <<< It's a ... nice day for a ... white wedding! >>> From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 05:48:25 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id FAA00939; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 05:30:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from dns.cyberlink.ch (dns.cyberlink.ch [193.246.253.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id FAA00926 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 05:30:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from quill.thinkcoach.com (gate6-82.cyberlink.ch [212.55.195.82]) by dns.cyberlink.ch (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA26315 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:37:11 +0100 Received: (from norbert@localhost) by quill.thinkcoach.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id OAA01714; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:36:38 +0100 Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:36:38 +0100 Message-Id: <199902061336.OAA01714@quill.thinkcoach.com> From: Norbert Bollow Prefer-Language: de, en, fr To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-reply-to: (message from Todd Day on Fri, 5 Feb 1999 00:19:19 -0800) Subject: Re: flat rate world References: Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Todd Day wrote: > here. How many of us list managers would run their lists if they had > to pay for every message they sent? Well, in today's internet, if the lists are big enough it surely costs someone real money to host them. What Mike Nolan and I have been talking about is an idea that would allow the entire cost of hosting even a big list to be paid by the subscribers. This cost per subscriber would be very cheap (probably barely noticable, see below). > When you don't have to worry about paying for every letter you type, > you are much more likely to express yourself better and more > completely and in ways you might not have thought about before. Hmm... let's see, if a payment system could be introduced which does not create administrative overhead, what would be the postage for a 10KB e-mail message? At a server farm like Digiserve (see http://www.digiserve.com) you can transfer about 150MB of data for one dollar. So the price of the internet connection bandwidth which is required for sending a 10KB e-mail message is about US-$0.000067 A similar amount of connection bandwidth is required at the receiving end, therefore "international priority" postage for the 10KB e-mail message should come to about US-$0.00013 Since the postage for sending the copies of the message from the mailing list server to the recipients would be paid by the recipients, when you post to the list you will only have to pay for getting your message to the mailing list server, allowing you to make 75 posts of 10KB each for a single cent. I don't think that this would deter anyone from expressing himself freely in any e-mail discussion (whether on-list or not). Of course, participating in a mailing list that generates a lot of traffic will cost something: 1 cent for every 750KB of mailing list traffic. If people feel that this is too much, then there will be ways of reducing _both_ the real cost and the perceived cost of mailing list traffic. For example, strategically-placed smarthosts could be used to reduce the amount of traffic through key bottlenecks such as the intercontinental links. Also, on non-saturated networks where most of the traffic comes from interactive applications (such as telnet, browsing the web, streamed audio and video) it should be possible to take advantage of the fluctuations in the intensity of that kind of traffic to transfer emails during those seconds when the intensity of interactive traffic is relatively low. > It is my firm belief that the vast amount of bandwidth available on > tap to all comers is what makes the Internet such an exciting > communications device in the first place. Yes. It's good that we have a vast amount of bandwidth available. But that does not justify wasting any of it. May blessings from the eternal God surprise and overtake you! Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow, Zuerich, Switzerland. Backup e-mail address: NB@POBOX.COM From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 08:13:50 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id HAA02032; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 07:42:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from isns2.shasta.com (isns2.shasta.com [207.16.64.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id HAA02025 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 07:42:11 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 30853 invoked from network); 6 Feb 1999 15:48:55 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO J) (207.16.67.8) by mail.shasta.com with SMTP; 6 Feb 1999 15:48:55 -0000 Message-ID: <003b01be51e8$d24125e0$084310cf@J.R.Molloy> Reply-To: "J. R. Molloy" From: "J. R. Molloy" To: Subject: Re: List tool question Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 06:43:22 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >Yes, J. R., there are other technologies besides mailing lists. > >web pages >web-based discussion boards >search databases >FAQ sheets >FTP sites >chat rooms So a ball peen hammer, a rubber mallet, a gavel, a maul, and a sledge hammer represent five different technologies? I don't think so. You've mentioned but a single technology here: digital transmission using TCP/IP. The rest comprises variations on a theme. --J. R. From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 08:29:27 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id HAA02084; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 07:48:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp1.vnet.net (smtp1.vnet.net [166.82.1.31]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA02077 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 07:47:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from lmd.vnet.net (lmd.vnet.net [166.82.1.41]) by smtp1.vnet.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA13574; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 10:55:28 -0500 (EST) Received: from katie.vnet.net (katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by lmd.vnet.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA10267; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 10:54:36 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA14799; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 10:54:35 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 10:54:34 -0500 (EST) From: murr rhame To: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: A viral issue for you to be aware of In-Reply-To: <9902040826.aa04448@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer wrote: > You can filter on the header line it adds: > > X-Spanska: YES > > Or on the beginning of the uuencoded data, which reads: > > begin 644 I believe the second filter would catch more UUEncoded attachments. I'm still amazed that someone would write an Email client which will blindly decode and execute attachments. - murr - From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 11:32:30 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA04458; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:15:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from maximpact.net ([151.196.219.220]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA04451 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:15:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (ken@localhost) by maximpact.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA12457; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:14:15 -0500 Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:14:15 -0500 (EST) From: Ken Gourlay X-Sender: ken@maximpact.net To: Norbert Bollow cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: flat rate world In-Reply-To: <199902061336.OAA01714@quill.thinkcoach.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Hmm... let's see, if a payment system could be introduced which does not > create administrative overhead, what would be the postage for a 10KB > e-mail message? > > At a server farm like Digiserve (see http://www.digiserve.com) you can > transfer about 150MB of data for one dollar. So the price of the > internet connection bandwidth which is required for sending a 10KB > e-mail message is about US-$0.000067 > > A similar amount of connection bandwidth is required at the receiving > end, therefore "international priority" postage for the 10KB e-mail > message should come to about US-$0.00013 Assuming these numbers are accurate, which I wouldn't doubt, do you suppose that such charges would slow down a spammer at all? As I understand it, they're probably paying at least 100 times that per e-mail address. What's another hundredth of a cent to put your ad directly in someone's e-mail box? Furthermore, I can't imagine a situation any time soon where the administrative overhead could be reasonable. Ideally, there will be a time when online financial transactions can happen cheaply, but now it's probably $0.25 to $1 per transaction for something like an online credit card order. I'm not saying necessarily that charging like this is a bad idea, but it hardly seems worth it for what the actual cost is. corporations and ISPs don't seem to mind paying the fractions of pennies for their customers to use the Internet. I think the individuals *would* mind the hassle. I know I get really annoyed when I have to sit down and write a check for twelve cents... As it stands, the ISPs are, for the most part, getting the bill. They pass their cost on to their customers, who pay a flat monthly rate. It's easy, and everyone's reasonably happy. It's not clear exactly who's paying what for who's services, but people are getting their business done and having fun with the Internet too. I agree wholeheartedly with you about conservation of bandwidth: there's no excuse for wasting it, but there's a difference between wasting bandwidth and utilizing bandwidth. Generally speaking, if the bandwith is there it seems a shame not to do something with it, even if that something is as trivial as a streaming video image of a fish tank. -- Ken From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 11:48:33 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA04644; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:24:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from maximpact.net ([151.196.219.220]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA04637 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:24:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (ken@localhost) by maximpact.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA12555; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:22:36 -0500 Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:22:35 -0500 (EST) From: Ken Gourlay X-Sender: ken@maximpact.net To: Chuq Von Rospach cc: Margaret Levine Young , list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List tool question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Indeed, these technologies have really been around as long as e-mail itself. However, I tend to believe that there have been no widely available and easy to use technologies specifically designed to facilitate e-mail list type discussions. Consider the messes we'd have if we gave every AOL user procmail. Eudora, or some other mail client, makes it a little easier to do stuff, but I think it'd be even nicer if there was a tool especially for mailing lists. If I see a message that looks interesting, I want to be able to find out more about who sent it (what other messages, perhaps some personal background info, etc.) with one click. Likewise, if someone sounds like a blabbering idiot and I don't care to read their attempts at posts, I want to be able to ignore them, with one click. To my knowledge, no program exists to satisfy these sorts of needs. ---------------------- Ken Gourlay Chain Communications ---------------------- > > If programs were widely available that were designed to make it easy to > > participate in an e-mail-based discussion -- supporting the user's efforts > > to keep track of who's who and what we're talking about -- mailing lists > > would be far more useful. > > these tools have existed for a while -- Eudora, Claris eMailer, most > mail clients do a huge part of what you're asking for, and have. On > the unix side, there are mailers like Pine, or you can move to > procmail if you want to get really fancy. This technology actually > isn't new, unless you use AOL's mail. From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 12:17:27 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA04895; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:56:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA04888 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:56:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id MAA42648 ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:07:23 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <003b01be51e8$d24125e0$084310cf@J.R.Molloy> Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:43:28 -0800 To: "J. R. Molloy" , From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 6:43 AM -0800 2/6/99, J. R. Molloy wrote: > So a ball peen hammer, a rubber mallet, a gavel, a maul, and a sledge hammer > represent five different technologies? I don't think so. You have a really funny definition of hammers, J.R. but if you insist on defining everything as hammers, it's no use arguing with you on terminology, so I won't. But frankly, I think you're simply doing this to not have to admit being wrong, not because it makes sense. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 12:53:50 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA05239; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:17:04 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id MAA05229 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:17:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from boofura.swcp.com (boofura.swcp.com [198.59.115.28]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA08475 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 07:11:09 -0800 (PST) Received: (from lazlo@localhost) by boofura.swcp.com (8.8.5/8.8.0) id IAA10979 for list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:17:42 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:17:42 -0700 From: Lazlo Nibble To: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List tool question Message-ID: <19990205081742.B10894@swcp.com> Mail-Followup-To: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com References: <000601be50cc$aee8dec0$0b4310cf@J.R.Molloy> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.1i In-Reply-To: <000601be50cc$aee8dec0$0b4310cf@J.R.Molloy>; from J. R. Molloy on Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 09:58:50PM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 09:58:50PM -0800, J. R. Molloy wrote: >> The big problem is, we built hammers years ago, and put a lot of effort >> into making really good hammers. But we're just now doing the same for >> screwdrivers and table saws, so we tend to use the hammer for >> everything, even if other technologies make more sense. > > "other technologies"? Name three. 1) Newsgroups 2) Web Boards 3) Chat Rooms -- Lazlo Nibble - lazlo@studio-nibble.com - http://www.studio-nibble.com -- From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 13:07:41 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA05647; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:46:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from isns2.shasta.com (isns2.shasta.com [207.16.64.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id MAA05633 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:46:27 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 2997 invoked from network); 6 Feb 1999 20:53:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO J) (207.16.67.4) by mail.shasta.com with SMTP; 6 Feb 1999 20:53:15 -0000 Message-ID: <019001be5213$56d66520$084310cf@J.R.Molloy> Reply-To: "J. R. Molloy" From: "J. R. Molloy" To: Cc: Subject: Re: List tool question Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:55:04 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >But frankly, I think you're simply doing this to not have to admit >being wrong, not because it makes sense. No, I objected to your specious statement that other technologies exist because I had hoped you might supply some actual examples of same. Instead I find you indulging your arrogance and ignorance. You sir, have acted insensibly. In addition, to cover your ignorance, you fail to post these messages to the list. From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 13:18:06 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA05648; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:46:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from isns2.shasta.com (isns2.shasta.com [207.16.64.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id MAA05632 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:46:27 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 2997 invoked from network); 6 Feb 1999 20:53:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO J) (207.16.67.4) by mail.shasta.com with SMTP; 6 Feb 1999 20:53:15 -0000 Message-ID: <019001be5213$56d66520$084310cf@J.R.Molloy> Reply-To: "J. R. Molloy" From: "J. R. Molloy" To: Cc: Subject: Re: List tool question Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:55:04 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >But frankly, I think you're simply doing this to not have to admit >being wrong, not because it makes sense. No, I objected to your specious statement that other technologies exist because I had hoped you might supply some actual examples of same. Instead I find you indulging your arrogance and ignorance. You sir, have acted insensibly. In addition, to cover your ignorance, you fail to post these messages to the list. From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 13:33:34 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA06053; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 13:06:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from maximpact.net ([151.196.219.220]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id NAA06046 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 13:06:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (ken@localhost) by maximpact.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id QAA21477 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 16:05:12 -0500 Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 16:05:12 -0500 (EST) From: Ken Gourlay X-Sender: ken@maximpact.net To: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List tool question Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Wait, so you're denying that any technology other than TCP/IP exists? Don't forget the telephone, radio, television, megapohne, simple speech, or semaphores. But I think the original point of this discussion was to look at Internet technologies that may allow people to communicate more effectively or more easily than mailing lists do. ---------------------- Ken Gourlay Chain Communications ---------------------- On Fri, 5 Feb 1999, J. R. Molloy wrote: > >Yes, J. R., there are other technologies besides mailing lists. > > > >web pages > >web-based discussion boards > >search databases > >FAQ sheets > >FTP sites > >chat rooms > > So a ball peen hammer, a rubber mallet, a gavel, a maul, and a sledge hammer > represent five different technologies? I don't think so. You've mentioned > but a single technology here: digital transmission using TCP/IP. The rest > comprises variations on a theme. --J. R. From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 13:56:06 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA06371; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 13:26:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id NAA06363 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 13:25:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA37582 ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 13:36:32 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <019001be5213$56d66520$084310cf@J.R.Molloy> Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 13:23:56 -0800 To: "J. R. Molloy" , From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Cc: Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 12:55 PM -0800 2/6/99, J. R. Molloy wrote: > No, I objected to your specious statement that other technologies exist > because I had hoped you might supply some actual examples of same. I did. We were talking about mailing lists. You got a nice list of other technologies, and now you're trying to tell me they're all the same technology. Have fun, if that's how you want it, fine. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 14:18:17 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA06959; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:01:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.america.net (smtp.america.net [199.170.121.14]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id OAA06952 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:01:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from Margy (max1-7.shoreham.net [208.144.253.9]) by smtp.america.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id RAA28128; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 17:06:16 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4.1.19990206124400.00b86720@wingate> X-Sender: margy@wingate X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Sat, 06 Feb 1999 12:46:20 -0500 To: Chuq Von Rospach From: Margaret Levine Young Subject: Re: List tool question Cc: In-Reply-To: References: <4.1.19990205112003.00b46750@wingate> <000c01be50b2$616d33e0$064310cf@J.R.Molloy> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >> I agree! I realized a few months ago that I want an e-mail program that >> will display by mailing list messages in a very different way that my >> personal messages. > >I've had that for years. I use eudora, but any mail client with even >rudimentary filtering can do this. I filter all of my mail lists into >separate folders, one per list. Just seeing the messages for a list in a separate mailbox isn't enough. (Yes, I use Eudora filters, too.) I want to be able to see summary information (who posts around here?), a list of subscribers (off to the side, as in a chat program) with my personal notes about them, a list of the current threads that I can expand or condense -- use your imagination! What I'm saying is -- let's think outside of the box on what kinds of displays might make lists more useful. Margy Levine Young Coauthor of "The Internet For Dummies," 5th Ed. and "Windows 98: The Complete Reference" Looking for kids' videos? Check out From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 14:33:47 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA04860; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:52:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA04853 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:51:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id MAA03686 ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:02:26 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:40:41 -0800 To: Ken Gourlay , Chuq Von Rospach From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Cc: Margaret Levine Young , list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 2:22 PM -0500 2/6/99, Ken Gourlay wrote: > Consider the messes we'd have if we gave > every AOL user procmail. > That's because procmail is a hacker tool. But take procmail and make it user friendly, and that'd make life pretty nice for people, including list admins. Separate the implementation from the concept here. procmail is to mailx what eudora is to -- > To my knowledge, > no program exists to satisfy these sorts of needs. Well, start typing! (grin) -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 14:47:27 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA05290; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:17:56 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id MAA05280 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:17:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from bigtime.blank.org (bigtime.blank.org [139.167.64.222]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id HAA08779 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 07:33:15 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 30213 invoked by uid 500); 5 Feb 1999 15:39:44 -0000 Message-ID: <19990205103943.K1732@blank.org> Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:39:43 -0500 From: "Nathan J. Mehl" To: SRE , Ivan Pope Cc: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List tool question References: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> <3.0.5.32.19990204215700.00a8dc80@pop.climber.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990204215700.00a8dc80@pop.climber.org>; from SRE on Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 09:57:00PM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In the immortal words of SRE (eckert@climber.org): > > If anyone has implemented anything CLOSE to what I described, I'd love > to hear about it. "man uniq" -- the rest is left as an exercise to the reader. Minus ten points for using more than six lines of Bourne Shell to implement. :) (Seriously though, that _is_ a good idea, and one that should be built into most listservers.) -n --------------------------------------------------------- "double mono action" A sort of CIBO MATTO in the hair salon sipping a sweet liquor drink while peaking on acid and having lewd thoughts about the chiffon-draped middle-aged divorcee with the poufee hair, surgically- altered breasts, and fake eyelashes sitting next to you and the slutty, impeccably-groomed male hairdresser leans over you, brings his mouth next to your ear, and moaningly whispers "Spank me" as a John Waters rental video plays on the TV... --------------------------------------------- From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 15:02:28 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA05195; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:16:27 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id MAA05185 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:16:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from ifolk.iserver.net (ifolk.iserver.net [192.41.44.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id EAA06921 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 04:59:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from patroon ([160.43.47.9]) by ifolk.iserver.net (8.8.5) id GAA08032; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 06:06:26 -0700 (MST) From: "Tom Neff" To: Subject: Re: List Tool Question Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:06:43 -0500 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2212 (4.71.2419.0) In-Reply-To: <199902050900.BAA01117@honor.greatcircle.com> Importance: Normal X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.0810.800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk There are many refinements possible in flexible topic management, filtering, supertopics, subtopics, etc, IF you assume that the end user has access to a Web based control interface for his or her "profile" on your list. The Web is great that way - the feature set would be limited only by your programming imagination - and I hope to see more examples of this approach. But let's also remember that LISTSERV and its imitators were originally designed to ensure that, in an era when computers were changing fast and capabilities varied widely, even the clunkiest old mainframe's oppressed serf users could still participate in discussions and announcement boards like everyone else. I would argue that this philosophy is why we're still using and talking about mailing lists today in the era of 3-D shockwave smellorama hyperflash-apps and optic nerve avatars and whatnot. It's why Chuq can have a million s_bscribers. The dialectic Ivan and Chuq bring up - "Better tools!" vs "Better user behavior!" - has been around since the beginning, and will probably always be around. But it may be that, 10-15 years after the inception of the e-list, we're ready for a new take on things. Using the Web for purely optional control of a list that still gets delivered (in some form per user) via traditional email: this is probably an idea whose time has come. Requiring the Web, plus Java, flash, etc, for ALL aspects, including reading messages and the rest of it, is something I'd resist. From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 15:18:01 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA05182; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:16:22 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id MAA05172 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:16:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from triceratops.com (triceratops.com [206.83.162.235]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id EAA06678 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 04:39:00 -0800 (PST) From: johnjohn@triceratops.com Received: (qmail 1917 invoked by uid 100); 5 Feb 1999 12:42:51 -0000 Message-ID: <19990205044251.B2000@triceratops.com> Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 04:42:51 -0800 To: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List tool question References: <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> <3.0.5.32.19990204215700.00a8dc80@pop.climber.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990204215700.00a8dc80@pop.climber.org>; from SRE on Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 09:57:00PM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 09:57:00PM -0800, SRE wrote: > > Here's a real example: I run Climber.Org, which currently has over 20 > email lists and over 700 people subscribed (some to many lists). How do > I send a message to all 700 people? If I send to all the lists, some > people will get 10 copies. I'll get 22 copies. Ouch. In this case I > need a super-list that avoids duplicates if you are on more than one > list to which I send the message. 1) use a database. create an "all unique recipients" query 2) find LIST_PARENT_DIRCTORY -name DISTRIBUTION_FILE \ | xargs cat | sort | uniq > recip-list.txt > With 22 lists, it's not reasonable > to pre-determine all possible combinations... with fewer lists it would > be possible to have a periodic update job that created combo lists, but > then how would you determine when a post should go to which list? The > best way would be to have list management software "notice" the set of > lists being copied, and auto-create the combo list on the fly. Are you talking about the case when a person sends a message to multiple lists? What is your goal for that situation? If you're only worried about generating a recipient list, then it's pretty simple for a DBMS to generate that for you. > Even if > you had THAT, how would you catch the posts that are sent to each list > one at a time instead of with a long CC or TO list? Without knowing what the -goal- of "catching" it... this seems like a silly thing to wonder about. > If anyone has implemented anything CLOSE to what I described, I'd love > to hear about it. Fred Lindberg announce that the next incarnation of his ezmlm mod will be able to use MySQL as primary storage for mailing list info, which would be necessary for what you seem to be interested in. -- John White johnjohn@triceratops.com PGP Public Key: http://www.triceratops.com/john/public-key.pgp From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 15:30:27 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA05219; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:16:40 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id MAA05211 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:16:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from MAINE.maine.edu (maine.maine.edu [130.111.39.100]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id FAA07420 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 05:42:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from polaris.umpi.maine.edu [130.111.208.87] by MAINE.maine.edu (IBM VM SMTP Level 310) via TCP with SMTP ; Fri, 05 Feb 1999 08:47:50 EST Received: from POLARIS/SpoolDir by polaris.umpi.maine.edu (Mercury 1.43); 5 Feb 99 08:49:24 EST Received: from SpoolDir by POLARIS (Mercury 1.43); 5 Feb 99 08:49:20 EST Received: from albert (130.111.208.84) by polaris.umpi.maine.edu (Mercury 1.43); 5 Feb 99 08:49:11 EST From: "Anthony J. Albert" Organization: University of Maine at PI To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:49:09 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: List tool question In-reply-to: <199902050900.BAA01117@honor.greatcircle.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Message-ID: <9C218024880@polaris.umpi.maine.edu> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 21:57:00 -0800 >From: SRE >Subject: Re: List tool question > >At last, something useful. > >At 05:39 PM 2/4/99 +0000, Ivan Pope wrote: >>So what tools would you like to see added to mailing lists? How do you see >>mailling lists evolving? Where do we go from here? > >I'd like to see more done with sublists and superlists. Listserv has the >idea of "topics", that allow people to pre-filter list traffic at the >server (but only if posters agree to use topics properly). Anyone with >a capable mail client can do similar filtering (based on subject line >syntax) at the receiving end but that's less efficient. > >Anyway, topics to pre-filter msgs aren't enough. What you really need >is a way to logically group recipients without the artificial boundary >of who is on which list. > >Here's a real example: I run Climber.Org, which currently has over 20 >email lists and over 700 people subscribed (some to many lists). How do >I send a message to all 700 people? If I send to all the lists, some >people will get 10 copies. I'll get 22 copies. Ouch. In this case I >need a super-list that avoids duplicates if you are on more than one >list to which I send the message. With 22 lists, it's not reasonable >to pre-determine all possible combinations... with fewer lists it would >be possible to have a periodic update job that created combo lists, but >then how would you determine when a post should go to which list? The >best way would be to have list management software "notice" the set of >lists being copied, and auto-create the combo list on the fly. Even if >you had THAT, how would you catch the posts that are sent to each list >one at a time instead of with a long CC or TO list? Well, if you're using Majordomo, I can see at least two options. 1) Majordomo could be re-written so that everyone that gets subscribed to a list is also automatically subscribed to an "everyone" list, as well, and the "everyone" list would be the one to send to when the administration wants to have a chat with everyone. 2) Set up a process that runs every night (or every few hours) which concatenates the subscription lists for all the lists, and then removes the duplicates. On a Unix system, this is easy, using a cron job to schedule the runs, cat to concatenate the subscriber lists, and uniq to eliminate the duplicates. Admittedly, neither will help with someone posting to multiple lists, but that will at least alleviate some of the mail that goes out when the administrator must send mail. Tony Albert ============================================================== Anthony J. Albert albert@polaris.umpi.maine.edu Systems and Software Support Specialist Postmaster Computer Services - University of Maine, Presque Isle Attention: the next meeting of the Time Travellers' Society will be last Tuesday. From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 17:51:21 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA10266; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 17:26:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from venus.communitech.net (venus.communitech.net [199.79.146.241]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id RAA10259 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 17:26:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from thorby ([24.94.80.128]) by venus.communitech.net ; Sat, 06 Feb 1999 19:28:46 -600 Message-Id: <4.1.19990206152534.00f6bb30@mail.rudbek.com> X-Sender: vawjr@mail.rudbek.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Sat, 06 Feb 1999 15:27:43 -1000 To: "J. R. Molloy" From: "Victor A. Wagner, Jr." Subject: Re: List tool question Cc: In-Reply-To: <019001be5213$56d66520$084310cf@J.R.Molloy> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Apparently technology to you means hardware. I, on the other hand, belive one can have advancements solely in the software or information area. At Saturday 2/6/99 12:55, you wrote: > > >>But frankly, I think you're simply doing this to not have to admit >>being wrong, not because it makes sense. > >No, I objected to your specious statement that other technologies exist >because I had hoped you might supply some actual examples of same. Instead I >find you indulging your arrogance and ignorance. >You sir, have acted insensibly. In addition, to cover your ignorance, you >fail to post these messages to the list. Whereas you post them TWICE. That should make up for things. Victor A. Wagner, Jr. PGP RSA fingerprint = 4D20 EBF6 0101 B069 3817 8DBF C846 E47A PGP D-H fingerprint = 98BC 65E3 1A19 43EC 3908 65B9 F755 E6F4 63BB 9D93 The five most dangerous words in the English language: "There oughta be a law" From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 18:17:38 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA10693; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 17:57:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp1.vnet.net (smtp1.vnet.net [166.82.1.31]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id RAA10676 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 17:56:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from lmd.vnet.net (lmd.vnet.net [166.82.1.41]) by smtp1.vnet.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA20426; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:04:38 -0500 (EST) Received: from katie.vnet.net (katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by lmd.vnet.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA00628; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:03:46 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA05650; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:03:45 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:03:44 -0500 (EST) From: murr rhame To: "J. R. Molloy" cc: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List tool question In-Reply-To: <019001be5213$56d66520$084310cf@J.R.Molloy> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sat, 6 Feb 1999, J. R. Molloy wrote: > No, I objected to your specious statement that other technologies > exist because I had hoped you might supply some actual examples of > same. Instead I find you indulging your arrogance and ignorance. > You sir, have acted insensibly. In addition, to cover your > ignorance, you fail to post these messages to the list. Speaking of arrogant and specious arguments, let's do a brief analysis of your previous post. The gist of your argument was that email, FTP and IRC are all the same because they all use the same underlying TPC/IP protocol. You set up an absurdly broad definition of sameness. Using similar twisted logic, I could declare that modems, goldfish and diamonds are all the same. They are all made of atoms. You asked for a list of different communications technologies on the Internet. A list was posted. If you don't like the answer, refine your question and ask again. - murr - From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 18:47:30 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA11153; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 18:25:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA11144 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 18:25:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA20404 ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 18:35:47 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <9C218024880@polaris.umpi.maine.edu> References: <199902050900.BAA01117@honor.greatcircle.com> Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 18:13:49 -0800 To: "Anthony J. Albert" , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 8:49 AM -0500 2/5/99, Anthony J. Albert wrote: > 1) Majordomo could be re-written so that everyone that gets > subscribed to a list is also automatically subscribed to an > "everyone" list, as well, and the "everyone" list would be the one to > send to when the administration wants to have a chat with > everyone. Tried that a few years back. Unmitigated failure. Turned out there were just too many people who felt they didn't need administrative messages, and got way too hostile about it when they were told they didn't get that option. however, sending those messages to each list individually didn't generate this problem, but as soon as the admin stuff starts coming out on some other list, you'll have fights with people who want to turn it off. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 22:02:55 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA13558; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:18:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from dns.cyberlink.ch (dns.cyberlink.ch [193.246.253.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA13551 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:17:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from quill.thinkcoach.com (gate6-116.cyberlink.ch [212.55.195.116]) by dns.cyberlink.ch (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id GAA14877; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 06:23:17 +0100 Received: (from norbert@localhost) by quill.thinkcoach.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id GAA02986; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 06:22:42 +0100 Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 06:22:42 +0100 Message-Id: <199902070522.GAA02986@quill.thinkcoach.com> From: Norbert Bollow Prefer-Language: de, en, fr To: ken@thechain.com, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: rationet@thinkcoach.com Reply-To: rationet@thinkcoach.com In-reply-to: (message from Ken Gourlay on Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:14:15 -0500 (EST)) Subject: Re: flat rate world References: Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk {{ I have added Cc: and Reply-To: headers to this response, in an attempt to move further discussion of this topic to the rationet list. We were recently admonished that it is off-topic here. }} Ken Gourlay wrote: > Assuming these numbers are accurate, which I wouldn't doubt, do you > suppose that such charges would slow down a spammer at all? As I > understand it, they're probably paying at least 100 times that per e-mail > address. What's another hundredth of a cent to put your ad directly in > someone's e-mail box? This is why I suggested that you should be able to charge the sender for unsolicited messages to your personal email box. If the required infrastructure was available I'd charge something like $0.10 for every unsolicited email message to one of my regular addresses and I'd also create a special email address that would trigger a pager alert, but an unsolicited message to that address would cost $1 or even more. (Of course there also needs to be an easy way to refund this money in case if it's a message that you actually appreciate.) > Furthermore, I can't imagine a situation any time soon where the > administrative overhead could be reasonable. It'll take a while before the administrative overhead will be so low that it makes sense to do something like this for _transport_ costs of individual email messages (which are very low), but it would surely be possible with today's technology to implement a system with an administrative overhead which is low enough so that it makes sense to implement recipient-configurable charges for sending unsolicited email. That's all it takes to solve the problem of spam. > I think the individuals *would* mind the hassle. I know I get really > annoyed when I have to sit down and write a check for twelve cents... Your time and inconvenience in writing checks, etc. is part of the administrative cost that needs to be considered, just like there are administrative costs (in this general sense) with the present system of not charging for email traffic: The inconvenience of receiving spam, the inconvenience of mail being silenty discarded without warning by AOL because it has passed through a mail relay that was abused by spammers, etc. etc. (I'm speaking from recent experince here.) > I agree wholeheartedly with you about conservation of bandwidth: there's > no excuse for wasting it, but there's a difference between wasting > bandwidth and utilizing bandwidth. Generally speaking, if the bandwith is > there it seems a shame not to do something with it, even if that something > is as trivial as a streaming video image of a fish tank. Suppose you have plenty of bandwidth and you decide to use it for a streaming video image of a fish tank. Suppose I also have plenty of bandwidth, and I decide to use your real-time image of that fisk tank as a "screen saver". The problem with this is that there is a real network bottleneck between us - the transatlantic link. I think that bandwidth across intercontinental links will always be scarce and expensive in comparison to what can be achieved with land-based fiberoptic cables, and in the long run the internet will need a system which discourages needless heavy use of those bottlenecks. In the example of the fish tank streamed video, I think you should be free to stream your video image of that fish tank at no additional cost to you, but I should be made to pay a realistic price for getting this data transferred across the Atlantic Ocean. May blessings from the eternal God surprise and overtake you! Norbert. -- Norbert Bollow, Zuerich, Switzerland. Backup e-mail address: NB@POBOX.COM From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 23:14:05 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA15077; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 23:04:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA15069 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 23:04:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA22602 ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 23:14:53 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990206152534.00f6bb30@mail.rudbek.com> References: <019001be5213$56d66520$084310cf@J.R.Molloy> Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:14:17 -0800 To: "Victor A. Wagner, Jr." , "J. R. Molloy" From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List tool question Cc: Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 3:27 PM -1000 2/6/99, Victor A. Wagner, Jr. wrote: > Apparently technology to you means hardware. I, on the other hand, > belive one can have advancements solely in the software or information area. You, on the other hand, are so sure you know the answers you aren't listening to a word anyone is saying. chuq (enough wasting time for me. Bye) -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 6 23:32:22 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA15086; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 23:04:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA15079 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 23:04:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA21588 ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 23:14:57 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <199902050900.BAA01117@honor.greatcircle.com> Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:28:06 -0800 To: "Tom Neff" , From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List Tool Question Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 8:06 AM -0500 2/5/99, Tom Neff wrote: > The dialectic Ivan and Chuq bring up - "Better tools!" vs "Better user > behavior!" - has been around since the beginning, and will probably always > be around. Heck, go back into the Usenet arguments, and you'll see me in the middle of many of those fights a decade or more ago. Usenet's a great example, by the way. Education (i.e. better user behavior) has significant limits. All the FAQs and netiquettes and whatevers in the world only work if users actually use them. And the fun part is, it's very hard to see how many DO, because generally, all you hear from are those that don't. The typical usenet group is inundated with questions answered in the FAQ, but you have no clue how much MORE inundated you'd be without it. So education works, and run a statisticalyl significant user survey, you'll find stuff like that is used a lot and very useful -- but tends to get discounted, because there's still a high level of noise out there from the naive and the lusers. Better tools isn't a complete solution, either, because, frankly, as you continue to build better mousetraps, you simply evolve better mice. Um, idiots. you know what I mean. But by combining the two, you can make great strides. One of the great weaknesses of most help systems or FAQs is that they generally boil down to Big Hunks O' Text. Typo a majordomo command, and majordomo spits out a 10K help file, and invites you to guess which paragraph is relevant to their problem. that's a real help. My system traps the most common mistakes and responds with a message that targets the problem (and the fix). Gee, instead of "guess the answer", users now know what they did wrong, how to fix it, and my sites magically have many fewer stupid users all of a sudden... (better tools and more effective education, together for better user behavior....) > Using the Web for purely > optional control of a list that still gets delivered (in some form per user) > via traditional email: this is probably an idea whose time has come. Sure has. Actually, I've been working towards it for about 18 months now. I want to completely remove the concept of "subscription" to a "list", especially if that subscription is tied to an e-mail address instead of a user. Becuse users don't change, but they're email addresses do, and there's no hell like being subscribed to 18 lists and have to remember which variant of what address is on which list..... > Requiring the Web, plus Java, flash, etc, for ALL aspects, including reading > messages and the rest of it, is something I'd resist. The joy of it is, all you need is HTML. The rest is backend magic like databases and dynamic generation and big email servers. Very easy for the user, very low-tech necessities as far as end-user requirements, but the real demands go where they belong, on the programmers and server side of things. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 7 13:22:50 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA26718; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 12:57:00 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id MAA26710 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 12:56:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from scifi.squawk.com (scifi.squawk.com [208.235.116.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id EAA00296 for ; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 04:11:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from tpad.squawk.com (root@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by scifi.squawk.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id HAA30048; Sat, 6 Feb 1999 07:17:38 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990206064443.007ed320@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: njs@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sat, 06 Feb 1999 06:44:43 -0500 To: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer From: Nick Simicich Subject: Re: A viral issue for you to be aware of Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <9902040826.aa04448@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Once again, demime (http://scifi.squawk.com/demime.html) will remove uuencoded sections from list mail. It also happily strips such crap as happy99, html alternate sections, etc. It is in perl, you get source. At 08:26 AM 2/4/99 EST, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer wrote: >One of my lists got hit yesterday by the so-called Win32/Ska.A worm >. This sucker slipped by our >attachment filters because it replicates by uuencoding itself and making >that uuencoded (ie, text file) the BODY of an outgoing mail msg. No MIME or >other info is included with it. > >You can filter on the header line it adds: > >X-Spanska: YES > >Or on the beginning of the uuencoded data, which reads: > >begin 644 > >(I'm filtering, in majordomo, on /^begin 6/i) > >Just FYI... > > Tom Coradeschi, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer > > http://k-whiner.pica.army.mil/info-labview/info-labview.html > -- That which does not kill us, makes us stronger. That which does kill us makes us smell stronger, after a few days, anyway. Nick Simicich mailto:njs@scifi.squawk.com or (last choice) mailto:njs@us.ibm.com http://scifi.squawk.com/njs.html -- Stop by and Light Up The World! From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 7 17:03:55 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA29027; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 16:42:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id QAA29020 for ; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 16:42:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id QAA19436 ; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 16:53:39 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 16:33:08 -0800 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: This makes me feel confident.... Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk That these people are responsive to spam complaints.... (on the other hand, the hotmail account that sent the mail referring t the web site these people are hosting was dead in 45 minutes, after 6PM on a Saturday...) > ********************************************** > ** THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY ** > ** YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE ** > ********************************************** > > The original message was received at Sat, 6 Feb 1999 18:46:28 -0500 (EST) > from root@localhost > > ----- The following addresses had transient non-fatal errors ----- > idsuser > (expanded from: abuse@hway.net) -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 7 20:34:11 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id UAA01319; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 20:08:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from ns1.foothill.net (ns1.foothill.net [206.170.175.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id UAA01312 for ; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 20:08:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from monkeys.com (rfg.foothill.net [207.212.142.41]) by ns1.foothill.net (8.9.0/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA05062; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 19:56:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from monkeys.com ([127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.9.1/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA27318; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 20:17:35 -0800 To: Chuq Von Rospach cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: This makes me feel confident.... In-reply-to: Your message of Sun, 07 Feb 1999 16:33:08 -0800. From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 20:17:33 -0800 Message-ID: <27310.918447453@monkeys.com> X-Deadbolt-Note: Deadbolt(tm) Personal E-Mail Filter, Version 0.96 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In message , you wrote: > >That these people are responsive to spam complaints.... > >(on the other hand, the hotmail account that sent the mail referring >t the web site these people are hosting was dead in 45 minutes, after >6PM on a Saturday...) > > >> ********************************************** >> ** THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY ** >> ** YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE ** >> ********************************************** >> >> The original message was received at Sat, 6 Feb 1999 18:46:28 -0500 (EST) >> from root@localhost >> >> ----- The following addresses had transient non-fatal errors ----- >> idsuser >> (expanded from: abuse@hway.net) That's Hiway/Rapidsite. I told them that I was going to post a message to news.admin.net-abuse.email once upon a time, saying that they were unresponsive to spam complaints. They sent me back a message threatening to sue me if I did. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hiway Technologies, Inc (HWAY2-DOM) 5050 Blue Lake Drive Suite 100 Boca Raton, FL 33431 US Domain Name: HWAY.NET Administrative Contact: Registration, Domain (DR7388) domreg@HWAY.NET (561) 989-8574 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Hostmaster, Rapidsite Inc. (HRI-ORG) hostmaster@RAPIDSITE.NET 561-994-6684 Fax- 561-994-6617 Billing Contact: Registration, Domain (DR7388) domreg@HWAY.NET (561) 989-8574 Record last updated on 20-Oct-98. Database last updated on 7-Feb-99 12:18:09 EST. Domain servers in listed order: NS.NAMESERVERS.NET 207.158.192.40 NS2.NAMESERVERS.NET 209.41.31.13 The InterNIC Registration Services database contains ONLY non-military and non-US Government Domains and contacts. Other associated whois servers: American Registry for Internet Numbers - whois.arin.net European IP Address Allocations - whois.ripe.net Asia Pacific IP Address Allocations - whois.apnic.net US Military - whois.nic.mil US Government - whois.nic.gov From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 8 09:20:20 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA14033; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 08:53:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from kachina.jetcafe.org (kachina.jetcafe.org [205.147.43.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA14026 for ; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 08:53:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from ee-nt (eckert@netcom9.netcom.com [192.100.81.119]) by kachina.jetcafe.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id JAA10477 for ; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 09:00:36 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990208080417.009bd250@pop.climber.org> X-Sender: eckert@pop.climber.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 08:04:17 -0800 To: list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com From: SRE Subject: Re: sub/superlist (Was Re: List tool question) In-Reply-To: <199902060900.BAA01298@mail.greatbasin.net> References: <3.0.5.32.19990204215700.00a8dc80@pop.climber.org> <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 01:02 AM 2/6/99 -0800, Jim Poston wrote: >The Pegasus Mail support lists are close to what you've described. >There are separate sublists for PM-Win, PM-DOS, Mercury, etc. Any >mail that goes to those lists is automatically echoed to the PMAIL >list (the superlist), which also accepts mail to it. >The downside is that some users who don't quite have the concept down >send messages to a sublist, and also to the master list. Then the >master list ends up with dupes. I've tried subscribing one list to another, which will work with any server software, but that doesn't address two key issues: - duplicate messages (as you noted) - how does a user pick which set of info to receive? The second problem is the most vexing: If I have 22 lists, does a user subscribe to each list separately but then send to master lists, or does the user subscribe to "one of N" master lists (all combos of 22 lists would have to be sitting around just in case)? Either way, people will not be able to send to the list they subscribed to unless there is some piece of software looking for dups and creating posts on the other list(s). From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 8 10:03:11 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA14764; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 09:41:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from minbari.netnames.net (minbari.netnames.net [195.40.150.125]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA14756 for ; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 09:41:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from ivan3.netnames.co.uk (ivan3.netnames.co.uk [195.40.150.142]) by minbari.netnames.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id RAA08077; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 17:45:17 GMT Message-Id: <3.0.32.19990208173126.009cfa40@mail.netnames.co.uk> X-Sender: nnuk-ip@mail.netnames.co.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 17:38:00 +0000 To: "Tom Neff" From: Ivan Pope Subject: Re: List Tool Question Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I'd just like to say that this is a great discussion now - better than all tht spam stuff . Tom Neff said: >There are many refinements possible in flexible topic management, filtering, >supertopics, subtopics, etc, IF you assume that the end user has access to a >Web based control interface for his or her "profile" on your list. The Web >is great that way - the feature set would be limited only by your >programming imagination - and I hope to see more examples of this approach. >The dialectic Ivan and Chuq bring up - "Better tools!" vs "Better user >behavior!" - has been around since the beginning, and will probably always >be around. But it may be that, 10-15 years after the inception of the >e-list, we're ready for a new take on things. Using the Web for purely >optional control of a list that still gets delivered (in some form per user) >via traditional email: this is probably an idea whose time has come. I think this is about right. I don't take the tools v. user behaviour route. I know from experience that better tools beget better user behaviour. I'm amazed how often I hear that if only these users would get their act together and write a bit of Perl, they could solve all their own problems in short order! Most users don't have a clue. I've been running and using email lists for about ten years now, and I still don't really have a handle on how to control the buggers. That's why I like eGroups, whatever others say. It is just so simple. But, that is the management end. I am as if not more interested in the user end. I think people get burned by lists, they get on them one way or another, then they can't work out how to get off them. They blunder around, get shouted at, hate the trafic overload, don't understand what they did and stop joining lists. And then the Internet loses, because a classic input route is stifled. I mean, Web sites aren't on the whole communicative in both directions. >Requiring the Web, plus Java, flash, etc, for ALL aspects, including reading >messages and the rest of it, is something I'd resist. I agree, can't see the use of it. Basicallly, I am interested in a next generation of technology that may allow us to operate a bit more as we do in the 'real' world. The other day I wrote that I didn't like 'real world' analogies, and then used one in the next sentence! But, in the world we operate with a huge range of sensors turned on. We are very, very good at reading the signs and understanding how to manage the noise around us and get value from it. Most of this is intuitive, we don't see ourselves doing it, it just happens. If you stop and think about how you act in any social or public scenario, it can be a bit more obvious. We filter and moderate and choose and send out signals and censor and mishear etc etc, all to allow us to survive. We probably evolved these functions a long way back. However, we haven't had that evolution on the Internet, so we are still in basic cave person mode - talk/don't talk. I want to move beyond that point! Thanks, Ivan From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 8 14:00:26 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA17657; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 13:22:38 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA17647 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 13:22:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from FSM-1.PICA.ARMY.MIL (fsm-1.pica.army.mil [129.139.96.87]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id SAA29859 for ; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 18:09:06 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 99 21:18:41 EST From: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer To: Nick Simicich , list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: A viral issue for you to be aware of Organization: SADARM SPICE Team, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ Message-ID: <9902072118.aa04019@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Nick Simicich: >Once again, demime (http://scifi.squawk.com/demime.html) will remove >uuencoded sections from list mail. It also happily strips such crap as >happy99, html alternate sections, etc. Which is very interesting but, in this case, of little use, since I do not admin the server the list in question is running on (world.std.com, in case you were really wondering). Tom Coradeschi, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer http://k-whiner.pica.army.mil/info-labview/info-labview.html From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 8 14:30:28 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA17670; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 13:22:46 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA17660 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 13:22:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from FSM-1.PICA.ARMY.MIL (fsm-1.pica.army.mil [129.139.96.87]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id SAA29843 for ; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 18:07:06 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 99 21:16:26 EST From: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer To: murr rhame , list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: A viral issue for you to be aware of Organization: SADARM SPICE Team, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ Message-ID: <9902072116.aa03956@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk murr hame: >On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer wrote: >> You can filter on the header line it adds: >> >> X-Spanska: YES >> >> Or on the beginning of the uuencoded data, which reads: >> >> begin 644 > >I believe the second filter would catch more UUEncoded attachments. >I'm still amazed that someone would write an Email client which will >blindly decode and execute attachments. It won't execute 'em for you. All accounts of this virus involve the recipient executing it. I won't go into how clueless a move that is here (preaching to the choir, etc etc). Tom Coradeschi, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer http://k-whiner.pica.army.mil/info-labview/info-labview.html From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 8 14:55:33 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA17613; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 13:21:23 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA17599 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 13:21:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA24584 for ; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 09:36:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA11613 for ; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 11:43:24 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA26749 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Sun, 7 Feb 1999 11:43:21 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902071743.LAA26749@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: List Tool Question To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 11:43:21 -0600 (CST) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > > Sure has. Actually, I've been working towards it for about 18 months > now. I want to completely remove the concept of "subscription" to a > "list", especially if that subscription is tied to an e-mail address > instead of a user. Becuse users don't change, but they're email > addresses do, and there's no hell like being subscribed to 18 lists > and have to remember which variant of what address is on which > list..... We're still waiting for details on this, it must be the 2nd or 3rd time you've hinted about it in the past few months. I like the idea of being able to unlink e-mail addresses from users, but only if it can be done without sacrificing accountability somehow. The point on validating e-mail addresses is not only to keep forgers from clogging someone's mailbox, it also serves to give the list manager a way of reliably determining who said what. Most newspapers do not publish anonymous letters, IMHO neither should most mailing lists. (Unvalidated and unverified posters, essentially an open list, are evn worse than anonymous services, there's no way to keep out the spammers and out-and-out troublemakers.) The key word is 'most', yes there are exceptions, but I can see little or no reason in THIS list, or any of my lists for hiding one's identity, and many good reasons why some type of disclosure is useful, since I'm dealing with sports fans. (Fans of team X disparaging team Y need to be reacted to differently than fans of team Y disparaging that team, IMHO.) That's my biggest problem with totally web-based forums, aside from the fact that they are primarily 'pull' rather than 'push' mediums. (There are good reasons for both, to me the optimal solution would encompass some aspects of both.) -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 8 22:05:00 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA24272; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:25:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA24259 for ; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:25:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA26352 ; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:36:32 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199902071743.LAA26749@celery.tssi.com> Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:11:38 -0800 To: nolan@tssi.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List Managers) From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List Tool Question Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 11:43 AM -0600 2/7/99, Mike Nolan wrote: > We're still waiting for details on this, it must be the 2nd or 3rd time > you've hinted about it in the past few months. And once I can release details, I will. I'm waiting, too. I'd hoped to have software by now. > I like the idea of being able to unlink e-mail addresses from users, but > only if it can be done without sacrificing accountability somehow. There will still be an account, but it'll be tied to a user, not an e-mail address. Which means a user can change e-mail addresses iwthout having to redo their entire subscription structure. But there's still accountability. > That's my biggest problem with totally web-based forums, aside from the > fact that they are primarily 'pull' rather than 'push' mediums. My forums have full accountability. Have for a while. Including mailback validation of the account creation. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 8 22:20:01 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA24315; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:26:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA24277 for ; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:26:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA26358 ; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:36:41 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19990208173126.009cfa40@mail.netnames.co.uk> Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:21:22 -0800 To: Ivan Pope , "Tom Neff" From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List Tool Question Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 5:38 PM +0000 2/8/99, Ivan Pope wrote: > That's why I like eGroups, > whatever others say. It is just so simple. But it's a centralized service. It's fine, within eGroups. But the net is a decentralized system. Saying the net would be much better if it all centralized and used eGroups is like saying all the net needs to do is ecome AOL. There are advantages and disadvantages to centralization -- but on the internet, centralized services simply aren't going to happen across organizations. Hence the need to move things to the client-side of the equation, since that's where it IS centralized (you get all of your stuff from multiple sources, but it's sent to a single source. And that's where you'll need to do a lot of the processing). > end. I think people get burned by lists, they get on them one way or > another, then they can't work out how to get off them. People get burned by the net. Or more correctly, people get burned by other people on the net. Nothing new here. I've got a good friend who was visciously attacked on a mail list once, to the point where he simply won't deal with most of the net any more. That was a decade ago. > and stop joining lists. And then the Internet loses, because a classic > input route is stifled. I mean, Web sites aren't on the whole communicative > in both directions. Here's a scary reality. With the exception of a few key people, the individual doesn't matter. And even those key people tend to get replaced if they drop off the map. On the ent, if I don't answer a question on a mail list, someone else will. That's one of the joys of the group mind. But while we can't forget the individual, we also have to not overemphasize the role of the individual in these communication mediums. At some level, that's almost espousing a socialist theme. But think about list-managers. Name anyone (other than the people who own the machine running the list) who, if they left the list, would cause this list to fail? And frankly, if greatcircle ever stops running the list, one of a dozen of us hanging around will simply start it again somewhere else. So even "owner" of a resource has a limited "take my toys and go home" effect. > Basicallly, I am interested in a next generation of technology that may > allow us to operate a bit more as we do in the 'real' world. The other day > I wrote that I didn't like 'real world' analogies, and then used one in the > next sentence! Welcome to the wonderful world of complex systems. Personally, I don't WANT the on-line world to simply invent a virtual version of the real world -- I think we can do a lot better. On the other hand, we can't ignore the real world, because no matter what we think, we're part of it. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 10 15:58:28 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA05232; Wed, 10 Feb 1999 15:47:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from Kitten.mcs.com (Kitten.mcs.com [192.160.127.90]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id PAA05225 for ; Wed, 10 Feb 1999 15:47:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from Mercury.mcs.net (dattier@Mercury.mcs.net [192.160.127.80]) by Kitten.mcs.com (8.8.7/8.8.2) with ESMTP id RAA21639 for ; Wed, 10 Feb 1999 17:55:04 -0600 (CST) Received: (from dattier@localhost) by Mercury.mcs.net (8.8.7/8.8.2) id RAA15883 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 10 Feb 1999 17:55:03 -0600 (CST) From: "David W. Tamkin" Message-Id: <199902102355.RAA15883@Mercury.mcs.net> Subject: Re: List Tool Question To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 17:55:03 -0600 (CST) In-Reply-To: from "Chuq Von Rospach" at Feb 8, 99 09:11:38 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Mike Nolan wrote, | > I like the idea of being able to unlink e-mail addresses from users, but | > only if it can be done without sacrificing accountability somehow. Chuq Von Rospach answered, | There will still be an account, but it'll be tied to a user, not an | e-mail address. Which means a user can change e-mail addresses | iwthout having to redo their entire subscription structure. But | there's still accountability. Lyris and Onelist, for two examples, allow a user to change his or her subscription address without unsubbing and resubbing a list. From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 10 22:55:49 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA09750; Wed, 10 Feb 1999 22:13:09 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id WAA09740 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 10 Feb 1999 22:13:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from triceratops.com (triceratops.com [206.83.162.235]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id PAA14029 for ; Tue, 9 Feb 1999 15:41:22 -0800 (PST) From: johnjohn@triceratops.com Received: (qmail 13531 invoked by uid 100); 9 Feb 1999 23:45:59 -0000 Message-ID: <19990209154559.E27681@triceratops.com> Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 15:45:59 -0800 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List Tool Question References: <199902071743.LAA26749@celery.tssi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <199902071743.LAA26749@celery.tssi.com>; from Mike Nolan on Sun, Feb 07, 1999 at 11:43:21AM -0600 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, Feb 07, 1999 at 11:43:21AM -0600, Mike Nolan wrote: > > I like the idea of being able to unlink e-mail addresses from users, but > only if it can be done without sacrificing accountability somehow. > ezmlm-idx already does this by restricting posting to subscribers (matching envelope sender), and then allowing subscribers to register alternate addresses from which they might send mail. One user, multiple email addresses. -- John White johnjohn@triceratops.com PGP Public Key: http://www.triceratops.com/john/public-key.pgp From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 10 23:11:00 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA09553; Wed, 10 Feb 1999 22:09:38 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id WAA09543 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 10 Feb 1999 22:09:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA24274 for ; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:26:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA25094 ; Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:36:52 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990208080417.009bd250@pop.climber.org> References: <199902060900.BAA01298@mail.greatbasin.net> <3.0.5.32.19990204215700.00a8dc80@pop.climber.org> <3.0.32.19990204173922.0099a100@mail.netnames.co.uk> Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:29:09 -0800 To: SRE , list-managers@honor.greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: sub/superlist (Was Re: List tool question) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 8:04 AM -0800 2/8/99, SRE wrote: > The second problem is the most vexing: If I have 22 lists, does a > user subscribe to each list separately but then send to master lists, > or does the user subscribe to "one of N" master lists (all combos > of 22 lists would have to be sitting around just in case)? Either way, > people will not be able to send to the list they subscribed to unless > there is some piece of software looking for dups and creating posts on > the other list(s). Welcome to the basic limitation of the mailing list -- granularity. In a perfect world, there'd be one mailing list "The Mail List", and the stuff you're interested in would magically be filtered out of that data stream for your attention, and the stuff you're not interested in would magically disappear. The Shockwave Rider (again I highly recommend this) uses this concept, and it's 20+ years old. Unfortunately, that implies really smart client tools and huge bandwidths. And we're not there. I've done some work on meta-lists and sub-lists. You can't do it by subscribing a list to another list, because it just doesn't work cleanly. It has to be done at the MTA level (sendmail alias level...) so that duplicate subscriptions get resolved cleanly. But that creates an issue of user-confusion as to which list they're subscribed to, unless you're very careful about how you document and describe things. In some circumstances, it'll work. In most situations, if you really need this kind of setup, you're better off looking in other directions. or letting your users deal with it at the client level, because right now, mail list software just aren't set up to do this well. I'm running a number of sub-listed lists (one list, many sublists, to parallelize delivery and keep some of majordomo's flaws at bay), and you're just asking for confusion. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 11 07:17:06 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id GAA19181; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 06:48:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA19173 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 06:47:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA15171; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 08:55:19 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA11214; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 08:55:13 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902111455.IAA11214@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: List Tool Question To: johnjohn@triceratops.com Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 08:55:13 -0600 (CST) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <19990209154559.E27681@triceratops.com> from "johnjohn@triceratops.com" at Feb 9, 99 03:45:59 pm Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk johnjohn@triceratops.com wrote: > > > I like the idea of being able to unlink e-mail addresses from users, but > > only if it can be done without sacrificing accountability somehow. > > ezmlm-idx already does this by restricting posting to subscribers > (matching envelope sender), and then allowing subscribers to register > alternate addresses from which they might send mail. One user, > multiple email addresses. If the alternate addresses registrations have to come from the original account, this may defeat the purpose. Plus, isn't the envelope sender address the most frequently munged variant due to mail gateway changes and other things that most users are blithely unaware of? Writing mailing list management software strikes me as the software equivalent of battling the Gorgon, when you chop off one head two spring up to take its place. Between users who don't understand the mechanics of e-mail addressing (and probably shouldn't need to), users who move accounts at the drop of a hat (AOL screen names being one of the WORST offenders, IMHO.) system administrators who keep changing things, braindead systems, glitches, config errors, and probably a dozen other recurrent problems, sometimes its a wonder to me that e-mail works at all. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 11 07:30:13 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id HAA19599; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 07:19:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from scifi.squawk.com (scifi.squawk.com [208.235.116.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA19591 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 07:19:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from tpad.squawk.com (root@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by scifi.squawk.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id KAA18613; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 10:26:33 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990211101327.040af920@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: njs@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 10:13:27 -0500 To: johnjohn@triceratops.com From: Nick Simicich Subject: Re: List Tool Question Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <19990209154559.E27681@triceratops.com> References: <199902071743.LAA26749@celery.tssi.com> <199902071743.LAA26749@celery.tssi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 03:45 PM 2/9/99 -0800, johnjohn@triceratops.com wrote: >On Sun, Feb 07, 1999 at 11:43:21AM -0600, Mike Nolan wrote: >> I like the idea of being able to unlink e-mail addresses from users, but >> only if it can be done without sacrificing accountability somehow. >ezmlm-idx already does this by restricting posting to subscribers >(matching envelope sender), and then allowing subscribers to register >alternate addresses from which they might send mail. One user, >multiple email addresses. I do this in majordomo by running a $list, $list-digest and $list-posting list. Anyone on all three of these lists can post. No mail is ever sent to the $list-posting. If I approve a message from a address, the script I use for that automatically adds that address to $list-posting. This allows people to post from multiple addresses without having each such message individually handled, but it does little else. -- That which does not kill us, makes us stronger. That which does kill us makes us smell stronger, after a few days, anyway. Nick Simicich mailto:njs@scifi.squawk.com or (last choice) mailto:njs@us.ibm.com http://scifi.squawk.com/njs.html -- Stop by and Light Up The World! From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 11 08:30:56 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA20369; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 08:05:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu (BROCCOLI.GRAPHICS.CORNELL.EDU [128.84.247.53]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA20360 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 08:05:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from graphics.cornell.edu (LOCALHOST) by broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu with ESMTP (1.37.109.16/16.2) id AA151139605; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 11:13:25 -0500 Message-Id: <199902111613.AA151139605@broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: recommendations for NT based mlm? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 11:13:24 -0500 From: Mitch Collinsworth Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Greetings, Personally I cringe at the thought of it, but the manager of a list I'm on says his site is considering switching their servers from linux to NT. He asked me if I have a recommendation for MLM software on that platform. Of course I don't, since I don't recomment NT to serve anything, but that's not what he asked. So does anyone here have a MLM recommendation for NT? He further specified: "It needs to be free or damn cheap, but must have good sets of features. I see alot of list traffic done in Listserv." My estimation of his list volume is approx 1000 members, split about 80% list - 20% digest and perhaps 100 messages per day. -Mitch From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 11 14:30:05 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA25496; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 13:57:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from mailhub1.liv.ac.uk (mailhub1.liv.ac.uk [138.253.100.94]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id NAA25486 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 13:56:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from news2.liv.ac.uk ([138.253.100.112]) by mailhub1.liv.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 1.92 #1) id 10B4Dk-0003Mf-00; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 22:04:28 +0000 Received: (from qq11@localhost) by news2.liv.ac.uk (8.8.7/ajt5) id WAA13481; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 22:04:23 GMT Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 22:04:23 +0000 (GMT) From: Alan Thew X-Sender: qq11@news2.liv.ac.uk To: Mitch Collinsworth cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? In-Reply-To: <199902111613.AA151139605@broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk LISTSERV Lite/Free edition is OK if people can manage with the limits, post.office has some MLM features but is not cheap... basically NT != cheap NTmail might be worth a try but can get to > USD 3000 for a big site, again not cheap. -- Alan Thew alan.thew@liverpool.ac.uk Computing Services,University of Liverpool Fax: +44 151 794-4442 On Thu, 11 Feb 1999, Mitch Collinsworth wrote: > >Greetings, > >Personally I cringe at the thought of it, but the manager of a list >I'm on says his site is considering switching their servers from linux >to NT. He asked me if I have a recommendation for MLM software on >that platform. Of course I don't, since I don't recomment NT to serve >anything, but that's not what he asked. > >So does anyone here have a MLM recommendation for NT? He further >specified: > > "It needs to be free or damn cheap, but must have good sets > of features. I see alot of list traffic done in Listserv." > > >My estimation of his list volume is approx 1000 members, split about >80% list - 20% digest and perhaps 100 messages per day. > >-Mitch > From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 11 15:00:51 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA25924; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 14:26:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.greatbasin.net (mail.greatbasin.net [207.228.35.39]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id OAA25903 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 14:26:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from Jposton.rtcwashoe.com ([207.228.49.131]) by mail.greatbasin.net (8.9.2/8.8.8) with SMTP id OAA13913 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 14:34:09 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199902112234.OAA13913@mail.greatbasin.net> From: "Jim Poston" Organization: The Information Dirt Road To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 14:34:11 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? Reply-to: jim.poston@usa.net In-reply-to: <199902111613.AA151139605@broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 11 Feb 99, at 11:13, Mitch Collinsworth wrote: > He asked me if I have a recommendation for MLM software on > that platform. > > "It needs to be free or damn cheap, but must have good sets > of features. I see alot of list traffic done in Listserv." How about Mercury Mail Transport by David Harris? The 32-bit version requires NT 4.0 or better. It's free. The manual costs $125. It's pretty robust, and I've heard of sites handling the volume you mentioned and higher with no problem. -- Jim jim.poston@usa.net <<< The plural of spouse is TROUBLE!!! >>> From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 11 17:15:40 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA28265; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 17:02:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.cydian.com (dnsa.ypo.com [209.19.77.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id RAA28258 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 17:01:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from dell300 [209.19.77.253] by mail.cydian.com (SMTPD32-4.06) id ADC317301CE; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 20:02:59 EDT Message-Id: <4.1.19990211200328.01ad4f10@mail.cydian.com> X-Sender: culrich@mail.cydian.com (Unverified) X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 20:04:09 -0500 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, Mitch Collinsworth From: Christopher Ulrich Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? In-Reply-To: <199902111613.AA151139605@broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Check http://www.davecentral.com He's got links to thousands of programs for NT, including mail servers, list servers, etc... Good Luck - Chris At 11:13 AM 2/11/99 -0500, you wrote: > >Greetings, > >Personally I cringe at the thought of it, but the manager of a list >I'm on says his site is considering switching their servers from linux >to NT. He asked me if I have a recommendation for MLM software on >that platform. Of course I don't, since I don't recomment NT to serve >anything, but that's not what he asked. > >So does anyone here have a MLM recommendation for NT? He further >specified: > > "It needs to be free or damn cheap, but must have good sets > of features. I see alot of list traffic done in Listserv." > > >My estimation of his list volume is approx 1000 members, split about >80% list - 20% digest and perhaps 100 messages per day. > >-Mitch > From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 11 18:30:05 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA29231; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 18:10:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA29224 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 18:10:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA17316 ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 18:22:24 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199902111613.AA151139605@broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu> Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 18:02:49 -0800 To: Mitch Collinsworth , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 11:13 AM -0500 2/11/99, Mitch Collinsworth wrote: > "It needs to be free or damn cheap, but must have good sets > of features. I see alot of list traffic done in Listserv." Someone has to have put in lots of time into developing and debugging this, but I won't pay for it. Sheesh. (grin) -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 11 23:05:10 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA03350; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 22:39:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from vjs.telephonet.com (vjs.telephonet.com [207.252.88.49]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA03343 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 22:39:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from [207.252.88.49] (207.252.88.49) by vjs.telephonet.com with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 2.2); Fri, 12 Feb 1999 01:50:34 -0500 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Organization: Little to None X-Mailer: Eudora 4.0 for Cray T3E-1200 Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 01:48:50 -0500 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Vince Sabio Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk ** Sometime around 11:13 -0500 02/11/99, Mitch Collinsworth said: >So does anyone here have a MLM recommendation for NT? He further >specified: > > "It needs to be free or damn cheap, but must have good sets > of features. I see alot of list traffic done in Listserv." Kewl. I want to take this guy car shopping with me. >My estimation of his list volume is approx 1000 members, split about >80% list - 20% digest and perhaps 100 messages per day. Overall, I'd recommend Lyris. . With 1000 users, he'll have to shell out some $$ -- but he did say he wanted features (Lyris has features!), and, as someone else pointed out, NT != cheap. However, if he can wait a few weeks, and wouldn't mind hosting his lists off-site, I'll be able to point him toward a VERY nice public- access list server. Has fully integrated web administration and UI, and comprehensive bounce handling, among other things. Sure, it's public access, but you can set up private mailing lists. More on this one later ... __________________________________________________________________________ Vince Sabio Boy & His Sabre: vince@humournet.com Stop Internet Spam! From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 12 05:14:28 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id EAA09728; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 04:55:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id EAA09719 for ; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 04:55:01 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id GAA09504 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 06:29:21 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990212062921.A9474@gsp.org> Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 06:29:21 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? References: <199902111613.AA151139605@broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: ; from Chuq Von Rospach on Thu, Feb 11, 1999 at 06:02:49PM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk 1. Upgrade to Linux. 2. Use sendmail as your MTA. 3. Run majordomo. 4. Run majorcool. It's free, it works, there are mobs of people working on the software to improve it, and it tries very hard to comply with applicable RFCs. There are security, anti-relay, anti-spam, and other capabilities built-in, and without even bothering to benchmark, I feel quite safe in stating that it will outperform any NT-based solution on the same hardware. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 12 06:43:45 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id GAA10553; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 06:22:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from exchhost.hdrinc.com (omaha.hdrinc.com [206.52.156.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA10546 for ; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 06:22:05 -0800 (PST) Received: by exchhost.hdrinc.com; id IAA14278; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 08:25:35 -0600 (CST) Received: from exchhost.hdrinc.com(199.240.228.248) by omaha.hdrinc.com via smap (3.2) id xma013785; Fri, 12 Feb 99 08:24:21 -0600 Received: by ntascsg5.intranet.hdr with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2232.9) id <1YMKJQN5>; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 08:28:16 -0600 Message-ID: From: "Tegels, Kent" To: "'Mitch Collinsworth'" , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: RE: recommendations for NT based mlm? Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 08:28:18 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2232.9) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I can wholeheartedly recommend Lyris (www.lyris.com) for this environment. -----Original Message----- From: Mitch Collinsworth [mailto:mkc@Graphics.Cornell.EDU] Sent: Thursday, February 11, 1999 10:13 AM To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: recommendations for NT based mlm? Greetings, Personally I cringe at the thought of it, but the manager of a list I'm on says his site is considering switching their servers from linux to NT. He asked me if I have a recommendation for MLM software on that platform. Of course I don't, since I don't recomment NT to serve anything, but that's not what he asked. So does anyone here have a MLM recommendation for NT? He further specified: "It needs to be free or damn cheap, but must have good sets of features. I see alot of list traffic done in Listserv." My estimation of his list volume is approx 1000 members, split about 80% list - 20% digest and perhaps 100 messages per day. -Mitch From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 12 12:02:11 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA14403; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 11:43:37 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id LAA14393 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 11:43:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from delphi.orlando.veda.com (delphi.orlando.veda.com [207.30.84.68]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id MAA24682 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 12:54:53 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 14406 invoked from network); 11 Feb 1999 20:54:27 -0000 Received: from host063.orlando.veda.com (207.30.85.63) by delphi.orlando.veda.com with SMTP; 11 Feb 1999 20:54:27 -0000 From: roger@jadebox.com (Roger Smith) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: List Tool Question Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 21:02:27 GMT Message-ID: <36d1455d.525537392@smtp.orlando.veda.com> References: <199902071743.LAA26749@celery.tssi.com> <19990209154559.E27681@triceratops.com> In-Reply-To: <19990209154559.E27681@triceratops.com> X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >ezmlm-idx already does this by restricting posting to subscribers >(matching envelope sender), and then allowing subscribers to register >alternate addresses from which they might send mail. One user, >multiple email addresses. Arrow (http://www.jadebox.com/arrow/) does that also, but that's not the same as what was suggested since the list still sends posted messages to the original address. I like the option of allowing the subscriber to change the subscribed address, and I plan to add it to Arrow. But I need to consider how to do it in a way that won't confuse subscribers and is not too difficult. -- Roger ------------------------------- No list server? Manage an interactive mailing list on your PC with Arrow! http://www.jadebox.com/arrow/ From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 12 12:14:24 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA14418; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 11:43:53 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id LAA14408 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 11:43:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from triceratops.com (triceratops.com [206.83.162.235]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id NAA25019 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 13:18:21 -0800 (PST) From: johnjohn@triceratops.com Received: (qmail 17972 invoked by uid 100); 11 Feb 1999 21:23:07 -0000 Message-ID: <19990211132307.D29366@triceratops.com> Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 13:23:07 -0800 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: List Tool Question References: <19990209154559.E27681@triceratops.com> <199902111455.IAA11214@celery.tssi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <199902111455.IAA11214@celery.tssi.com>; from Mike Nolan on Thu, Feb 11, 1999 at 08:55:13AM -0600 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, Feb 11, 1999 at 08:55:13AM -0600, Mike Nolan wrote: > johnjohn@triceratops.com wrote: > > > > > I like the idea of being able to unlink e-mail addresses from users, but > > > only if it can be done without sacrificing accountability somehow. > > > > ezmlm-idx already does this by restricting posting to subscribers > > (matching envelope sender), and then allowing subscribers to register > > alternate addresses from which they might send mail. One user, > > multiple email addresses. > > If the alternate addresses registrations have to come from the original > account, this may defeat the purpose. It doesn't, so it doesn't. > Plus, isn't the envelope sender > address the most frequently munged variant due to mail gateway changes > and other things that most users are blithely unaware of? ezmlm uses VERP, so the return path shows the use what address he is subscribed as. A trivial script will tell each subscriber that he's on list X as address Y. if the mail gateway changes the envelope sender, all the user has to do is register the new address to send mail to the list. If the user want to subscribe the new address and unsubscribe the old one, that's ok too. -- John White johnjohn@triceratops.com PGP Public Key: http://www.triceratops.com/john/public-key.pgp From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 12 18:44:24 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA20218; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 18:27:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from cybercorp.net (www.cybercorp.net [207.112.30.80]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA20211 for ; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 18:27:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (rhiggins@localhost) by cybercorp.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id VAA25345 for ; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:36:57 -0500 Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:36:57 -0500 (EST) From: "Dr. Rob Higgins" To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Organization: CyberCorp Inc. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I seem to be getting more and more messages in dual format plain/text and html/text on the lists I facilitate. My pine email program still makes me go through several extra steps to read the plain/text portion. I've requested that only plain/text be sent to my lists (and plain/text only to majordomo in particular). But I'm wondering what the status of this issue is on other lists. Are other listserver packages handling html/text ok? And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? ---rob--- %% virted, soho-can & webmaster-l list facilitator %% Dr.Robert N. Higgins Ph.D. | ~ ~ ~ GYMNASIA VIRTUALES ~ ~ ~ CyberCorp Inc. | GymVCOW - http://www.cybercorp.net/COW rhiggins@cybercorp.net | GymVMOO - http://www.cybercorp.net/GymVMOO http://www.cybercorp.net | GymVCourses - http://www.cybercorp.net/gymv From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 12 21:43:45 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA22592; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:26:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA22585 for ; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:26:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA06646 ; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:37:56 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:25:49 -0800 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: spamcops.com? Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Anyone know anything about these people? I've never heard of them before today, and, of course, they're web site isn't currently answering. Neither of which makes me think they're a major force in the anti-spam world, but I had the question brought to me today, so I'm researching them... Or trying to... -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 12 21:59:31 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA22606; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:26:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA22594 for ; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:26:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA06464 ; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:38:27 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:22:51 -0800 To: "Dr. Rob Higgins" , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 9:36 PM -0500 2/12/99, Dr. Rob Higgins wrote: > But I'm wondering what the status of this issue is on other > lists. right now, I have a procmail front end that traps and returns this with a message. In reality, the e-mail world is changing, so that at some point, I'll be accepting HTML and MIME stuff on my lists. it's not my preference, but I can see this will be a reality. Just not yet, IMHO. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 02:43:45 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id CAA26802; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 02:24:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from venus.communitech.net (venus.communitech.net [199.79.146.241]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id CAA26795 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 02:24:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from thorby ([24.94.80.128]) by venus.communitech.net ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 04:28:52 -600 Message-Id: <4.1.19990213002721.00f9ea30@mail.rudbek.com> X-Sender: vawjr@mail.rudbek.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 00:31:55 -1000 To: Chuq Von Rospach From: "Victor A. Wagner, Jr." Subject: Re: spamcops.com? Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I get bad IP address when trying to access: spamcops.com spamcops.org spamcops.net and (praise the Lord), spamcops.gov they must be pretty small At Friday 2/12/99 21:25, you wrote: > >Anyone know anything about these people? I've never heard of them >before today, and, of course, they're web site isn't currently >answering. Neither of which makes me think they're a major force in >the anti-spam world, but I had the question brought to me today, so >I'm researching them... Or trying to... > >-- >Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) >Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) >Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) > + > >Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! Victor A. Wagner, Jr. PGP RSA fingerprint = 4D20 EBF6 0101 B069 3817 8DBF C846 E47A PGP D-H fingerprint = 98BC 65E3 1A19 43EC 3908 65B9 F755 E6F4 63BB 9D93 The five most dangerous words in the English language: "There oughta be a law" From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 06:29:17 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id GAA01653; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 06:18:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from ctc.swva.net (ctc.swva.net [165.166.123.19]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA01646 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 06:18:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from default (pem05-05.swva.net [208.140.224.69]) by ctc.swva.net (8.9.0/8.9.0) with SMTP id JAA10231 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:26:27 -0500 Message-Id: <199902131426.JAA10231@ctc.swva.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:26:15 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Reply-to: bernie@fantasyfarm.com References: In-reply-to: X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 12 Feb 99, at 21:36, Dr. Rob Higgins wrote: > I seem to be getting more and more messages in dual format > plain/text and html/text on the lists I facilitate. [...] > But I'm wondering what the status of this issue is on other > lists. Our charter specifies plain ascii submissions only. No MIME, no HTML, no wierd non-Latin charsets, etc, etc. They're detected on submission and auto-returned by script. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 06:43:54 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id GAA01661; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 06:18:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from ctc.swva.net (ctc.swva.net [165.166.123.19]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA01654 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 06:18:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from default (pem05-05.swva.net [208.140.224.69]) by ctc.swva.net (8.9.0/8.9.0) with SMTP id JAA10222 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:26:24 -0500 Message-Id: <199902131426.JAA10222@ctc.swva.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:26:15 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Reply-to: bernie@fantasyfarm.com In-reply-to: References: X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 12 Feb 99, at 21:22, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > In reality, the e-mail world is changing, so that at some point, I'll > be accepting HTML and MIME stuff on my lists. it's not my preference, > but I can see this will be a reality. You think that? This seems to me to be at least the third [fourth?] attempt at "better than plain text" [BBN had some scheme years ago [I forget the details now], MS had RTF, MS also had the hated "winpmail.dat" formatting info glued on, etc]. And looking back over the failed attempts, it is hard to see that html ought to be the one to succeed: Just IMO, of course, but HTML is a truly awful page description language. Overcomplicated, too hard to process, too non-compact. At the limits, it is nearly impossible to do HTML "right" [unless you're a full-blown browser and are online as you read your email], and even then it gets touchy [you get an email message with a RealAudio clip? OR a Java applet? Or with hyperlinks to off-site "chunks". CSS's in email?] I realize this is just random whining, but there's a sort-of dual question here: Is HTML-email really on the way, or will this just [one hopes!] prove to be another failed attempt to move email beyond "just text". I despise HTML email so much that I try to make believe it isn't there, so I don't have a good feel for what's really happening. If it really *is* coming, is there any hope to get some rational subset of HTML defined and perhaps head off true chaos? [you're all aware, I suspect, that no two browsers display HTML in quite the same way, which is hardly [IMO] a suitable standard for transmitting email.] Hell, even RTF would've been a better choice... Oh, well... I'm not typically a luddite, but I guess I'm going to be among the kicking-and-screaming resisters of HTML email. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 09:28:54 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA03759; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:17:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from kachina.jetcafe.org (kachina.jetcafe.org [205.147.43.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA03752 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:17:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from ee-nt (eckert@netcom8.netcom.com [192.100.81.117]) by kachina.jetcafe.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id JAA24987 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:25:24 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990213092546.009e65f0@pop.climber.org> X-Sender: eckert@pop.climber.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:25:46 -0800 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: SRE Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 09:22 PM 2/12/99 -0800, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: >right now, I have a procmail front end that traps and returns this >with a message. I've also considered using the Majordomo "delete_headers" option to boink the MIME line - all the stuff would be there, but it would be ugly and might not be interpreted by a client??? If it works, this would be a way to let people see what plain text clients see. I'm already deleting some headers like "X-Juno-Line-Breaks" because any software that adds a fronter (or header) to the message itself breaks juno-to-juno email. I hate formatting stuff that's stuck in using non-standard headers, and I hate it even more when a provider makes it so you can't use list features without junking up the message. >In reality, the e-mail world is changing, so that at some point, I'll >be accepting HTML and MIME stuff on my lists. it's not my preference, >but I can see this will be a reality. >Just not yet, IMHO. Right now it's more of an issue with people who can't view the message. Same problem with unwrapped paragraphs - there are still mail clients out there that will NOT wrap lines, so people only get to read the first 80 characters of each paragraph. Ugh. I reluctantly went back to hard-wrapping lines because of so many complaints. Even if everyone could read it, allowing binary attachments is a good way to waste bandwidth and distribute viruses. You want pretty? Get a free website (like geocities) and post the URL. You want email? Just send text. Of course, those people who attach both PC and Mac Word documents after pasting in the plain text get really pissed off when their post bounces... but if it doesn't bounce, the Unix people get really pissed off at receiving TWO useless binary files. Sigh. Now what about these "vcard.vcf" things? Anyone choosing to bounce those? They look like attachments in Eudora, but they're really not. Finally, has anyone played around with deleting attachments but letting the plain text go through? Or would that be an ethical problem of editing the user's post? SRE mailto:eckert@climber.org | http://www.climber.org/eckert/ Info on peak climbing email lists mailto:info@climber.org Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie!'... until you can find a rock. From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 09:43:52 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA03826; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:20:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA03809 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:20:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA19320 ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:32:30 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199902131426.JAA10222@ctc.swva.net> References: Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:23:35 -0800 To: bernie@fantasyfarm.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >> In reality, the e-mail world is changing, so that at some point, I'll >> be accepting HTML and MIME stuff on my lists. it's not my preference, >> but I can see this will be a reality. > > You think that? Yes, I do. Because I'm starting to see it accepted as "normal". There are enough mailers out there that accept it that while it's not universal, it's getting close, too. > Just IMO, of course, but HTML is a truly awful page description language. > Overcomplicated, too hard to process, too non-compact. On the other hand, for the kind of thing most people put into e-mail, those really aren't significant factors. Microsoft Word 2000 is overkill for a letter home to mom, too... (grin) > Is HTML-email really on the way, It's in my business plan to support, at least as an option. And there's strong interest within my users to SEND material via HTML, and some indication our user base is interested in receiving it that way. > If it really *is* coming, is there any hope to get some rational subset > of HTML defined and perhaps head off true chaos? [you're all aware, I > suspect, that no two browsers display HTML in quite the same way, which > is hardly [IMO] a suitable standard for transmitting email.] That hasn't stopped the WWW, so I simply don't see this as an issue. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 09:58:48 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA04092; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:48:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA04085 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:48:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (root@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA16309 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 11:56:04 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA29214 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 11:54:26 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902131754.LAA29214@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists (fwd) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 11:54:26 -0600 (CST) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > In reality, the e-mail world is changing, so that at some point, I'll > be accepting HTML and MIME stuff on my lists. it's not my preference, > but I can see this will be a reality. Is it all MIME segments that you reject, or just non-text ones? I don't know that it is a good idea to reject all MIME documents, because there are likely users who can't always control whether MIME encoding is used. This probably applies more to newcomers than long-timers, but I've got a couple of e-mail accounts and mail agents that I use on occasion for which I'm not sure how to prevent from sending MIME-encoded messages. I currently filter for and reject messges with MIME segments that have binary components (GIFs, etc), and also posts with uuencoded stuff and HTML, What I'd really LIKE to do is set up a filter that keeps just the text-based MIME segments and gets rid of segments like TNEF's, whatever the blazes they are, but I'm not comfortable enough with MIME to know what I can and can't throw away, and don't currently have the time to develop that expertise. One area that I haven't made my mind up on yet is digital signatures. An increasing number of e-mail users are sending digital signatures, and right now they're not very useful to me. But in the long run that might be not only a desirable thing but a NECESSARY one, especially if some of my screwball ideas about how to reform the net ever gather steam. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 11:23:32 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA04945; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 11:06:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp1.ihug.co.nz (tk1.ihug.co.nz [203.29.160.13]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA04938 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 11:06:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from ihug.co.nz (p13-max10.wlg.ihug.co.nz [202.49.241.205]) by smtp1.ihug.co.nz (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA29910 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 08:14:33 +1300 Message-ID: <36C5CF07.6001F00@ihug.co.nz> Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 08:14:17 +1300 From: Olwen Williams X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: spamcops.com? References: <4.1.19990213002721.00f9ea30@mail.rudbek.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I did a search on spamcop, came up with a website for a Julian Haight, follwed a link and came up with spamcop.net. Spam Cop seems to be a product he's selling. "Victor A. Wagner, Jr." wrote: > I get bad IP address when trying to access: > spamcops.com > spamcops.org > spamcops.net > and (praise the Lord), spamcops.gov > > they must be pretty small > > At Friday 2/12/99 21:25, you wrote: > > > >Anyone know anything about these people? I've never heard of them > >before today, and, of course, they're web site isn't currently > >answering. Neither of which makes me think they're a major force in > >the anti-spam world, but I had the question brought to me today, so > >I'm researching them... Or trying to... > > > >-- > >Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) > >Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) > >Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) > > + > > > >Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! > > Victor A. Wagner, Jr. > PGP RSA fingerprint = 4D20 EBF6 0101 B069 3817 8DBF C846 E47A > PGP D-H fingerprint = 98BC 65E3 1A19 43EC 3908 65B9 F755 E6F4 63BB 9D93 > The five most dangerous words in the English language: > "There oughta be a law" From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 11:38:34 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA05081; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 11:19:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from ntcorp.dn.net (ntcorp.dn.net [207.226.172.79]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA05074 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 11:19:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (fidelman@localhost) by ntcorp.dn.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA11590 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 14:22:34 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 14:22:34 -0500 (EST) From: Miles Fidelman X-Sender: fidelman@ntcorp.dn.net To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <199902131426.JAA10222@ctc.swva.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sat, 13 Feb 1999, Bernie Cosell wrote: > Is HTML-email really on the way, or will this just [one hopes!] prove to > be another failed attempt to move email beyond "just text". I despise > HTML email so much that I try to make believe it isn't there, so I don't > have a good feel for what's really happening. I guess I have to take a contrary view here. On a number of my lists people used to send very long messages - notably newsletters or text copies of documents of one sort or another. These days, they're more likely to send a short notice ("current issue available") along with a link to a web page. In some cases, they'll send a table of contents populated with links. Personally, I find this a positive turn of events. Miles Fidelman ************************************************************************** The Center for Civic Networking PO Box 600618 Miles R. Fidelman, President & Newtonville, MA 02460-0006 Director of Civic Networking Systems 617-558-3698 fax: 617-630-8946 mfidelman@civicnet.org http://civic.net/ccn.html Information Infrastructure: Public Spaces for the 21st Century Let's Start With: Internet Wall-Plugs Everywhere Say It Often, Say It Loud: "I Want My Internet!" ************************************************************************** From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 12:56:56 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA00692; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 12:42:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from kachina.jetcafe.org (kachina.jetcafe.org [205.147.43.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA00682 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 12:42:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from ee-nt (eckert@netcom14.netcom.com [192.100.81.126]) by kachina.jetcafe.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id MAA25643 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 12:50:42 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990213124730.009f9930@pop.climber.org> X-Sender: eckert@pop.climber.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 12:47:30 -0800 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: SRE Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <199902131426.JAA10222@ctc.swva.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 09:26 AM 2/13/99 -0500, Bernie Cosell wrote: >Is HTML-email really on the way, or will this just [one hopes!] prove to >be another failed attempt to move email beyond "just text". I despise >HTML email so much that I try to make believe it isn't there, so I don't >have a good feel for what's really happening. It can lock up your system if written maliciously. Netscape denied this until the editors of EETimes mailbombed them and then challenged them to quote the text of the malicious message. "Can't be did." Netscape finally acknowledged the bug, but had posted no fix when I checked a few months later. I assume by now they have figured it out (the trick was to have HTML that read from the printer port, and in Win95 that would hang the system until the printer said something, which printers don't usually do). I don't rail on the size or features of HTML, it's more about security holes for me. I've also seen attachments via HTML that appear to be URLs, but which in fact launch executables on your system. All manner of mischief is possible with that kind of attack. Who needs it? I love PDF for fully formatted documents, but I usually put them on the web and send the URL for those who have PDF readers. (www.adobe.com - the reader is free, you buy the writer) Small, readable on ALL platforms (Unix, PC, Mac), and it always looks the same. SRE mailto:eckert@climber.org | http://www.climber.org/eckert/ Info on peak climbing email lists mailto:info@climber.org Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie!'... until you can find a rock. From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 16:56:51 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA04112; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 16:47:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from scifi.squawk.com (scifi.squawk.com [208.235.116.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id QAA04105 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 16:46:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from tpad.squawk.com (root@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by scifi.squawk.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id TAA11706; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 19:54:55 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990213195453.0396d420@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: njs@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 19:54:53 -0500 To: SRE From: Nick Simicich Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990213092546.009e65f0@pop.climber.org> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 09:25 AM 2/13/99 -0800, SRE wrote: >I've also considered using the Majordomo "delete_headers" option >to boink the MIME line - all the stuff would be there, but it would >be ugly and might not be interpreted by a client??? If it works, >this would be a way to let people see what plain text clients see. some mail clients will figure out you have done this and recover, because they expect to do it for badly formatted digests....which is the sort produced by Majordomo. Other stuff comes through uuencoded, and that has to be searched for inline. >I'm already deleting some headers like "X-Juno-Line-Breaks" because >any software that adds a fronter (or header) to the message itself >breaks juno-to-juno email. I hate formatting stuff that's stuck in >using non-standard headers, and I hate it even more when a provider >makes it so you can't use list features without junking up the message. I shoot the advertising trailers as well. >Right now it's more of an issue with people who can't view the message. >Same problem with unwrapped paragraphs - there are still mail clients >out there that will NOT wrap lines, so people only get to read the >first 80 characters of each paragraph. Ugh. I reluctantly went back to >hard-wrapping lines because of so many complaints. Yep. >Even if everyone could read it, allowing binary attachments is a good >way to waste bandwidth and distribute viruses. You want pretty? Get >a free website (like geocities) and post the URL. You want email? >Just send text. Of course, those people who attach both PC and Mac >Word documents after pasting in the plain text get really pissed off >when their post bounces... but if it doesn't bounce, the Unix people >get really pissed off at receiving TWO useless binary files. Sigh. > >Now what about these "vcard.vcf" things? Anyone choosing to bounce >those? They look like attachments in Eudora, but they're really not. Actually, they really are. For a single part text message with a vcard, the top level is multipart/mixed, then inside there is, likely a text/plain (or a multipart/alternative) and a text/x-vcard. Since no mailer other than Netscape can be expected to know what to do with their unregistered attachment, it gets turned into a file by Eudora, for example. It really is a unrenderable attachment. Here is a sample one I happened to have on file: Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="vcard.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for StrAngE Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="vcard.vcf" begin: vcard fn: StrAngE n: ;StrAngE org: ThE ceReAl KiLleRz adr: StRanGe@lOoP.coM;;;Los Angeles;CA;90638;uSa email;internet: StrAngE@loOp.cOM title: > tHE chOsen OnE < tel;home: 562.941.XXXX note: ICQ # 2669033 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: TRUE version: 2.1 end: vcard Nothing in there I'd bother rendering. :-) > >Finally, has anyone played around with deleting attachments but >letting the plain text go through? Or would that be an ethical >problem of editing the user's post? http://scifi.squawk.com/demime.html :-) Do I sound like a broken record? Help stamp out mime in your lifetime. Just last week it deleted two instances of happy99 that were sent through lists I run. When I actually remove an attachment, I leave a plain text note in the text. If users want to send attachments to each other, they can do it directly. My users don't worry what format their messages are sent in - demime strips them all, picks the most formattable section and renders it in plain text if it ain't there already. I think I'm doing the right thing with multipart/mixed and multipart/alternative, and message/rfc822 and whatever else is there - I'm not finding things it does not handle. I wrote this because I had a user whose mail was being changed from plain text to mime by her mail relay, and because I was getting tired of telling people how to send plain text. -- You might be a redneck if -- Your BBQ has its own license plate. Nick Simicich mailto:njs@scifi.squawk.com or (last choice) mailto:njs@us.ibm.com http://scifi.squawk.com/njs.html -- Stop by and Light Up The World! From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 13 18:56:50 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA05326; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 18:42:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA05319 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 18:42:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA23030 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 20:50:21 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id UAA01999 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 20:50:19 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902140250.UAA01999@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 20:50:19 -0600 (CST) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Miles Fidelman wrote: > On a number of my lists people used to send very long messages - notably > newsletters or text copies of documents of one sort or another. These > days, they're more likely to send a short notice ("current issue > available") along with a link to a web page. In some cases, they'll send > a table of contents populated with links. Personally, I find this a > positive turn of events. I think you missed the point. I don't think many of us are upset about posts that contain URL's (I rather like them), but we don't like posts which have both a text segment and an HTML segment, with IDENTICAL contents. This is an option in several of the mail engines, often on by default. And there are some people who send ONLY the HTML formatted text, which is darned hard to read in plaintext. Those of us who don't read our e-mail with similar engines often get 'treated' to both segments. And it wastes bandwidth, something which is not inexhaustible (just ask the folks at Victoria's Secret) and which costs ME money to expand for my lists, since I run my own domain and pay the bills for it. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 14 00:26:54 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id AAA08661; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 00:18:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from windlord.stanford.edu (windlord.Stanford.EDU [171.64.12.23]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id AAA08654 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 00:17:58 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 21074 invoked by uid 50); 14 Feb 1999 08:26:11 -0000 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <3.0.5.32.19990213195453.0396d420@127.0.0.1> From: Russ Allbery In-Reply-To: Nick Simicich's message of "Sat, 13 Feb 1999 19:54:53 -0500" Date: 14 Feb 1999 00:26:11 -0800 Message-ID: Lines: 44 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.4.66/Emacs 19.34 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Nick Simicich writes: > Actually, they really are. For a single part text message with a vcard, > the top level is multipart/mixed, then inside there is, likely a > text/plain (or a multipart/alternative) and a text/x-vcard. Since no > mailer other than Netscape can be expected to know what to do with their > unregistered attachment, it gets turned into a file by Eudora, for > example. It really is a unrenderable attachment. Latest alpha version of Gnus knows how to parse and render VCards. Latest alpha version of Gnus also has full MIME support (best MIME implementation by far that I have *ever* seen -- it makes MIME actually not suck) and support for multipart/alternative and HTML rendering via w3-mode. I'm with Chuq on this. There are some really bad ideas that people have implemented on top of MIME (multipart/alternative is one, and I still think VCards are another), but MIME itself is both here to stay and really not that bad. A decent implementation makes all the difference in the world. larsi's support in Gnus convinced me; it's not that MIME sucks, it's that no one's written a non-sucking implementation. For example, there's absolutely *no* reason to use the horrid boundaries that most MIME clients use unless you're intentionally going out of your way to make the message unreadable for people who don't have MIME. Gnus's default MIME boundary is: --=-=-= Yup. That's it. It's perfectly readable in a plain text mesage, even more readable than some of the ad hoc ASCII separators that people use. I'm less convinced of the utility of textual markup, but there again I think a lot of it has to do with the lack of a non-sucking implementation that's lightweight enough. I *do* think that putting it out of band in the headers is the Right Way of handling markup of e-mail and news messages, since the degredation for people who don't parse the markup is considerably easier and nicer. And a lot of the problem with HTML markup is that most of the tools that use HTML to mark up text messages produce really hard-to-read HTML. It's possible to do a better job. -- Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 14 07:22:43 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id HAA15214; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 07:01:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from cybercorp.net (www.cybercorp.net [207.112.30.80]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA15207 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 07:00:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (rhiggins@localhost) by cybercorp.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id KAA27199 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 10:10:31 -0500 Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 10:10:30 -0500 (EST) From: "Dr. Rob Higgins" To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Organization: CyberCorp Inc. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sat, 13 Feb 1999, Miles Fidelman wrote: > > On a number of my lists people used to send very long messages - notably > newsletters or text copies of documents of one sort or another. These > days, they're more likely to send a short notice ("current issue > available") along with a link to a web page. In some cases, they'll send > a table of contents populated with links. Personally, I find this a > positive turn of events. Miles, URL links and mailto entries do not require that the whole email message be sent as an HTML document. I'm not sending this as HTML, but the links in my .sig below still present as active links in most GUI email readers. (or maybe just in the Netscape and IE/Outlook ones). ---rob--- %% virted, soho-can & webmaster-l list facilitator %% Dr.Robert N. Higgins Ph.D. | ~ ~ ~ GYMNASIA VIRTUALES ~ ~ ~ CyberCorp Inc. | GymVCOW - http://www.cybercorp.net/COW rhiggins@cybercorp.net | GymVMOO - http://www.cybercorp.net/GymVMOO http://www.cybercorp.net | GymVCourses - http://www.cybercorp.net/gymv From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 14 08:58:16 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA16321; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 08:48:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from dfw-ix10.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix10.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA16314 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 08:47:58 -0800 (PST) Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix10.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id KAA15945 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 10:56:07 -0600 (CST) Received: from den-co67-37.ix.netcom.com(206.214.77.37) by dfw-ix10.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma015911; Sun Feb 14 10:55:39 1999 From: "Tom Rouse" To: Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 09:52:46 -0700 Message-ID: <002501be583a$726ac560$254dd6ce@partagas> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 In-Reply-To: Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >From the POV of communications and electronic marketing communications in particular, HTML is very desirable for its ability to enhance the visual image. I predict that market forces will eventually drive email in that direction. The situation is all the more potent because virtually every online user has an MHTML capable client bundled in their browser. Of course the vast majority of users (newly arrived) are unaware of this, or are not aware of the distinction between MHTML and plain text anyway. But a trend toward MHTML has major implications for increasing load on list content developers and resources, but in certain situations the extra resource allocation may well be worth it. I'm thinking of a situation where a cruise line, say, may want to use subscriber-based lists to promote its product, with full color and graphics. Russia Today is an example of a highly produced graphical newsletter in a list environment. The problem, it seems to me, is that one pipeline cannot accommodate all. MHTML simply gorges the channel for those not using that standard. Therefore, separation of pipelines is called for. My solution is to create optional dedicated lists, one for plain text users and one for MHTML users. I provide my business clients with guidelines for appropriate usage (which we can control on our Lyris platform) based on their email objectives. It has not happened yet, but I expect the time to come soon when I will advise a client that their objectives would best be served by creating parallel lists, one produced exclusively in MHTML for their users who desire it. I believe I've come across a few producers who already do that, like Russia Today. (Smarter Living?) I think the trend to MHTML is inevitable once the user population matures and learns what to expect from their tools. Tom Rouse From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 14 09:58:16 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA17027; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 09:41:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA16998 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 09:41:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA18488 ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 09:53:36 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Nick Simicich's message of "Sat, 13 Feb 1999 19:54:53 -0500" <3.0.5.32.19990213195453.0396d420@127.0.0.1> Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 09:22:23 -0800 To: Russ Allbery , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 12:26 AM -0800 2/14/99, Russ Allbery wrote: > I'm less convinced of the utility of textual markup, but there again I > think a lot of it has to do with the lack of a non-sucking implementation > that's lightweight enough. But don't be surprised if the next version of the NetScape rendering engine changes that. supposed to be brute fast, a tiny memory imprint, and will be avaialble (at least in library form) for other applications to use. Also very standards-focussed. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 14 11:28:11 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA18222; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 11:24:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from darius.concentric.net (darius.concentric.net [207.155.198.79]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA18215 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 11:23:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from mcfeely.concentric.net (mcfeely [207.155.198.83]) by darius.concentric.net (8.9.1a/(98/12/15 5.12)) id OAA05397; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 14:32:11 -0500 (EST) [1-800-745-2747 The Concentric Network] Received: from wildchild (ts001d37.tul-ok.concentric.net [206.173.148.49]) by mcfeely.concentric.net (8.9.1a) id OAA17737; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 14:32:08 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199902141932.OAA17737@mcfeely.concentric.net> From: "Angus" Organization: Down On DaFarm To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 13:32:59 -0600 Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Reply-to: angus1@cris.com References: In-reply-to: X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01a) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > still present as active links in most GUI email readers. > (or maybe just in the Netscape and IE/Outlook ones). Pegasus too ;-) ...Cleo angus1@cris.com From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 09:29:35 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA05113; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 09:21:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from crabcake.akamai.com (access.akamai.com [4.17.143.9]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA05106 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 09:20:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from claude.akamai.com (claude.akamai.com [10.10.123.141]) by crabcake.akamai.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA19923 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 12:29:18 -0500 Received: (from dshaw@localhost) by claude.akamai.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA00411 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 16:25:32 -0500 Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 16:25:32 -0500 From: David Shaw To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Listtool.com Message-ID: <19990214162532.A381@jabberwocky.com> Mail-Followup-To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.1i X-PGP-Fingerprint: 3CB3B415/2048/4D 96 83 18 2B AF BE 45 D0 07 C4 07 51 37 B3 18 X-URL: http://www.jabberwocky.com/ X-Phase-Of-Moon: The Moon is Waning Crescent (3% of Full) X-Current-Email-Backlog: 143 X-Pointless-Random-Number: 212 X-Silly-Header: It sure is. X-Time-Til-Y2K: 45 weeks, 5 days, 10 hours, 52 minutes, 4 seconds Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Have any of you folks been "helped" by listtool.com? I recently got a letter from them telling me that they had added a list I run to their service (and I should tell all my users about them!) The forged subscriptions started coming in the next day. Apparently, listtool.com is just a simple CGI that takes any user-specifed data, and creates a message to majordomo (or listserv, or what have you) at your site, that is forged to come from that address. What an amazing resource this is for anyone who wants to abuse someone else! I wrote them demanding to be taken off their service and they wrote back telling me how helpful their users found their service and so on, and was I *sure* I wanted to be removed. Yes, I assured them, despite their undeniable wonderfulness, I really did not want to be listed. They still didn't take me off. Finally, I rigged a procmail wrapper around majordomo to bounce any messages that were sent via their web site back to them. That got me removed, finally. ARGH! David -- David Shaw | dshaw@jabberwocky.com | WWW http://www.jabberwocky.com/ +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence." - Jeremy S. Anderson From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 12:44:28 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA07871; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 12:28:22 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id MAA07861 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 12:28:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from skylist.net (skylist.net [38.153.106.7]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA13160 for ; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 10:08:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from [38.153.106.3] (38.153.106.3) by skylist.net with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 2.2); Fri, 12 Feb 1999 13:16:06 -0500 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 4.5 (0410) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 13:18:22 -0500 Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? From: "Joshua D. Baer" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Mime-version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <1293279130-13598748@skylist.net> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > So does anyone here have a MLM recommendation for NT? He further > specified: > > "It needs to be free or damn cheap, but must have good sets > of features. I see alot of list traffic done in Listserv." > > > My estimation of his list volume is approx 1000 members, split about > 80% list - 20% digest and perhaps 100 messages per day. I can't recommend Lyris enough . It is high performance, has tons of features, and is has been rock-solid reliable. ~~Josh -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joshua D. Baer SKYLIST.net Virtual Communities Over 100 Y2K-Related Discussion Forums - "We may not have got everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." - Douglas Adams for the Mac From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 14:29:26 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA09516; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:17:23 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA09506 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:17:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from orange.metron.com (orange.metron.com [204.182.31.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA04177 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:56:02 -0800 (PST) Received: (from lou@localhost) by orange.metron.com (8.9.0.Beta3/8.9.0.Beta3) id KAA06717 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 10:02:50 -0800 (PST) From: Lou Katz Message-Id: <199902131802.KAA06717@orange.metron.com> X-Envelope-From: lou X-Envelope-To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: HTML is submissions To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 10:02:50 -0800 (PST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I pass all incoming HTML through a script which converts all left anglebrackets to anglebracket-space '< '. -=[L]=- Try it. From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 14:44:46 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA09485; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:16:46 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA09475 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:16:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from lokkur.dexter.mi.us (lokkur.dexter.mi.us [148.59.2.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA01969 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 06:49:18 -0800 (PST) Received: (from scs@localhost) by lokkur.dexter.mi.us (8.8.8/8.8.8/lokkur-1.1-scs) id JAA12476 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:54:56 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 09:54:56 -0500 From: Steve Simmons To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: spamcops.com? Message-ID: <19990213095456.A12472@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95us Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Chuq Von Rospach writes: >Anyone know anything about these people? I've never heard of them >before today, and, of course, they're web site isn't currently >answering . . . >I'm researching them... Or trying to... Try spamcop.net. -- ``The nice thing about being our age is that we no longer have to worry about premature heart attacks.'' -- said to me at a New Years Eve party, 12/31/1998 From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 14:59:36 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA09790; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:29:38 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA09773 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:29:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.networkone.net (mail.networkone.net [209.144.112.75]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id QAA04226 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 16:58:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from jet (assured-01-191.ln.networkone.net [209.144.118.192]) by mail.networkone.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id RAA27875 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 17:07:02 -0800 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990213170608.008671d0@ptw.com> X-Sender: juniper@ptw.com (Unverified) X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 17:06:08 -0800 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: jet Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <199902130900.BAA24984@honor.greatcircle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 01:00 AM 2/13/99 -0800, Dr. Rob Higgins wrote: >I've requested that only plain/text be sent to my lists (and >plain/text only to majordomo in particular). > >But I'm wondering what the status of this issue is on other >lists. Are other listserver packages handling html/text >ok? And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up >to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? > I suppose we'll have to accept it, eventually, especially as so many people use browsers, webtv or MS products as email clients. I still don't like the waste of drivespace, so I filter html and any other attachments from going to my majordomo based list. I also consider it a courtesy to my foreign subscribers, many of whom pay for their net connection by the minute. When the messages bounce to me, I write the person and tell them to switch to plain text, if they want their posts to go through. From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 15:14:43 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA09452; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:16:17 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA09442 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:16:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from boofura.swcp.com (boofura.swcp.com [198.59.115.28]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA22876 for ; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 21:51:42 -0800 (PST) Received: (from lazlo@localhost) by boofura.swcp.com (8.8.5/8.8.0) id WAA21699 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Fri, 12 Feb 1999 22:59:43 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 22:59:43 -0700 From: Lazlo Nibble To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Message-ID: <19990212225943.A21674@swcp.com> Mail-Followup-To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.1i In-Reply-To: ; from Dr. Rob Higgins on Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:36:57PM -0500 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:36:57PM -0500, Dr. Rob Higgins wrote: > But I'm wondering what the status of this issue is on other > lists. Are other listserver packages handling html/text > ok? And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up > to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? I think most list packages pass it through just fine. But no, on my lists I divert all HTML messages to me for approval with majordomo's taboo_body settings, and usually kick them back to the poster with a policy notice. If what you have to say isn't worth saying without green flashing text, it's probably not worth saying on one of my lists. -- Lazlo Nibble - lazlo@studio-nibble.com - http://www.studio-nibble.com -- From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 15:29:30 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA09498; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:16:53 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA09488 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:16:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from gmi.net (gmi.net [198.78.58.27]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA01904 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 06:43:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from who.net (p198-79-78-79-ts1-tate.gmi.net [198.79.78.79]) by gmi.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA24402 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 08:51:36 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <36C59029.CD0675FE@who.net> Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 08:46:01 -0600 From: Jim Sealy Jr Organization: GemBilt Designs X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "list-managers@GreatCircle.COM" Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk There is software now in beta (PairList) which will include options to allow a person to subscribe to a list and specify what mail format they prefer, such as HTML. It then sends messages in that format to them. Then if I subscribe as text only, it will strip any code and attachments I'll receive the text only. If you then want to see the html version, you can look it up in the web based archive. For now, I'm running parallel lists for text and html subscribers and stripping the code at procmail before sending on to the text only list. Less painful methods of handling the various email modes is approaching. Jim Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > > At 9:36 PM -0500 2/12/99, Dr. Rob Higgins wrote: > > But I'm wondering what the status of this issue is on other > > lists. > > right now, I have a procmail front end that traps and returns this > with a message. > > In reality, the e-mail world is changing, so that at some point, I'll > be accepting HTML and MIME stuff on my lists. it's not my preference, > but I can see this will be a reality. > > Just not yet, IMHO. > > -- > Chuq Von Rospach From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 15:44:30 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA09472; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:16:39 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA09462 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:16:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from netserve.ous.edu (OSSHE.EDU [140.211.10.20]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id AAA24706 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 00:42:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (sugalskd@localhost) by netserve.ous.edu (8.9.0/8.9.0) with SMTP id AAA25008 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 00:50:35 -0800 (PST) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 00:50:35 -0800 (PST) From: Dan Sugalski To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, 12 Feb 1999, Dr. Rob Higgins wrote: > I seem to be getting more and more messages in dual format > plain/text and html/text on the lists I facilitate. > > My pine email program still makes me go through several extra > steps to read the plain/text portion. > > I've requested that only plain/text be sent to my lists (and > plain/text only to majordomo in particular). > > But I'm wondering what the status of this issue is on other > lists. Are other listserver packages handling html/text > ok? And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up > to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? What I've done on one of the lists I manage is to explicitly trap these sorts of things. Anything with a 'Content-Type: multipart*' or 'Content-Type: text/html' gets caught by the list fiters, and at some point a note gets dropped to whoever sent the mail asking them to try again without the cruft. I expect that as long as it makes the digests look ugly or unreadable, I'll do this. I also filter out any mail with uuencoded chunks in 'em, primarily to trap those annoying winmail.dat things (and the inevitable wave of read/unread/recieved notices they generate to the listowner address). That it catches one of the latest windows trojans/viruses is a happy side effect. :) Dan From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 15:59:31 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA09764; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:29:29 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA09753 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:29:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from scifi.squawk.com (scifi.squawk.com [208.235.116.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id QAA03848 for ; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 16:27:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from tpad.squawk.com (root@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by scifi.squawk.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id TAA11095; Sat, 13 Feb 1999 19:35:36 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990213193531.055a2100@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: njs@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 19:35:31 -0500 To: nolan@tssi.com From: Nick Simicich Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists (fwd) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List Managers) In-Reply-To: <199902131754.LAA29214@celery.tssi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 11:54 AM 2/13/99 -0600, Mike Nolan is said to have written: >What I'd really LIKE to do is set up a filter that keeps just the text-based >MIME segments and gets rid of segments like TNEF's, whatever the blazes they >are, but I'm not comfortable enough with MIME to know what I can and can't >throw away, and don't currently have the time to develop that expertise. http://scifi.squawk.com/demime.html - not quite what you want as it renders all segments as plain text. Basically you want to render as many text type segments in multipart/mixed or message/rfc822 stuff as you can, but only one of multipart/alternative. Everything else is likely to be something you care not about, or actively want to remove. I also delete digital sigs that are sent as mime sections, vcards, and the rest of the cruft. Adding these lines to global_taboo_headers /^content-type:\s.*html/i /^content-type:\s.*multi/i /^content-type:\s.*rich/i /^X-MS-Attachment/i and these line to global_taboo_body /How many internet mailing list/i /^\s+winmail.dat/i /^begin\s+[0-9]+\s+winmail.dat/i /^begin\s+[0-7]+\x\S+\s*$/i will pretty much get rid of uuencoded stuff and the Internet light bulb joke as well. :-) -- That which does not kill us, makes us stronger. That which does kill us makes us smell stronger, after a few days, anyway. Nick Simicich mailto:njs@scifi.squawk.com or (last choice) mailto:njs@us.ibm.com http://scifi.squawk.com/njs.html -- Stop by and Light Up The World! From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 16:44:35 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA11814; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:32:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.n.ml.org (narnia.idsi.net [208.195.228.60]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id QAA11807 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:32:27 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 31091 invoked by uid 505); 16 Feb 1999 00:40:38 -0000 Received: from localhost (sendmail-bs@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 16 Feb 1999 00:40:38 -0000 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 19:40:38 -0500 (EST) From: Daniel Reed To: "Joshua D. Baer" cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? In-Reply-To: <1293279130-13598748@skylist.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, 12 Feb 1999, Joshua D. Baer wrote: ) > So does anyone here have a MLM recommendation for NT? He further ) > specified: ) > "It needs to be free or damn cheap, but must have good sets ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ) > of features. I see alot of list traffic done in Listserv." ) > My estimation of his list volume is approx 1000 members, split about ) > 80% list - 20% digest and perhaps 100 messages per day. ) I can't recommend Lyris enough . It is high ) performance, has tons of features, and is has been rock-solid reliable. ... and costs more than a small Caribbean island. ( Up to 200 members per mailing list. ( Silver $495 with MultiView: $795 ( ( 500 members maximum per list. ( Gold $1,495 with MultiView: $2,295 ( ( 2000 members maximum per list. ( Platinum $2,995 with MultiView: $4,495 ^^^^^^ ( ( No membership maximum. ( Platinum Plus $4,995 with MultiView: $7,495 -- Daniel Reed "[Windows] NT 5: the power of Windows, the simplicity of Unix." From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 18:59:33 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA14107; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:46:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.n.ml.org (narnia.idsi.net [208.195.228.60]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id SAA14092 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:46:14 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 31698 invoked by uid 505); 16 Feb 1999 02:54:42 -0000 Received: from localhost (sendmail-bs@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 16 Feb 1999 02:54:42 -0000 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:54:42 -0500 (EST) From: Daniel Reed To: "Joshua D. Baer" cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? In-Reply-To: <1292991093-30923167@skylist.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk For the love of God, please either decide to keep this in private email or in the public eye. Flip-flopping and then posting follow-ups to private messages to the list is terribly poor netiquette. On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Joshua D. Baer wrote: ) > ezmlm/qmail gets you insanely high performance (a 500+ subscriber mailing [...] ) > It also doesn't run on Windows NT. ) Have you looked at the subject of this message lately? I choose not to argue with any of your arguments since I disagree with the basis of them. The original poster, if you'll recall, wanted a free or extremely cheap Windows NT list manager that provided good features. You listed Lyris. I rebutted that Lyris didn't meet his requirements because it cost too much. You rebutted that even still, it's a "you get what you pay for" thing and hence Lyris is still an option (this happened in private email). I then rebutted by listing ezmlm/qmail (in direct response to your comparison between Majordomo/sendmail and Lyris), and at the end, for dramatic effect, had: ( It's also free. ( ( It also doesn't run on Windows NT. "It's also free" is what qualified it (in your eyes, apparently) for consideration for that original poster, as it met one of his original requirements. "It also doesn't run on Windows NT" was my equivalent of your $5000 suggestion--in my eyes, that disqualified it, since it didn't meet one of his original requirements. In any event, I shall not reply to any more messages in this thread, whether you choose to keep this public or move it back to private email. -- Daniel Reed I can levitate birds, but nobody cares... From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 20:29:36 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id UAA15504; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:17:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp2.vnet.net (smtp2.vnet.net [166.82.1.32]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id UAA15497 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:17:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from lmd.vnet.net (lmd.vnet.net [166.82.1.41]) by smtp2.vnet.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA07093; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:25:12 -0500 (EST) Received: from katie.vnet.net (katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by lmd.vnet.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA08370; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:25:50 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA12104; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:25:41 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:25:40 -0500 (EST) From: murr rhame To: Daniel Reed cc: "Joshua D. Baer" , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Daniel Reed wrote: > ... [Lyris] and costs more than a small Caribbean island. Price depends on what features you need and how many subscribers you want. Compared to other commercial packages such as Listproc, or Listserv, Lyris is inexpensive (no annual licensing fee). You want all the bells and whistles, you're gonna pay. If you're looking for cheap, drop the Windoz-NT, install Lynux and use freeware like Majordomo. Lynux runs well on a very modest machine. If you've got a retired 486 or better system on hand, it may be cheaper to set up a dedicated Unix machine as a mailing list server. - murr - From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 21:46:54 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA16008; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:11:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from scifi.squawk.com (scifi.squawk.com [208.235.116.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA15984 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:10:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from tpad.squawk.com (root@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by scifi.squawk.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id AAA11448; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 00:18:47 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990216001446.03a41cc0@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: njs@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 00:14:46 -0500 To: jet From: Nick Simicich Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990213170608.008671d0@ptw.com> References: <199902130900.BAA24984@honor.greatcircle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 05:06 PM 2/13/99 -0800, jet wrote: >At 01:00 AM 2/13/99 -0800, Dr. Rob Higgins wrote: > >>I've requested that only plain/text be sent to my lists (and >>plain/text only to majordomo in particular). >> >>But I'm wondering what the status of this issue is on other >>lists. Are other listserver packages handling html/text >>ok? And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up >>to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? >> >I suppose we'll have to accept it, eventually, especially as so many >people use browsers, webtv or MS products as email clients. I still >don't like the waste of drivespace, so I filter html and any other >attachments from going to my majordomo based list. I also consider >it a courtesy to my foreign subscribers, many of whom pay for their >net connection by the minute. The biggest technical prroblem is digests, at least in Majordomo. Most MUAs will not do the right thing with stuff shoved into messages in a digest. It is not clear that there is a right thing. I finally automated the common responses, like, "you sent your command to the wrong place", and I'm generally able to automatically move people to digest when they start to bounce and then off of the digest list, although the general bounce analyzer is a work in progress. -- That which does not kill us, makes us stronger. That which does kill us makes us smell stronger, after a few days, anyway. Nick Simicich mailto:njs@scifi.squawk.com or (last choice) mailto:njs@us.ibm.com http://scifi.squawk.com/njs.html -- Stop by and Light Up The World! From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 15 23:29:42 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA17652; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:06:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA17634 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:05:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA26724 ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:17:33 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:12:02 -0800 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: fyi -- SIEVE, server side email filters. Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Had this sent to me the other day, and figured it was worth passing along to the list-managers list. It's mostly FYI, in case you're interested. ---- For any of you interested in Sieve (proposed Internet standard language for filtering mail), we've just put up a small web page on the subject http://www.cyrusoft.com/sieve This web page is for the general community of vendors doing development of the syntax, not anything Cyrusoft or Mulberry-specific. We'll add a link to a more self-centered page on our own plans at some point 8-). I've gotten a fair number of inquiries in recent months about topics related to Mulberry and general mail architecture that are addressed by Sieve in one way or another. Basically, Sieve will provide portability for filters, so that they can (ideally) be written by graphical clients but stored and executed by mail servers. Obviously this requires support from both sides of the transaction, but there's a very solid base of vendors currently pursuing Sieve, including some instantly-recognizable names (in addition to obscure little old Cyrusoft 8-). We're basing the internal storage syntax of "simple" Mulberry filters in Mulberry 2.x on Sieve for portability and interchange. This way, if you set up a bunch of filters in Mulberry and want to share them with your friend who for some bizarre reason uses another Internet mail client, then the filters can be exported and re-used (assuming this other hypothetical internet mail client supports Sieve syntax as well). I'd note the long-term design for Mulberry filters will provide more functionality than the Sieve standard has built in, but I would consider these 'advanced' features, and wherever possible, we'll endeavour to document these as possible extensions to the Sieve language. I'd also note that Sieve filters can hypothetically be sent up to the server by a variety of possible routes: editing a file, ftp, http, acap, ldap, even via email submission. Methods for doing this will vary. However, we'll likely provide early support through Mulberry for ACAP storage of Sieve filters for use by a participating server: this would allow some of the niceties of IMSP addressbooks, most notably the ability to share Sieve filters among groups of users. It may take a little while longer to get a working arrangement for this, since there are multiple external dependencies (an IMAP/SMTP server that's both ACAP and Sieve-aware, as well as a released non-beta ACAP server), but it should provide some pretty nifty functionality. At this point, I'd encourage those of you who are very interested in the concept to bug your server vendor of choice or ISP about providing early support for Sieve filters. - Matt Wall Cyrusoft -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 16 13:18:33 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA02909; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:02:44 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA02898 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:02:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id EAA02393 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 04:59:03 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id HAA04685 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 07:23:45 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 07:23:45 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: ; from Dr. Rob Higgins on Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:36:57PM -0500 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:36:57PM -0500, Dr. Rob Higgins wrote: > And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up > to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? No, it's not. The overwhelming majority of Internet users cannot handle such simple tasks as subscribing/unsubscribing, removing boilerplate text (signatures, message headers/footers), correctly attributing quoted material, etc. I think it best to stick firmly by the maxim that ASCII is quite sufficient for mail traffic. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 16 13:29:09 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA03061; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:05:17 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA03051 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:05:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id RAA13214 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:55:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA30624 ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:07:16 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <19990213095456.A12472@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:25:43 -0800 To: Steve Simmons , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: spamcops.com? Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 9:54 AM -0500 2/13/99, Steve Simmons wrote: > Try spamcop.net. yup. I finally got through to the web site. Their DNS reeks. I'm amused. Not impressed, however, which is what I should be. Entire site reeks of "I smell a revenue opportunity", so I'm treating stuff posted through that site as mere unsubscribe requests, since there's no checking going on as to the validity of the complaint. They can (and IMHO, should) be ignored beyond that. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 16 13:47:49 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA03046; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:05:04 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA03033 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:04:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from skylist.net (skylist.net [38.153.106.7]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id RAA12823 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:33:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from [38.153.106.3] (38.153.106.3) by skylist.net with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 2.2); Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:42:16 -0500 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 4.5 (0410) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:44:56 -0500 Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? From: "Joshua D. Baer" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Mime-version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <1292993160-30798854@skylist.net> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > ... and costs more than a small Caribbean island. This is one of those "you get what you pay for" situations (aren't most?). Lyris is: 1) high performance 2) highly functional (many unique features) 3) extremely low maintenence 4) reliable Majordomo/Sendmail gets you #1 and #4; LISTSERV gets you #1, #2, and #4; other packages get you other combinations, but Lyris is the only one I've found that combines them all and does it well. I couldn't believe how much time I saved immediately after switching to Lyris. ~~Josh -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joshua D. Baer SKYLIST.net Virtual Communities Over 100 Y2K-Related Discussion Forums - "We may not have got everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." - Douglas Adams for the Mac From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 16 14:01:33 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA02996; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:03:55 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA02986 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:03:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from darius.concentric.net (darius.concentric.net [207.155.198.79]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id OAA09636 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:24:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from newman.concentric.net (newman [207.155.198.71]) by darius.concentric.net (8.9.1a/(98/12/15 5.12)) id RAA27410; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:32:48 -0500 (EST) [1-800-745-2747 The Concentric Network] Received: from wildchild (ts001d33.tul-ok.concentric.net [206.173.148.45]) by newman.concentric.net (8.9.1a) id RAA17616; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:32:46 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199902152232.RAA17616@newman.concentric.net> From: "Angus" Organization: Down On DaFarm To: David Shaw , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:33:38 -0600 Subject: Re: Listtool.com Reply-to: angus1@cris.com In-reply-to: <19990214162532.A381@jabberwocky.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01a) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > I wrote them demanding to be taken off their service and they wrote back > telling me how helpful their users found their service and so on, and was > I *sure* I wanted to be removed. Yes, I assured them, despite their > undeniable wonderfulness, I really did not want to be listed. They still > didn't take me off. Email listtool.com's domain providers: postmaster@IMAGIWARE.COM, ttongue@IMAGIWARE.COM,support@IMAGIWARE.COM and raise hell about this.. if you want to get really stinky.. do that plus email upstream too.. abuse@alpha.net and abuse@bbnplanet.com ,postmaster@bbnplanet.com Tell us what reaction you got ;-) > Finally, I rigged a procmail wrapper around majordomo to bounce any > messages that were sent via their web site back to them. That got me > removed, finally. > > ARGH! > > David > > -- > David Shaw | dshaw@jabberwocky.com | WWW > http://www.jabberwocky.com/ > +------------------------------------------------------------------------- > +--+ > "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. > We don't believe this to be a coincidence." - Jeremy S. Anderson > ...Cleo angus1@cris.com From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 16 14:14:09 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA03088; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:05:32 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA03080 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:05:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from skylist.net (skylist.net [38.153.106.7]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id UAA15451 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:11:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from [38.153.106.3] (38.153.106.3) by skylist.net with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 2.2); Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:19:54 -0500 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 4.5 (0410) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:22:33 -0500 Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? From: "Joshua D. Baer" To: Daniel Reed CC: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Mime-version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <1292983702-31367716@skylist.net> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > For the love of God, please either decide to keep this in private email or > in the public eye. Flip-flopping and then posting follow-ups to private > messages to the list is terribly poor netiquette. Sorry about that. When I replied to you the first time I sent it before realizing that the Cc to the list was missing. I then resent it to the list. When I received your message, I assumed you had done the same thing in response and Cc'd the list to try and fix it. Sorry for the confusion. > The original poster, if you'll recall, wanted a free or > extremely cheap Windows NT list manager that provided good features. > > You listed Lyris. Lyris is free for under 200 members per list. Reguardless, I think price is relative to your budget and the competition. Others mentioned Lyris as well, and I feel it was appropriate to add my support for the product. Once again, sorry for the confusion about the private/public messages. ~~Josh -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joshua D. Baer SKYLIST.net Virtual Communities Over 100 Y2K-Related Discussion Forums - "We may not have got everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." - Douglas Adams for the Mac From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 16 14:28:58 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA03077; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:05:25 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA03065 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:05:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from skylist.net (skylist.net [38.153.106.7]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA13476 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:08:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from [38.153.106.3] (38.153.106.3) by skylist.net with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 2.2); Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:16:43 -0500 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 4.5 (0410) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:19:21 -0500 Subject: Re: recommendations for NT based mlm? From: "Joshua D. Baer" To: Daniel Reed CC: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Mime-version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <1292991093-30923167@skylist.net> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > ezmlm/qmail gets you insanely high performance (a 500+ subscriber mailing > list I run for someone gets posts delivered to all of the subscribers in > under about 10 seconds), is highly functional (with index/archiving, > digesting, threading, etc.), has no maintenance at all (all bounces are > handled automatically using VERPs, which the ezmlm/qmail guy invented), and > never goes down (though I'm not quite sure what reliability has to do with a > mailing list package; I'd argue it's a completely independent factor that > relies on the reliability of the machine it's running on and the connection > it's running over). I don't wouldn't classify it as HIGHLY functional, although I wouldn't argue that it has all of the basic functionality covered (by highly functional I was referring to web admin, different types of digests, mail merge, delivery reports, etc). Maybe HIGHLY was a bad choice of words. Sounds like a great setup, but IMO Lyris still wins hands down for being easier to setup, configure, and maintain. Maintenence is more than just bounce handling, it's also making new lists, finding subscribers with address problems, etc. The Lyris web interface makes this all very easy, and the Perl and Java toolkits for writing Lyris extensions leaves me plenty of room to customize/automate. > It also doesn't run on Windows NT. Have you looked at the subject of this message lately? ~~Josh -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joshua D. Baer SKYLIST.net Virtual Communities Over 100 Y2K-Related Discussion Forums - "We may not have got everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." - Douglas Adams for the Mac From list-managers-owner Tue Feb 16 14:45:57 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA03007; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:04:03 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id NAA02999 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:04:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from crabcake.akamai.com (access.akamai.com [4.17.143.9]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id OAA10199 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:50:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from claude.akamai.com (claude.akamai.com [10.10.123.141]) by crabcake.akamai.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA27739 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:59:14 -0500 Received: (from dshaw@localhost) by claude.akamai.com (8.9.1/8.8.7) id SAA00385 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:02:46 -0500 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:02:46 -0500 From: David Shaw To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Listtool.com Message-ID: <19990215180246.A369@jabberwocky.com> Mail-Followup-To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM References: <19990214162532.A381@jabberwocky.com> <199902152232.RAA17616@newman.concentric.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.1i In-Reply-To: <199902152232.RAA17616@newman.concentric.net>; from Angus on Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 04:33:38PM -0600 X-PGP-Fingerprint: 3CB3B415/2048/4D 96 83 18 2B AF BE 45 D0 07 C4 07 51 37 B3 18 X-URL: http://www.jabberwocky.com/ X-Phase-Of-Moon: The Moon is New X-Current-Email-Backlog: 161 X-Pointless-Random-Number: 192 X-Silly-Header: It sure is. X-Time-Til-Y2K: 45 weeks, 4 days, 5 hours, 58 minutes, 44 seconds Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 04:33:38PM -0600, Angus wrote: > > I wrote them demanding to be taken off their service and they wrote back > > telling me how helpful their users found their service and so on, and was > > I *sure* I wanted to be removed. Yes, I assured them, despite their > > undeniable wonderfulness, I really did not want to be listed. They still > > didn't take me off. > > Email listtool.com's domain providers: postmaster@IMAGIWARE.COM, > ttongue@IMAGIWARE.COM,support@IMAGIWARE.COM and raise hell about this.. > if you want to get really stinky.. do that plus email upstream too.. > abuse@alpha.net and abuse@bbnplanet.com ,postmaster@bbnplanet.com > > Tell us what reaction you got ;-) That's finally how I got off their service: > > Finally, I rigged a procmail wrapper around majordomo to bounce any > > messages that were sent via their web site back to them. That got me > > removed, finally. The bounce message went to the imagiware.com addresses as well as the listtool.com ones. I imagine the imagiware.com people got the listtool.com people to get my list off. David -- David Shaw | dshaw@jabberwocky.com | WWW http://www.jabberwocky.com/ +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence." - Jeremy S. Anderson From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 03:50:13 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id DAA17926; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 03:26:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from pakdis.ined.fr (pakdis.ined.fr [192.134.12.17]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id DAA17919 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 03:26:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from sauvy.ined.fr (sauvy.ined.fr [192.134.12.3]) by pakdis.ined.fr (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id MAA11044 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 12:34:25 GMT Received: from ppp01.ined.fr by sauvy.ined.fr (AIX 4.1/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA36028; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 12:28:24 +0100 From: "Nicolas Brouard" To: Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 12:34:19 +0100 Message-Id: <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-Msmail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The problem that we have in France is that most people use attached WORD/Microsoft documents instead of using text messages. The main reason is that the problem with accented characters (8 bits and not ASCII) has been solved universally only recently with the MIME protocol (its spread is due to the WEB's spread and not the Email's spread). HTML text messages is a much better solution than attached documents which are a factor ten or even fifty bigger than simple HTML documents. Also the need of rich, structured, colored documents is real. Microsoft has decided to forget proprietary .DOC files formats in Office 2000, replacing it by default with HTML. Therefore the compromise seems to me as being promoting HTML text messages (without sounds or images) instead of attached documents. -- Nicolas Brouard mailto:brouard@ined.fr http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard -----Original Message----- From: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM [mailto:list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM]On Behalf Of Rich Kulawiec Sent: Monday, February 15, 1999 1:24 PM To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists On Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:36:57PM -0500, Dr. Rob Higgins wrote: > And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up > to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? No, it's not. The overwhelming majority of Internet users cannot handle such simple tasks as subscribing/unsubscribing, removing boilerplate text (signatures, message headers/footers), correctly attributing quoted material, etc. I think it best to stick firmly by the maxim that ASCII is quite sufficient for mail traffic. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 09:36:44 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA21681; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 09:20:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA21669 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 09:20:14 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id MAA03909 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 12:29:33 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 12:29:28 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd>; from Nicolas Brouard on Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 12:34:19PM +0100 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 12:34:19PM +0100, Nicolas Brouard wrote: > [...] the need of rich, structured, colored documents is real. I strongly disagree with this. Oh, there's no doubt that many people *want* to send all-singing all-dancing documents with multiple fonts and colors and all kinds of formatting...but do they *need* to? Having been on the receiving end of thousands of these, my observation is that the documents which have had the most time lavished on their appearance tend to be those with the least useful content, and vice versa. In a perverse sort of way, this makes sense: someone who is trying to decide between mauve and maroon for the subheaders is spending their time on that instead of on proofreading, spellchecking, etc. When (if?) we have a networked population which is capable of mastering the rudiments of email communication, then I'll be happy to entertain thoughts about "enhancing" it. But we are a long way off from that. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 14:25:37 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA25701; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 13:55:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from pakdis.ined.fr (pakdis.ined.fr [192.134.12.17]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id NAA25694 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 13:55:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from sauvy.ined.fr (sauvy.ined.fr [192.134.12.3]) by pakdis.ined.fr (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id XAA19716 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 23:03:38 GMT Received: from ppp01.ined.fr by sauvy.ined.fr (AIX 4.1/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA37534; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:57:38 +0100 From: "Nicolas Brouard" To: Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 23:03:32 +0100 Message-Id: <000101be5ac1$5c34ba60$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-Msmail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 In-Reply-To: <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> Importance: Normal X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >Having been on the receiving end of thousands of these, my observation >is that the documents which have had the most time lavished on their >appearance tend to be those with the least useful content, and vice versa. >In a perverse sort of way, this makes sense: someone who is trying to >decide between mauve and maroon for the subheaders is spending their >time on that instead of on proofreading, spellchecking, etc. > >---Rsk >Rich Kulawiec >rsk@gsp.org Even simple colored vertical lines distinguishing the various levels in [Re:][Re:]Replies is very helpful. Outlook, for example, uses it nicely within its HTML format. It is also more general as these "superior" signs which concerns message with fixed lines based on old 80 colums screens. Nicolas Brouard mailto:brouard@ined.fr http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 15:51:55 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA26824; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 15:29:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from rudbek.com (venus.communitech.net [199.79.146.241]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id PAA26817 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 15:29:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from thorby ([24.94.80.128]) by rudbek.com ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 17:34:46 -0600 Message-Id: <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> X-Sender: vawjr@mail.rudbek.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 13:37:57 -1000 To: Rich Kulawiec , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: "Victor A. Wagner, Jr." Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> References: <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk comment embedded At Wednesday 2/17/99 12:29, Rich Kulawiec wrote: >On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 12:34:19PM +0100, Nicolas Brouard wrote: >> [...] the need of rich, structured, colored documents is real. > >I strongly disagree with this. Oh, there's no doubt that many people >*want* to send all-singing all-dancing documents with multiple fonts >and colors and all kinds of formatting...but do they *need* to? > >Having been on the receiving end of thousands of these, my observation >is that the documents which have had the most time lavished on their >appearance tend to be those with the least useful content, and vice versa. >In a perverse sort of way, this makes sense: someone who is trying to >decide between mauve and maroon for the subheaders is spending their >time on that instead of on proofreading, spellchecking, etc. > >When (if?) we have a networked population which is capable of mastering >the rudiments of email communication, then I'll be happy to entertain >thoughts about "enhancing" it. But we are a long way off from that. Gee, why don't we all go back to monochrome monitors or maybe our beloved ASR-33s and forget all this progress. Sheeesh > >---Rsk >Rich Kulawiec >rsk@gsp.org Victor A. Wagner, Jr. PGP RSA fingerprint = 4D20 EBF6 0101 B069 3817 8DBF C846 E47A PGP D-H fingerprint = 98BC 65E3 1A19 43EC 3908 65B9 F755 E6F4 63BB 9D93 The five most dangerous words in the English language: "There oughta be a law" From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 16:06:43 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA27096; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 15:51:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id PAA27089 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 15:51:01 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA08226 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 19:00:37 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990217190036.A8214@gsp.org> Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 19:00:36 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com>; from Victor A. Wagner, Jr. on Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 01:37:57PM -1000 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 01:37:57PM -1000, Victor A. Wagner, Jr. wrote: > Gee, why don't we all go back to monochrome monitors or maybe our > beloved ASR-33s and forget all this progress. Sheeesh Ah, yes: forget the issue at hand and label the poster a Luddite. Score major points! Woo-hoo! FYI, I've been doing my little bit here and there to push the 'net forward for almost twenty years...and if I'm out of step with current reality, it's almost always because I'm looking too far ahead, not backward. Now would you like to address the facts of the matter, or shall we take this off-list and flambee' each other? ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 16:49:03 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA27523; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 16:16:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.europa.com (atheria.europa.com [199.2.194.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id QAA27516 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 16:16:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from dialup-a194.europa.com ([204.202.48.194] helo=default) by mail.europa.com with smtp (Exim 2.05 #5) id 10DHH2-0006uA-00 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 16:25:00 -0800 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990217162420.00c448e0@mail.europa.com> X-Sender: nanc@mail.europa.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 16:24:20 -0800 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Nancy Charlton Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> References: <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I just subscribed to this list. I manage a small general e-mail discussion group, the CS List, and participate in several other ones. As to accented characters, my Eudora Lite 3.0 lets me use the Alt + keypad to write the accented characters in the high ASCII set, but I don't know whether these are correct on all the receiving sets. Most people are so inured to the rudimentary typesetting capacities of ordinary e-mail that they don't worry much about it. Some of the llists I participate in are literary discussions, and there is a frequent need for real accents, real italics or underlining, and real symbols instead of makehift equivalents such as all caps or _ before & after titles of books. Rules for these things exist in abundance, but when it is impossible to practice uniform observances of them, it becomes a free-for-all. I'd like to see a golden mean somewhere between sloppy and unreadable plain text and the pretty but empty formatting possible on web pages. And I can't resist adding that while employers wring their hands over high school (and college, alas) graduates' inability to write decent prose, the software companies are pushing snazzy graphic formatting capatillities to the schools. I do have a specific question: does anyone know how to prevent Eudora from putting down a rank of angle brackets down the left side of forwarded messages? Or if it won't, is there any e-mailer that will? Thanks. Nancy Charlton Portland OR nanc@europa.com At 12:29 PM 2/17/99 -0500, you wrote: >On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 12:34:19PM +0100, Nicolas Brouard wrote: >> [...] the need of rich, structured, colored documents is real. > >I strongly disagree with this. [snip] From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 19:19:08 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA00494; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 19:04:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp2.vnet.net (smtp2.vnet.net [166.82.1.32]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id TAA00487 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 19:04:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from lmd.vnet.net (lmd.vnet.net [166.82.1.41]) by smtp2.vnet.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAA04499 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:12:34 -0500 (EST) Received: from katie.vnet.net (katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by lmd.vnet.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAA20669 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:13:11 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA24417 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:13:10 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:13:10 -0500 (EST) From: murr rhame To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Back when I spent time on BBS systems which supported ANSI color posts, I observed similar negative effects with enhanced text. The more color and graphics, the lower the useful content of the post. - murr - From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 19:38:00 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA00350; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 18:59:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from seas.gwu.edu (malone.seas.gwu.edu [128.164.9.13]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA00343 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 18:59:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from gypsy.seas.gwu.edu (gypsy.seas.gwu.edu [128.164.2.10]) by seas.gwu.edu (v8) with ESMTP id WAA16484 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:08:10 -0500 (EST) From: Sheryl Coppenger Received: (from sheryl@localhost) by gypsy.seas.gwu.edu (8.9.1a/8.9.1) id WAA21732 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:08:16 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199902180308.WAA21732@gypsy.seas.gwu.edu> Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:08:16 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990217162420.00c448e0@mail.europa.com> from "Nancy Charlton" at Feb 17, 99 04:24:20 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Content-Type: text Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > I do have a specific question: does anyone know how to prevent Eudora > from putting down a rank of angle brackets down the left side of forwarded > messages? Or if it won't, is there any e-mailer that will? Some mailers on UNIX will let you select this behavior, or at least the modal editors make it a little easier to "change all" to get rid of them. However, I have to wonder why you'd want to. If you're looking for the ability to "bounce" (that is, do a simple forward without editing and without changing the text) then you could try pc-pine. Since the UNIX version of pine has that ability pc-pine probably does as well. The web site for pc-pine is http://www.washington.edu/pine/pc-pine/ BTW, although the Lyris thread generated some heat, I was happy to hear about it. I've already downloaded Lyris and plan to test-drive the package. Although we get listproc for free, we haven't been very impressed by the most recent version and some of our faculty have been asking us to look for other options. For various reasons, many of the other alternatives have been ruled out for our situation. > Thanks. > > Nancy Charlton > Portland OR > nanc@europa.com > > At 12:29 PM 2/17/99 -0500, you wrote: > >On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 12:34:19PM +0100, Nicolas Brouard wrote: > >> [...] the need of rich, structured, colored documents is real. > > > >I strongly disagree with this. > > [snip] > -- Sheryl Coppenger SEAS Computing Facility Staff sheryl@seas.gwu.edu The George Washington University (202) 994-6853 http://www.seas.gwu.edu/staff/sheryl From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 21:21:14 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA02259; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:08:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from mbox-3.inet.fi (mbox-3.inet.fi [192.89.123.195]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA02252 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:08:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from user-517a-47.dial.inet.fi ([195.156.180.47]:1256 "HELO tietokone" ident: "NO-IDENT-SERVICE") by mbox-3.inet.fi with SMTP id <56572-5077>; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 07:17:18 +0200 Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19990218071555.009dce90@mail.inet.fi> X-Sender: xyzxyz-1@mail.inet.fi X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 07:15:55 +0200 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Christel Nyman Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi, Nancy, In answer to your question below: Try Message/Send again (like I did just now). No brackets. A new question: Is there a way to *insert* angle brackets in Eudora Light for the text you paste from Word or elsewhere and want to comment on? CHRSTEL (Nancy wrote:) I do have a specific question: does anyone know how to prevent Eudora from putting down a rank of angle brackets down the left side of forwarded messages? Or if it won't, is there any e-mailer that will? From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 22:06:40 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA02756; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:48:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from kachina.jetcafe.org (kachina.jetcafe.org [205.147.43.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id VAA02749 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:48:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from ee-nt (eckert@netcom14.netcom.com [192.100.81.126]) by kachina.jetcafe.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id VAA22656 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:57:12 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990217215612.00a22a60@pop.climber.org> X-Sender: eckert@pop.climber.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:56:12 -0800 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: SRE Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990217162420.00c448e0@mail.europa.com> References: <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 04:24 PM 2/17/99 -0800, Nancy Charlton wrote: >I do have a specific question: does anyone know how to prevent Eudora >from putting down a rank of angle brackets down the left side of forwarded >messages? Copy. Paste. You can paste as a quotation or just plain paste, but I don't think there's any way to change the quotation character. If you enable styled text, you'll get a vertical bar on the left and piss off those who want purely plain text. Or you could use the "redirect" button, but that makes it look like the message came from the original sender instead of from you. SRE mailto:eckert@climber.org | http://www.climber.org/eckert/ Info on peak climbing email lists mailto:info@climber.org Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower. From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 22:52:24 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA03557; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:39:31 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id WAA03547 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:39:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from stud1.tuwien.ac.at (stud1.tuwien.ac.at [193.170.75.11]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA28297 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 07:48:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from chyba.at (root@TK212017088114.tuwien.teleweb.at [212.17.88.114]) by stud1.tuwien.ac.at (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA61016 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 17:00:21 +0100 Message-ID: <36C99537.B0D49320@chyba.at> Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:56:39 +0100 From: Bjoern Chyba Reply-To: bjoern@chyba.at Organization: Linux 6.0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.36 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: black list Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk how can I add a "black list" to my majordomo with addresses which will be refused to get mail via my mailing lists ? From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 23:21:02 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA04009; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:56:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA04002 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:56:09 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id CAA09816 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 02:05:49 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990218020547.A9800@gsp.org> Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 02:05:47 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <000101be5ac1$5c34ba60$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <000101be5ac1$5c34ba60$600c86c0@brd>; from Nicolas Brouard on Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 11:03:32PM +0100 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 11:03:32PM +0100, Nicolas Brouard wrote: > Even simple colored vertical lines distinguishing the various levels in > [Re:][Re:]Replies is very helpful. Outlook, for example, uses it nicely > within its HTML format. It is also more general as these "superior" signs > which concerns message with fixed lines based on old 80 colums screens. There's no need to do this in the message itself (increasing its size and forcing the sender's choice of formatting on the reader): it can be handled in the client. For example, I'm using a client called mutt which not only handles this task (by highlighting, in the colors of my choice, different levels of replies) but also will highlight selected headers, URLs, signatures, etc. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 23:35:36 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA03610; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:40:02 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id WAA03592 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:39:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from FSM-1.PICA.ARMY.MIL (fsm-1.pica.army.mil [129.139.96.87]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id JAA29470 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:04:36 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 99 12:15:26 EST From: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer To: "Dr. Rob Higgins" , list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Organization: SADARM SPICE Team, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ Message-ID: <9902161215.aa20714@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >I seem to be getting more and more messages in dual format >plain/text and html/text on the lists I facilitate. > >My pine email program still makes me go through several extra >steps to read the plain/text portion. > >I've requested that only plain/text be sent to my lists (and >plain/text only to majordomo in particular). > >But I'm wondering what the status of this issue is on other >lists. Are other listserver packages handling html/text >ok? And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up >to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? Not on any lists I run. I filter all of them and return HTML, VCARD, RTF and similar garbage to their originators. Tom Coradeschi, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer http://k-whiner.pica.army.mil/info-labview/info-labview.html From list-managers-owner Wed Feb 17 23:50:31 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA03720; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:41:19 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id WAA03707 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:41:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from skylist.net (skylist.net [38.153.106.7]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id KAA00586 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 10:14:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from [38.153.106.3] (38.153.106.3) by skylist.net with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 2.2); Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:23:28 -0500 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 4.5 (0410) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 13:26:08 -0500 Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists From: "Joshua D. Baer" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Mime-version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <1292933088-34411909@skylist.net> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >> But I'm wondering what the status of this issue is on other >> lists. Are other listserver packages handling html/text >> ok? And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up >> to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? I use a little Perl script on top of Lyris that just strips out the formatting. I know this is borderline acceptable (I'd rather not modify their message) but this seems to be appreciated by both the sender and the moderater - the sender thinks its a pain in the ass to resend the message and the moderator never has to even hear about it. ~~Josh -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joshua D. Baer SKYLIST.net Virtual Communities Over 100 Y2K-Related Discussion Forums - "We may not have got everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." - Douglas Adams for the Mac From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 00:05:29 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA03803; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:42:57 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id WAA03795 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:42:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA08720 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 18:35:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA05726 ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 18:48:17 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> References: ; from Dr. Rob Higgins on Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:36:57PM -0500 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 18:18:26 -0800 To: Rich Kulawiec , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 7:23 AM -0500 2/15/99, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > No, it's not. The overwhelming majority of Internet users cannot > handle such simple tasks as subscribing/unsubscribing, removing > boilerplate text (signatures, message headers/footers), correctly > attributing quoted material, etc. Bogus. I run really huge lists for really naive users, and even in THOSE populations my error rates are quite small. It isn't an overwhelming majority. it's not even a majority. It's not even a majority as defined by Henry Hyde. We're talking in the few percent range. It ain't the users, Rich. Give them some decent documentation and a little handholding, and suddenly you find they aren't stupid after all. Mine sure aren't. DECENT tools make a huge difference here, but more importantly, documentation that doesn't make assumptions about what the user knows and doesn't know. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 00:20:31 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA04704; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 23:55:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.europa.com (atheria.europa.com [199.2.194.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA04697 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 23:55:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from dialup-b144.europa.com ([204.202.55.144] helo=default) by mail.europa.com with smtp (Exim 2.05 #5) id 10DORp-0007BT-00 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 00:04:38 -0800 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990218000054.00cd25d0@mail.europa.com> X-Sender: nanc@mail.europa.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 00:00:54 -0800 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Nancy Charlton Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990217234539.0a845a00@pop.queernet.org> References: <3.0.5.32.19990217162420.00c448e0@mail.europa.com> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 11:48 PM 2/17/99 -0800, Roger B.A. Klorese wrote, re angle brackets: >It's polite to delimit replies and forwardings that way. However, if >you're looking at using the capability to transparently re-post a message, >use Eudora's Redirect, rather than Forward, command. You might wish to set >the EditAllHeaders=1 config value too, to allow you to edit the "by way of" >part out of the From: header. Thanks for this. I should have also mentioned that my inquiry was in anticipation of possible conversion to a moderated format, in which the redirected posts would all actually be sent to the recipients as originals by way of my compiling them. Nancy Charlton >-- >ROGER B.A. KLORESE|rogerk@QueerNet.ORG|urgent: rogerk-page@QueerNet.ORG >2215-R Market Street #576 San Francisco, CA 94114 +1 415 ALL-ARFF >"There is only one real blasphemy: the refusal of joy!" -Paul Rudnick > > From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 00:35:28 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA04193; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 23:06:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA04186 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 23:06:23 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id CAA10091 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 02:16:04 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990218021602.B9800@gsp.org> Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 02:16:02 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> <19990217190036.A8214@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217203553.00f61500@mail.rudbek.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990217203553.00f61500@mail.rudbek.com>; from Victor A. Wagner, Jr. on Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 09:00:12PM -1000 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 09:00:12PM -1000, Victor A. Wagner, Jr. wrote: > One "fact" of the matter are that no matter WHAT the technology or the > tool, some fools will abuse it. Nice truism. Please explain how this might justify adding additional complexity when there is already ample evidence that end users cannot adequately handle that which they already possess. > Deciding that YOU know best about what is > needed in EMail (even lists) seems a bit presumptuous to me. I don't think it's presumptuous at all. It's my considered opinion. > I further question your presumption that, because you perceive no "need", > none exists. I have made no such presumption. I have merely attempted to distinguish the term "need" from "want" (and I have, I believe, conceded the existence of "want" while questioning the existence of "need"). The burden of proof to demonstrate "need" lies with those who claim it exists. > Oh, and how 'far forward' are you looking? Real-time video? How about > direct connect to the brain instead of keyboards mice and monitors? We're discussing email formats here. I'd prefer to stick to that subject and not drag in your (or my) speculations about future Internet/computing technologies. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 00:50:36 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA03828; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:43:07 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id WAA03820 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:43:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id SAA08918 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 18:52:30 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA27212 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:01:40 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990216220134.A27162@gsp.org> Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:01:34 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: ; <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: ; from Chuq Von Rospach on Tue, Feb 16, 1999 at 06:18:26PM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, Feb 16, 1999 at 06:18:26PM -0800, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > > No, it's not. The overwhelming majority of Internet users cannot > > handle such simple tasks as subscribing/unsubscribing, removing > > boilerplate text (signatures, message headers/footers), correctly > > attributing quoted material, etc. > > Bogus. I run really huge lists for really naive users, and even in > THOSE populations my error rates are quite small. It isn't an > overwhelming majority. it's not even a majority. I can only report to what I've observed, and what I have observed is that on the lists I run, and on those which I participate, many users have terrible problems with all of these tasks -- tasks which I consider rudimentary and mostly obvious. Now, I haven't attempted a quantitative study to characterize the frequency of various kinds of errors and/or to correlate that to the user's experience. And to be honest, I'm probably not patient enough to do that anyway. So I won't argue the point as to what the percentage rate is, because I don't know. What I do know is that the combination of (a) putting basic list information in the headers AND the footers of every message sent plus (b) adding filtering in majordomo *still* doesn't catch all of the ingenious ways by which the clueless try to unsubscribe, and (c) sending an introductory message to all list members when they join and every 90 days doesn't seem to help much and (d) conforming as closely as possible to all Internet standards that I'm aware of (i.e. honoring -request, and so on) doesn't seem to help, and (e) giving pointers to other documentation -- written by other people, in case my particular writing style isn't suitable -- doesn't seem to help. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there are a lot of stupid/lazy people out there who won't RTFM, won't RTFFAQ, and won't even read a one-line instruction that's repeatedly put in front of their face. I see no reason to indulge them, so I don't. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 01:04:22 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA03945; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:51:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from rudbek.com (venus.communitech.net [199.79.146.241]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id WAA03938 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:51:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from thorby ([24.94.80.128]) by rudbek.com ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 00:57:06 -0600 Message-Id: <4.1.19990217203553.00f61500@mail.rudbek.com> X-Sender: vawjr@mail.rudbek.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:00:12 -1000 To: Rich Kulawiec , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: "Victor A. Wagner, Jr." Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <19990217190036.A8214@gsp.org> References: <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk One "fact" of the matter are that no matter WHAT the technology or the tool, some fools will abuse it. Deciding that YOU know best about what is needed in EMail (even lists) seems a bit presumptuous to me. Sometimes a picture IS worth 1000 words (but then again, think of how few sets of 1000 words can adequately be captured by one picture). I further question your presumption that, because you perceive no "need", none exists. Now I would certainly not suggest that you run YOUR system (lists) in any fashion you wish, that is the essence of free enterprise. Customers can vote with their pocketbooks and look elsewhere when whatever they're using no longer meets their needs/requirements. Perhaps people who run systems that allow (or even encourage) RTF, HTML, whathaveyou will flourish. Oh, and how 'far forward' are you looking? Real-time video? How about direct connect to the brain instead of keyboards mice and monitors? How much bandwidth do you think THOSE are gonna take?. Whether I (or you) like it, currently the bandwidth requirement is being driven mostly by the entertainment industry. Hmm, a fair amount of the increase in processor power also. Am I enamored with this? Not really, I've always been more of a function over form kinda guy...but every once in a while, it's nice to look at a pretty form 8-) At Wednesday 2/17/99 19:00, Rich Kulawiec wrote: >On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 01:37:57PM -1000, Victor A. Wagner, Jr. wrote: >> Gee, why don't we all go back to monochrome monitors or maybe our >> beloved ASR-33s and forget all this progress. Sheeesh > >Ah, yes: forget the issue at hand and label the poster a Luddite. >Score major points! Woo-hoo! > >FYI, I've been doing my little bit here and there to push the 'net forward >for almost twenty years...and if I'm out of step with current reality, >it's almost always because I'm looking too far ahead, not backward. > >Now would you like to address the facts of the matter, or shall we take >this off-list and flambee' each other? > >---Rsk >Rich Kulawiec >rsk@gsp.org Victor A. Wagner, Jr. PGP RSA fingerprint = 4D20 EBF6 0101 B069 3817 8DBF C846 E47A PGP D-H fingerprint = 98BC 65E3 1A19 43EC 3908 65B9 F755 E6F4 63BB 9D93 The five most dangerous words in the English language: "There oughta be a law" From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 02:11:09 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id BAA07123; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 01:44:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from pakdis.ined.fr (pakdis.ined.fr [192.134.12.17]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id BAA07115 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 01:44:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from sauvy.ined.fr (sauvy.ined.fr [192.134.12.3]) by pakdis.ined.fr (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id KAA24207 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 10:52:24 GMT Received: from ppp00.ined.fr by sauvy.ined.fr (AIX 4.1/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA22686; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 10:46:23 +0100 From: "Nicolas Brouard" To: Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 10:52:18 +0100 Message-Id: <000f01be5b24$5edc51c0$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-Msmail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 In-Reply-To: <9902161215.aa20714@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> Importance: Normal X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >I seem to be getting more and more messages in dual format >plain/text and html/text on the lists I facilitate. That's nice. We are encouraging people to share information not to force them knowing this strange (-_<") email culture. Structured texts (who knows on this list what are structured texts: only LaTex users and yet SGML and HTML users) are a big improvement in the comprehension of a long text (e-mails are short I agree). >And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up >to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? 3 X is not a shame. Structured documents make you think 2 X faster ! (that's only provocative) >Not on any lists I run. I filter all of them and return HTML, VCARD, RTF >and >similar garbage to their originators. > > Tom Coradeschi, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer VCARD are not used because people don't feel them as necessary. Why should you filter them out, they are so few... RTF files are proprietary formats, much bigger (10 X or more) than HTML documents, their use are most of time useless compared to HTML, and therefore should be filtered or, better, "warned". >There's no need to do this in the message itself (increasing its size >and forcing the sender's choice of formatting on the reader): it can be >handled in the client. For example, I'm using a client called mutt >which >not only handles this task (by highlighting, in the colors of my choice, >different levels of replies) but also will highlight selected headers, >URLs, signatures, etc. > >---Rsk >Rich Kulawiec >rsk@gsp.org Can you tell us more on "mutt". It seems to simply decrypt a non-standard language with replies, URLS, signatures etc (as GNU-emacs does for example, in colors). In the near future, and if the mutt product is successful it will be improved to decrypt a proprietary language. I do prefer an already well-known simple markup language like SGML, or HTML if the latter is more recent and spread. Nicolas Brouard mailto:brouard@ined.fr http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 05:55:57 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id FAA12521; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 05:37:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from jbarchuk.com (tfabbs.org [209.61.44.25]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id FAA12514 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 05:37:15 -0800 (PST) Received: (from jb@localhost) by jbarchuk.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA25865 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 08:46:03 -0500 Message-Id: <199902181346.IAA25865@jbarchuk.com> X-Mailer: XFMail 1.3-alpha-031298 [p0] on Linux X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <36C99537.B0D49320@chyba.at> Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 08:46:01 -0500 (EST) From: jim barchuk To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: RE: black list Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hello Bjoern! > how can I add a "black list" to my majordomo with addresses > which will be refused to get mail via my mailing lists ? See taboo_headers in list.config. Have a :) day! jb -- jim barchuk jb@jbarchuk.com From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 07:11:02 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id GAA13681; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 06:49:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from cyberq.quality.org (cyberq.quality.org [199.181.80.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA13671 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 06:48:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (help@localhost) by cyberq.quality.org (8.9.0/8.9.0) with SMTP id JAA02603 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 09:57:44 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 09:57:44 -0500 (EST) From: "Bill Casti (System Admin)" To: List Managers List Subject: Re: black list In-Reply-To: <36C99537.B0D49320@chyba.at> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Go into majordomo.pl and find the lines -- print STDERR "$0: valid_addr: comparing '$addr' to '$list'\n" if $DEBUG; # XXX Should at least tell the user that there was a problem. -- between them, insert the routine -- if ( /satan\@hell.com/) { &main'abort("BLOCKED ADDRESS $addr"); #' return undef; } -- once for each address you want to block. Obviously, change "satan\@hell.com" for each address you want to block. Let me know if you have any trouble getting that to work. Regards. Bill ============================================================================= Bill Casti, CQA Email: help@quality.org - Domain Owner, QUALITY.ORG Pager: +1 800 604 6149 - List Moderator, "TQM in Manufacturing and Service Industries" - President, AQC, Reston VA - Board Chairman, ASQ Section 0511 (Northern VA) Email: Chair@asq0511.org - Internet Security Manager, FEMA (Washington DC) Email: Tier3@fema.gov ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- PGP Public Key http://www.casti.com/casti/quire-rsa.asc ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUALITY RESOURCES ONLINE at: http://www.quality.org ONLINE RECOVERY RESOURCES at: http://www.recovery.org ============================================================================= On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, Bjoern Chyba wrote: > how can I add a "black list" to my majordomo with addresses > which will be refused to get mail via my mailing lists ? > > > From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 09:59:43 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA16692; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 09:38:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from kachina.jetcafe.org (kachina.jetcafe.org [205.147.43.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id JAA16683 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 09:38:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from ee-nt (eckert@netcom11.netcom.com [192.100.81.121]) by kachina.jetcafe.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id JAA25099 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 09:46:52 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990218091429.00915c50@pop.climber.org> X-Sender: eckert@pop.climber.org (Unverified) X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 09:14:29 -0800 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: SRE Subject: Eudora quoting (was HTML) In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19990218071555.009dce90@mail.inet.fi> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 07:15 AM 2/18/99 +0200, Christel Nyman wrote: >In answer to your question below: Try Message/Send again (like I did just >now). No brackets. Cool. A feature I missed. I've used right-click>sendagain in the outbox, but never looked on the menu for similar features for the inbox. >A new question: Is there a way to *insert* angle brackets in Eudora Light >for the text you paste from Word or elsewhere and want to comment on? Yep. "Edit>PasteAsQuotation" instead of just paste. (or ') Now, is there any way we can pretend this thread is about list management? (grin) How about talking about wrapped lines, and the people who really can't read a line longer than 80 or 132 characters? I reluctantly went back to hard wrapping lines (like this msg), instead of leaving paragraphs to re-wrap at the receiver end, because so many people complained. If they can't read long lines, no WAY they can read HTML and attachments. Sigh. SRE mailto:eckert@climber.org | http://www.climber.org/eckert/ Info on peak climbing email lists mailto:info@climber.org Before email, five carbon copies were the maximum extension of anybody's ego. From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 11:41:41 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA18438; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 11:21:56 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id LAA18430 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 11:21:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from FSM-1.PICA.ARMY.MIL (fsm-1.pica.army.mil [129.139.96.87]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id RAA29094 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 17:55:36 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 99 21:06:58 EST From: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Organization: SADARM SPICE Team, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ Message-ID: <9902172106.aa29881@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Victor A. Wagner, Jr. : >Gee, why don't we all go back to monochrome monitors or maybe our >beloved ASR-33s and forget all this progress. Sheeesh Monochrome? Let's see, black letters on white background. Yep! Works for me. Tom Coradeschi, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer http://k-whiner.pica.army.mil/info-labview/info-labview.html From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 11:57:20 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA18582; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 11:28:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu (BROCCOLI.GRAPHICS.CORNELL.EDU [128.84.247.53]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA18575 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 11:28:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from graphics.cornell.edu (LOCALHOST) by broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu with ESMTP (1.37.109.16/16.2) id AA247356642; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 14:37:22 -0500 Message-Id: <199902181937.AA247356642@broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: "Bill Casti (System Admin)" Cc: List Managers List Subject: Re: black list In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 18 Feb 1999 09:57:44 EST." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 14:37:21 -0500 From: Mitch Collinsworth Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > if ( /satan\@hell.com/) { For v1.01 you can change this to: > if ( /satan\@hell.com/i) { and it will do a case-insensitive match. Remember, Satan is a crafty devil. -Mitch From list-managers-owner Thu Feb 18 12:46:32 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA19469; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 12:24:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA19432 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 12:23:37 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA19078 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 15:32:38 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990218153235.A19032@gsp.org> Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 15:32:35 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <9902161215.aa20714@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> <000f01be5b24$5edc51c0$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <000f01be5b24$5edc51c0$600c86c0@brd>; from Nicolas Brouard on Thu, Feb 18, 1999 at 10:52:18AM +0100 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Thu, Feb 18, 1999 at 10:52:18AM +0100, Nicolas Brouard wrote: > Can you tell us more on "mutt". Sure. Mutt is freeware, runs on a variety of platforms, and is related in some ways to elm and pine, earlier mail clients. Take a look at http://www.mutt.org for the whole story. > It seems to simply decrypt a non-standard language with replies, URLS, > signatures etc (as GNU-emacs does for example, in colors). No, mutt does not rely on any language of any kind. It simply uses the syntactic and semantic information in the headers and bodies of messages to figure out which items are which. For example, in this message, the lines beginning with "> " are clearly quoted from the previous author. The line with "http://" is clearly a URL. And so on. Mutt uses this, along with the user's color preferences (and mine are something like this: color header black green ^(From|To|Subject|Date|Cc|Newsgroups): color body red default "(ftp|http)://[^ ]+" # point out URLs color body blue default [-a-z_0-9.]+@[-a-z_0-9.]+ # e-mail addresses at least on this machine) in order to determine how to display information to the end user. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 19 08:56:10 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA11392; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 08:29:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [209.239.169.200]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA11377 for ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 08:28:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197] (may be forged)) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA24920 ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 08:41:47 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <19990216220134.A27162@gsp.org> References: ; from Chuq Von Rospach on Tue, Feb 16, 1999 at 06:18:26PM -0800 ; <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 08:32:49 -0800 To: Rich Kulawiec , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 10:01 PM -0500 2/16/99, Rich Kulawiec wrote: >> Bogus. I run really huge lists for really naive users, and even in >> THOSE populations my error rates are quite small. It isn't an >> overwhelming majority. it's not even a majority. > > I can only report to what I've observed, and what I have observed > is that on the lists I run, and on those which I participate, many > users have terrible problems with all of these tasks -- tasks which I > consider rudimentary and mostly obvious. And so can I. I guess your users are a lot more bogus than mine are. Or else you're making assumptions about them that aren't true, and forcing them to struggle through things, and then blaming them. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 19 09:11:45 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA11393; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 08:29:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [209.239.169.200]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA11378 for ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 08:28:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197] (may be forged)) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA24926 ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 08:41:52 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <19990217190036.A8214@gsp.org> References: <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com>; from Victor A. Wagner, Jr. on Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 01:37:57PM -1000 <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 08:36:55 -0800 To: Rich Kulawiec , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 7:00 PM -0500 2/17/99, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > On Wed, Feb 17, 1999 at 01:37:57PM -1000, Victor A. Wagner, Jr. wrote: >> Gee, why don't we all go back to monochrome monitors or maybe our >> beloved ASR-33s and forget all this progress. Sheeesh > > Ah, yes: forget the issue at hand and label the poster a Luddite. > Score major points! Woo-hoo! But he's right. This is the SAME BLOODY ARGUMENT as NetScape vs. Lynx, but in email form. Users are migrating from Lynx-type email systems to NetScape ones. And the people who love Lynx are screaming at being left behind. My basic comment: get over it. If you want to keep using Lynx, plain-text email and a black and white TV, great. But realize that the rest of us are going to move forward with or without you. Our job will be not to LOCK you out (as some sites do to Lynx, which is mostly a stupid thing....), but you can't expect to hang back and then complain when the rest of us don't. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 19 14:25:14 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA15802; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 13:57:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id NAA15795 for ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 13:57:31 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA08770 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 17:07:23 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990219170721.A8735@gsp.org> Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 17:07:21 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: ; ; <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <19990216220134.A27162@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: ; from Chuq Von Rospach on Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 08:32:49AM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 08:32:49AM -0800, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > Or else you're making assumptions about them that aren't true, and > forcing them to struggle through things, and then blaming them. Well, I'd blame *anyone* who is too stupid to read the boilerplate that's on EVERY SINGLE MESSAGE on the mailing list. I don't think that's unreasonable in the least. ---Rsk From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 19 14:39:05 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA16166; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 14:24:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id OAA16159 for ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 14:24:36 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA09850 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 17:34:28 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990219173425.A9731@gsp.org> Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 17:34:25 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: ; ; <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <19990216220134.A27162@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: ; from Chuq Von Rospach on Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 08:32:49AM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 08:32:49AM -0800, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > And so can I. I guess your users are a lot more bogus than mine are. Clarification: I'm talking about users in general, not specifically the ones on any mailing lists that I run. And even on technical mailing lists where one would expect simple, basic knowledge of network fundamentals (e.g. Sun-Managers) misdirected subscription requests show up on a weekly basis. It's amazing. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 19 15:25:22 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA16057; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 14:13:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id OAA16049 for ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 14:12:48 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA09355 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 17:22:41 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 17:22:40 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com>; <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> <19990217190036.A8214@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: ; from Chuq Von Rospach on Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 08:36:55AM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 08:36:55AM -0800, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > But he's right. This is the SAME BLOODY ARGUMENT as NetScape vs. > Lynx, but in email form. Users are migrating from Lynx-type email > systems to NetScape ones. And the people who love Lynx are screaming > at being left behind. No, we're not. At least *I'm* not. My gripe is with the mindlessness exhibited by many (most?) of those who have joined this migration. If they were actually doing so with a *purpose*, I wouldn't mind so much: but it very much seems to me that most of them just happen to like the widgets and geegaws, and have decided to inflict them (and all the useless baggage that they encompass) on the rest of the civilized world for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. If I actually saw pervasive attempts to use this technology (e.g. HTML-based email) to enhance communication, then I'd feel differently; at the least, I'd grudgingly accept it, perhaps I'd even endorse it. I'm all for better communication: that's part of why I have spent and am spending my life working on the 'net. But at the moment, my considered opinion is that the overwhelming majority of people using these little toys have no idea what the hell they're doing or why they're doing it and have thus reduced the purpose to (a) being annoying and (b) demonstrating that they don't know any better. (Oh! Look! Blinking purple salutation! Oooooh!) Maybe one day when the newbies manage to grasp the rudiments of dealing with ASCII text, they'll be ready for this. But I'm not holding my breath. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 19 19:58:06 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA20595; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 19:33:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [209.239.169.200]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id TAA20588 for ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 19:33:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197] (may be forged)) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id TAA33672 ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 19:46:27 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> References: ; from Chuq Von Rospach on Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 08:36:55AM -0800 <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com>; <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> <19990217190036.A8214@gsp.org> Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 19:28:47 -0800 To: Rich Kulawiec , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 5:22 PM -0500 2/19/99, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > No, we're not. At least *I'm* not. > > My gripe is with the mindlessness exhibited by many (most?) of those who > have joined this migration. Oh. So by definition, if we feel this is something useful, we're by definition mindless. Gee, thanks, Rich. I'll go be insulted now. Go live with your 1980's technology, Rich, and complain about all of us who are off inventing the future how much better it was in the good old days. 'cause that's what your'e doing, dude. Light a lava lamp for me, okay? -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 19 21:11:06 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id UAA21554; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 20:52:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id UAA21542 for ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 20:51:53 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA15707 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Sat, 20 Feb 1999 00:01:23 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990220000120.A15589@gsp.org> Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 00:01:20 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com>; <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> <19990217190036.A8214@gsp.org> <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: ; from Chuq Von Rospach on Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 07:28:47PM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 07:28:47PM -0800, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > Oh. So by definition, if we feel this is something useful, we're by > definition mindless. I've said no such thing. Please do not deliberately misquote me. > Go live with your 1980's technology, Rich, and complain about all of > us who are off inventing the future how much better it was in the > good old days. Oh, don't give me this line of crap. I've been here just as long as you have, and just like you, I've done my little bit here and there to push things along. And I still am. However, I don't feel that just because something *can* be done that it necessarily follows that it *should* be done. I don't consider thoughtlessly using technology without regard for its appropriateness or for its side-effects "inventing the future"; I consider it careless and irresponsible, and sometimes pointless. So if the fact that I actually want to ask questions like "why should we support this?" and "can we support this?" and "what is it good for?" and "Is what we get by using it worth what it costs us?" and so on...and that I expect to get answers *other* than "because we can", "we like it", and "if you don't, you're stuck in the 80's" makes me one of the lava lamp set IYHO, then fine, so be it. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri Feb 19 22:56:41 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA22569; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 22:29:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from mushi.colo.neosoft.com (mushi.colo.neosoft.com [206.109.6.82]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id WAA22562 for ; Fri, 19 Feb 1999 22:29:07 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 7886 invoked from network); 20 Feb 1999 06:38:22 -0000 Received: from bonkers.neosoft.com (HELO bonkers.taronga.com) (206.109.2.48) by mushi.colo.neosoft.com with SMTP; 20 Feb 1999 06:38:22 -0000 Received: (from arielle@localhost) by bonkers.taronga.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) id AAA27484 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 20 Feb 1999 00:38:19 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from arielle) From: Stephanie da Silva Message-Id: <199902200638.AAA27484@bonkers.taronga.com> Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 00:38:19 -0600 (CST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Chuq Von Rospach said... I already deleted your message, but it was the one where you compared fancy HTML graphics email/plain ASCII text to colour television vs. black and white. I don't know about you, but I was around when they started going from b&w to colour (in the mid-60s) and I don't recall any negative outroar. I hear there was when television first came out and it was tv vs. radio. But it seems that this still would be more aptly applied to the WWW vs. Gopher thing. I have a hi-res colour monitor and this pretty spiffy X-windows client, but my text windows are black on white. I like them that way. I find it odd this attitude that if I'm not using Netscape to read mail, then somehow I'm crippled. I find it the exact opposite, I have read mail with Netscape and find it exasperating. I don't have the nifty features that I have with elm and I'm severely restricted without my editor (vi). (if there's a way to use vi as my default editor with Netscape, please tell me how). On top of that, Netscape is an amazing resource hog, it's huge, it's slow, it's cumbersome, and it's the most unreliable application I run (it crashes a lot). If people want to use HTML in their email, that's fine with me. I don't see this technology as being rampant or anything and it really doesn't bother me anymore than getting some attachment in Base 64 that I when figure out how to unpack, find it's something in MS Word. It's a matter of finding the right tools to be able to read this stuff. It's annoying, but I can deal with it (well, html mail is less annoying as it's readable to begin with). I'll do it as the occasion arises, but I'm not quite ready to adopt it 100% of the time. Dunno if I will. There's more people using NT than Unix now isn't there? But I'm still on a Unix machine.... [Oh, and I have used Windows 98 and Windows NT. They crash even more often than Netscape!] From list-managers-owner Sat Feb 20 06:16:28 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id GAA00651; Sat, 20 Feb 1999 06:05:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id GAA00641 for ; Sat, 20 Feb 1999 06:05:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA29668 for ; Sat, 20 Feb 1999 08:14:30 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA16379 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Sat, 20 Feb 1999 08:14:28 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902201414.IAA16379@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 08:14:27 -0600 (CST) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Stephanie da Silva wrote: > I have a hi-res colour monitor and this pretty spiffy X-windows > client, but my text windows are black on white. I like them that > way. I find it odd this attitude that if I'm not using Netscape > to read mail, then somehow I'm crippled. I think the question of the specific tools in use, now or in the future, is entirely separate from the question of the utility of having formatted messages. Yes, Netscape is a pig and buggy, but name me ANY complex piece of software that doesn't exhibit one or both of these traits. I work on PC's, Macs, and UNIX systems, they all have their good and bad points, both at the OS level and at the application software level. I'm really somewhat split on the issue of the utility of formatted messages. I would note that literary authors over the ages have generally found mere text to be wholly adequate for their needs, even today. On the other hand, I don't know that plain text would work for a geometry textbook, and by extension for a message on a geometry discussion forum. Plus, I've been taking an online course through UCLA the past few weeks, using the Embanet virtual classroom environment. This gives us pretty much the same formatting capability as MS Word in things like font, color, and style. Though what I'm discussing with my fellow students is completely text driven (it is a course in screenwriting), I find that using multiple type sizes, boldface and colors, just to pick three formatting capabilities, makes it MUCH easier for me to emphasize that which I feel needs emphasis to my fellow students and I find that reading well thought out formatted messages from them is somewhat easier than reading plaintext messages, too. We have at least one student who is using the Embanet web interface instead of the specialized client (based on FirstClass), and I find that the limited ability of web-based students to format messages like the rest of us is a problem in quickly comprehending their work. Now, I think it is possible to go overboard with formatting, a look at almost any randomly selected website will provide sufficient evidence of that point, but I'm now inclined to believe that GIVEN THE PROPER TOOLS and intelligent use of the capability, And at that point what we have is an issue in EDUCATING our users, not a technology limitation, artifical or otherwise. (My perennial concerns about bandwidth issues is still a factor, but probably not an insurmountable barrier.) I don't think we have those proper tools yet, Stephanie's laments about Netscape being a case in point, and of course some types of lists may benefit more from message formatting than others, but I don't believe that we should preclude ever finding a use for, and acceptance of, formatting capabilities if we are running a forum which would benefit from it. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 02:51:24 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id CAA11370; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 02:14:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from pakdis.ined.fr (pakdis.ined.fr [192.134.12.17]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id CAA11363 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 02:14:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from sauvy.ined.fr (sauvy.ined.fr [192.134.12.3]) by pakdis.ined.fr (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id LAA27369 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 11:22:45 GMT Received: from ppp00.ined.fr by sauvy.ined.fr (AIX 4.1/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA20706; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 11:16:33 +0100 From: "Nicolas Brouard" To: "List Managers" Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 11:22:22 +0100 Message-Id: <000001be5d84$11e8faa0$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-Msmail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <199902201414.IAA16379@celery.tssi.com> X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The analogy of Lynx as a plain text browser and a plain text mailer (like pine or elm etc.) being able to decode HTML formatted emails is important. Lynx is a powerful and evolutive tool which stays tuned with the latest HTML technologies, trying to still display on a 80X24 black and white screen, most of the information of a sophisticated HTML text. I think that what we now need is a more sophisticated pine mailer which is able to decode HTML mail into a plain text message (like Lynx is doing it). What Pine is actually doing is a little bit different: it says, well I am not able to decode it correctly, I will save it as is and the receiver will decode it with a superior tool (a browser) in a second step. This two-steps action is decouraging the use of simple HTML formatting in email to lists. A transparent one-step would be better in my view. Some mailers were able to send both ASCII and HTML in the same message (Netscape and Outlook Express at least). Now we have to go a step further and instead of sending both formats, plain text mailers should be able to decode HTML messages directly, suppressing the markups and keeping the visual structure that a 80 (or 132 columms or Xterm) screen allows. I looked at the Mutt mailer which is yet another mailer (on Unix only and not on X, look at www.mutt.org), very similar to pine (they recently added IMAP); why all this lost of energy to have a similar product instead of merging pine and lynx (both in source code) to have a modern plain text mailer (modern meaning being able to decode HTML into plain text). Nicolas Brouard mailto:brouard@ined.fr http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard[/english] From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 11:00:47 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA18104; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 10:04:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.n.ml.org (narnia.idsi.net [208.195.228.60]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id KAA18097 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 10:04:34 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 27126 invoked by uid 505); 21 Feb 1999 18:13:56 -0000 Received: from localhost (sendmail-bs@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 21 Feb 1999 18:13:56 -0000 Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 13:13:55 -0500 (EST) From: Daniel Reed To: Nicolas Brouard cc: List Managers Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <000001be5d84$11e8faa0$600c86c0@brd> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, 21 Feb 1999, Nicolas Brouard wrote: ) I think that what we now need is a more sophisticated pine mailer which is ) able to decode HTML mail into a plain text message (like Lynx is doing it). ) What Pine is actually doing is a little bit different: it says, well I am ) not able to decode it correctly, I will save it as is and the receiver will ) decode it with a superior tool (a browser) in a second step. Uhm, actually, for the past 6 or 7 releases of pine, it has had an HTML renderer built in. In fact, the entire help subsystem is stored in HTML. I can view text/html attachments (as well as text/html bodies) completely within pine. It even has the ability to spawn lynx or Netscape to view an embedded URL reference, as well as (I'd imagine) use mailcap to spawn zgv or xv to view embedded graphics (which is how lynx itself handles embedded graphics). -- Daniel Reed The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant. From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 12:06:23 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA19089; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 11:26:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from kachina.jetcafe.org (kachina.jetcafe.org [205.147.43.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA19073 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 11:25:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from ee-nt (eckert@netcom16.netcom.com [192.100.81.129]) by kachina.jetcafe.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id LAA15031 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 11:35:06 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990221105500.00a02a20@pop.climber.org> X-Sender: eckert@pop.climber.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 10:55:00 -0800 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: SRE Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <000001be5d84$11e8faa0$600c86c0@brd> References: <199902201414.IAA16379@celery.tssi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 11:22 AM 2/21/99 +0100, Nicolas Brouard wrote: >Some mailers were able to send both ASCII and HTML in the same message >(Netscape and Outlook Express at least). Now we have to go a step further >and instead of sending both formats, plain text mailers should be able to >decode HTML messages directly, suppressing the markups and keeping the >visual structure that a 80 (or 132 columms or Xterm) screen allows. Any time I read "should be", I get worried. Users should be able to write filters. Many ARE able to write filters. They don't. They should, they can, but they just don't. Why? Because they don't think they _should_ have to. The war of the should bes. I'm about to write my own filter for this thread, which will never be solved. Remember there are service providers like Juno that are going the other way: They used to pass thru encoded data for you to post-process with munpack or some other tool. Now they trap MIME and uuencode and send you a note saying you have to pay for the privilege of receiving attachments. (Juno is free email, receiving attachments costs a little, web access costs more.) Juno became a major service provider overnight by providing completely free service on wimpy PCs. NetZero now provides a better grade of service, but with more intrusive ads. How long before Netzero follows Juno's lead and charges for "extra" features? Dunno. Maybe never. But when the cost of service is tied to the kind of mail received, I can't say "should" with confidence. My lists bounce HTML and attachments. I encourage posting of URLs. Two clicks and you're there without wasting list server bandwidth. SRE mailto:eckert@climber.org | http://www.climber.org/eckert/ Info on peak climbing email lists mailto:info@climber.org Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others. - Edward Abbey From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 12:51:50 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA18937; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 11:10:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA18928 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 11:10:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA13444 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 13:20:07 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id NAA25362 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 13:20:04 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902211920.NAA25362@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: HTML in email To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 13:20:04 -0600 (CST) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Nick Simicich wrote: > Name any reason that I should use a slow, buggy piece of software for > something as simple as reading e-mail? > > >Though what I'm discussing with my fellow students is completely text driven > >(it is a course in screenwriting), I find that using multiple type sizes, > >boldface and colors, just to pick three formatting capabilities, makes it > >MUCH easier for me to emphasize that which I feel needs emphasis to my > >fellow students and I find that reading well thought out formatted messages > >from them is somewhat easier than reading plaintext messages, too. > > What do you do about the people who can't decode your messages? With regards to the class, everybody can handle all messages just fine, whether using a browser or the Embanet client, those with web access just don't have as rich a toolset for producing messages of their own, because of the limitations of browsers, I assume. But you're still arguing that because today's tools are somewhat inadequate and not universally available, the concept is invalid. Five weeks ago I might have even agreed with you, but I'm now convinced that it is a technological issue, and as we all know technology changes over time. When there is a reasonably adept and bug-free mail client, as well as list packages capable of determining whether a subscriber is capable of reading formatted text or just plaintext and sending only the appropriate format (converting HTML or other formatting information to plaintext as needed), this will become pretty much a non-issue. Over time I predict that is EXACTLY what will happen, and that lists will migrate towards supporting formatting because it will be possible to do so without causing the problems that got this particular thread going in the first place, and because it will make it easier for users to express themselves. As list managers, one continuing challenge will be to educate users as to the need for making sure their messages are readable. Right now we have to deal with issues like long line lengths and run on paragraphs, when we embrace (willingly or otherwise) systems that support formatted messages, we'll have to deal with issues like strange font choices and excessive use of styles or colors. The medium is not the message, but the medium can affect the perception of the message. Please note that this does NOT apply to binary attachments, just to formatted text. There may be lists or forums that choose to support certain binary attachments as well, but that's a whole different topic. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 13:02:53 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA19682; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 12:09:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from venus.communitech.net (venus.communitech.net [199.79.146.241]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id MAA19675 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 12:09:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from thorby ([24.94.80.128]) by venus.communitech.net ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:15:15 -600 Message-Id: <4.1.19990221075657.00f7a9c0@mail.rudbek.com> X-Sender: vawjr@mail.rudbek.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 10:18:23 -1000 To: "Nicolas Brouard" , "List Managers" From: "Victor A. Wagner, Jr." Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <000001be5d84$11e8faa0$600c86c0@brd> References: <199902201414.IAA16379@celery.tssi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At Sunday 2/21/99 11:22, Nicolas Brouard wrote: >The analogy of Lynx as a plain text browser and a plain text mailer (like >pine or elm etc.) being able to decode HTML formatted emails is important. > >Lynx is a powerful and evolutive tool which stays tuned with the latest HTML >technologies, trying to still display on a 80X24 black and white screen, >most of the information of a sophisticated HTML text. > >I think that what we now need is a more sophisticated pine mailer which is >able to decode HTML mail into a plain text message (like Lynx is doing it). >What Pine is actually doing is a little bit different: it says, well I am >not able to decode it correctly, I will save it as is and the receiver will >decode it with a superior tool (a browser) in a second step. This two-steps >action is decouraging the use of simple HTML formatting in email to lists. A >transparent one-step would be better in my view. Transparent is what Pine is NOW... it passes on the message it gets. I'm very confused by where you're going here. > >Some mailers were able to send both ASCII and HTML in the same message >(Netscape and Outlook Express at least). Now we have to go a step further >and instead of sending both formats, plain text mailers should be able to >decode HTML messages directly, suppressing the markups and keeping the >visual structure that a 80 (or 132 columms or Xterm) screen allows. > >I looked at the Mutt mailer which is yet another mailer (on Unix only and >not on X, look at www.mutt.org), very similar to pine (they recently added >IMAP); why all this lost of energy to have a similar product >instead of merging pine and lynx (both in source code) to have a modern >plain text mailer (modern meaning being able to decode HTML into plain >text). > >Nicolas Brouard >mailto:brouard@ined.fr http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard[/english] Victor A. Wagner, Jr. PGP RSA fingerprint = 4D20 EBF6 0101 B069 3817 8DBF C846 E47A PGP D-H fingerprint = 98BC 65E3 1A19 43EC 3908 65B9 F755 E6F4 63BB 9D93 The five most dangerous words in the English language: "There oughta be a law" From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 13:19:11 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA20132; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 12:47:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from server.postmodern.com (server.postmodern.com [209.157.82.3]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id MAA20125 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 12:47:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from postmodern.com (foucault.postmodern.com [209.157.82.5]) by server.postmodern.com (8.8.5/mcb-980201) with ESMTP id MAA03013; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 12:57:25 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <36D07335.BA303A82@postmodern.com> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 13:01:04 -0800 From: "Michael C. Berch" Reply-To: mcb@postmodern.com Organization: Postmodern Consulting, California USA X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; U; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en-US MIME-Version: 1.0 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com>; <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> <19990217190036.A8214@gsp.org> <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Rich Kulawiec wrote: > > On Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 08:36:55AM -0800, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > > But he's right. This is the SAME BLOODY ARGUMENT as NetScape vs. > > Lynx, but in email form. Users are migrating from Lynx-type email > > systems to NetScape ones. And the people who love Lynx are screaming > > at being left behind. > > No, we're not. At least *I'm* not. > > My gripe is with the mindlessness exhibited by many (most?) of those who > have joined this migration. If they were actually doing so with > a *purpose*, I wouldn't mind so much: [...]. > > If I actually saw pervasive attempts to use this technology (e.g. > HTML-based email) to enhance communication, then I'd feel differently; > at the least, I'd grudgingly accept it, perhaps I'd even endorse it. > I'm all for better communication: that's part of why I have spent and > am spending my life working on the 'net. Well, HTML (and MIME encoding) is awfully handy in at least two cases: 1) Mailing graphics, especially photos. 2) Sending a Web page, with an annotation. Obviously either of these *can* be handled in other ways, but it is extremely convenient to use attachments to do this, and the vast majority of users have mail-reading programs that are compatible with this either inline or by piping the content to a browser. That sort of content is more likely to be useful in private mail than on lists, but that is probaby a pretty subtle distinction at this point, and when the percentage of non-graphical mail users drops to that of non-graphical browsers, it's also sort of a moot point. I just wish there was more general support for MIME-compliant digests since attachments break traditional digests. Although I am also sort of wondering if the digest paradigm is also somewhat of a dinosaur at this point. -- Michael C. Berch mcb@postmodern.com / mcb@greatcircle.com From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 15:10:56 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA22851; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:52:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from pakdis.ined.fr (pakdis.ined.fr [192.134.12.17]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id OAA22844 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:52:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from sauvy.ined.fr (sauvy.ined.fr [192.134.12.3]) by pakdis.ined.fr (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id XAA01295 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:39:02 GMT Received: from ppp00.ined.fr by sauvy.ined.fr (AIX 4.1/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA22562; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:32:56 +0100 From: "Nicolas Brouard" To: "List Managers" Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:38:44 +0100 Message-Id: <000601be5dea$f025eba0$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-Msmail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >From: Daniel Reed [mailto:djr@narnia.n.ml.org] >Uhm, actually, for the past 6 or 7 releases of pine, it has had an HTML >renderer built in. In fact, the entire help subsystem is stored in HTML. >I >can view text/html attachments (as well as text/html bodies) completely >within pine. It even has the ability to spawn lynx or Netscape to view >an >embedded URL reference, as well as (I'd imagine) use mailcap to spawn >zgv or >xv to view embedded graphics (which is how lynx itself handles embedded >graphics). I was out of date with my old Pine version. I am happy than Pine is now transparent with HTML mails. Nicolas Brouard mailto:brouard@ined.fr http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 15:55:00 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA22820; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:50:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from ctc.swva.net (ctc.swva.net [165.166.123.19]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id OAA22808 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:49:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from default (pem05-27.swva.net [208.140.224.91]) by ctc.swva.net (8.9.0/8.9.0) with SMTP id RAA04628 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 17:58:27 -0500 Message-Id: <199902212258.RAA04628@ctc.swva.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 17:58:10 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: RE: HTML in email to lists Reply-to: bernie@fantasyfarm.com In-reply-to: <000001be5d84$11e8faa0$600c86c0@brd> References: <199902201414.IAA16379@celery.tssi.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 21 Feb 99, at 11:22, Nicolas Brouard wrote: > I think that what we now need is a more sophisticated pine mailer which is > able to decode HTML mail into a plain text message (like Lynx is doing it). ... The only problem with this is that of all of the various "enhanced email" ideas that have come along in the last 20 years or so, HTML is almost certainly the absolute *worst*. About the only thing that'd be really worse than HTML [and maybe not even that] would be to try "full PostScript" for email [surely you want to receive email messages that'll eat up your entire system for hours of CPU time to compute a Mandebrot- set watermark behind your messages...]. HTML was a lousy standard when it was first set up [and indeed, set document-markup back a decade], and now, as it has been hacked mercilessly [and in various incompatible, proprietary ways] it is stuck with a double whammy: first, it sucks as a description language... no two browsers display HTML in quite the same way and if you're trying to do something at all fancy it is virtually impossible to get it to come out right, and it is rife with nonstandard extensions or extentions that one editor handles one way and another a different way]. Second, it is WAAAAY too complicated. Why have an email standard that includes machinery for off-site inline inclusions [or is reading email offline one of those "old fashioned" things, too?], or for frames, javascript, applets, plugins, ActiveX viruses, lordknows what. The objection to HTML [for me at least] is not that I'm a luddite, but that HTML *sucks*. I can only hope that it'll die the same sort of death that the winpmail.dat and friends have, and Ihopehopehope be replaced by something reasonable and rational. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 16:22:18 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA23880; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:41:05 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA22467 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:35:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from kachina.jetcafe.org (kachina.jetcafe.org [205.147.43.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id LAA18856 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 11:52:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from ee-nt (eckert@netcom11.netcom.com [192.100.81.121]) by kachina.jetcafe.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id MAA27819 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 12:01:12 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990218114956.00a01100@pop.climber.org> X-Sender: eckert@pop.climber.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 11:49:56 -0800 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: SRE Subject: clueless users (was Re: HTML in email to lists) In-Reply-To: <19990216220134.A27162@gsp.org> References: <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 10:01 PM 2/16/99 -0500, Rich Kulawiec wrote: >What I do know is that the combination of (a) putting basic list >information in the headers AND the footers of every message sent >plus (b) adding filtering in majordomo *still* doesn't catch all >of the ingenious ways by which the clueless try to unsubscribe The new Majordomo 2 software has the ability to cycle through a number of different headers and footers. I found when the blurb is always the same people stop reading it. Put them in with different numbers of lines, some URLs and some mailtos, and the subscribers tend not to glaze over. I even put "Tip #1", "Tip #2" next to them, so they'd notice when a new tip shows up. Works for me! (and don't forget to FREQUENTLY include the address where commands should be sent, because that's the first thing they forget) SRE mailto:eckert@climber.org | http://www.climber.org/eckert/ Info on peak climbing email lists mailto:info@climber.org Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others. - Edward Abbey From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 16:38:27 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA23895; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:41:23 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA22425 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:34:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from FSM-1.PICA.ARMY.MIL (fsm-1.pica.army.mil [129.139.96.87]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id HAA14738 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 07:52:23 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 99 11:04:02 EST From: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Organization: SADARM SPICE Team, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ Message-ID: <9902181104.aa03218@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Nicolas Brouard: >>And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up >>to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html? > >3 X is not a shame. Structured documents make you think 2 X faster ! >(that's only provocative) And incorrect. Or are you trying to tell me that the NY Times (black text on white paper) would be more useful if it contained a bunch of funky formatting in the body of each article? I think not. In fact, I KNOW not. >>Not on any lists I run. I filter all of them and return HTML, VCARD, RTF >>and >>similar garbage to their originators. >> >VCARD are not used because people don't feel them as necessary. Why should >you filter them out, they are so few... Because they're garbage. Garbage is garbage, regardless of the frequency (or lack thereof) of its appearance. Why is this so difficult to understand? >RTF files are proprietary formats, much bigger (10 X or more) than HTML >documents, their use are most of time useless compared to HTML, and >therefore should be filtered or, better, "warned". They should be bounced. As should html, vcards and all the rest. Bottom line: if it's not signal, it's noise. Configuring your mailer to send plain text is a trivial exercise. I am involved in managing 8 mailing lists, which deliver anywhere from 10 msgs/day to about 600 users (highly technical content) to 250 msgs/day to 2000 users (primarily entertainment in nature). None allow any of the garbage you support. All have international reader bases. All have users with levels of experience ranging from internet "old timers" to folks who signed up to AOL for the first time last week. None seem to have any problems living by the rules which have been established. Tom Coradeschi, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer http://k-whiner.pica.army.mil/info-labview/info-labview.html From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 16:52:44 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA23901; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:41:44 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA22411 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:34:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from MAINE.maine.edu (maine.maine.edu [130.111.39.100]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id GAA12967 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 06:04:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from polaris.umpi.maine.edu [130.111.208.87] by MAINE.maine.edu (IBM VM SMTP Level 310) via TCP with SMTP ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 09:12:16 EST Received: from POLARIS/SpoolDir by polaris.umpi.maine.edu (Mercury 1.43); 18 Feb 99 09:13:58 EST Received: from SpoolDir by POLARIS (Mercury 1.43); 18 Feb 99 09:13:55 EST Received: from albert (130.111.208.84) by polaris.umpi.maine.edu (Mercury 1.43); 18 Feb 99 09:13:52 EST From: "Anthony J. Albert" Organization: University of Maine at PI To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 09:13:50 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-reply-to: <199902180900.BAA05682@honor.greatcircle.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Message-ID: Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 18 Feb 99, at 1:00, List-Managers-Digest wrote: >Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 07:15:55 +0200 >From: Christel Nyman >Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists > >Hi, Nancy, > >In answer to your question below: Try Message/Send again (like I did just >now). No brackets. > >A new question: Is there a way to *insert* angle brackets in Eudora Light >for the text you paste from Word or elsewhere and want to comment on? Unfortunately, I've looked for a way to do this for years, and have only come up with one solution: paste the text into a vi-style editor and use the command: [:1,$s/^/>] (Let me add a plug here for Elwin - an Windows editor that has vi built-in.) I'm sure an EMACS-style editor could do the same thing, but I'm not familiar with the syntax. And I have never seen a pure Windows editor that allows search-and-replace on the start of the line or the end of the line. (Which, with vi, once you learn regular expression syntax, is trivial.) Anthony J. Albert (who really didn't want to turn this message into an editor war) ============================================================== Anthony J. Albert albert@polaris.umpi.maine.edu Systems and Software Support Specialist Postmaster Computer Services - University of Maine, Presque Isle Attention: the next meeting of the Time Travellers' Society will be last Tuesday. From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 17:38:20 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA23917; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:42:31 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id OAA22401 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:34:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from MAINE.maine.edu (maine.maine.edu [130.111.39.100]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id FAA12619 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 05:45:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from polaris.umpi.maine.edu [130.111.208.87] by MAINE.maine.edu (IBM VM SMTP Level 310) via TCP with SMTP ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 08:52:26 EST Received: from POLARIS/SpoolDir by polaris.umpi.maine.edu (Mercury 1.43); 18 Feb 99 08:54:08 EST Received: from SpoolDir by POLARIS (Mercury 1.43); 18 Feb 99 08:53:46 EST Received: from albert (130.111.208.84) by polaris.umpi.maine.edu (Mercury 1.43); 18 Feb 99 08:53:37 EST From: "Anthony J. Albert" Organization: University of Maine at PI To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 08:53:36 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-reply-to: <199902180900.BAA05682@honor.greatcircle.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.01d) Message-ID: Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 18 Feb 99, at 1:00, List-Managers-Digest wrote: >Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 16:24:20 -0800 >From: Nancy Charlton >Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists > >I just subscribed to this list. I manage a small general e-mail >discussion group, the CS List, and participate in several other ones. > >As to accented characters, my Eudora Lite 3.0 lets me use the Alt + keypad >to write the accented characters in the high ASCII set, but I don't know >whether these are correct on all the receiving sets. Most people are so >inured to the rudimentary typesetting capacities of ordinary e-mail that >they don't worry much about it. Most people that don't have IBM PC-compatibles are not receiving the correct characters. And some that do have those won't, depending on the applications. High-ASCII (character numbers > 127) isn't standardized, at all, at all. I certainly agree with the need for having the accents and other formatting marks. Unicode is the solution, IMO, but it'll be a while before there are end-to-end implementations of it. Windows NT does implement it to an extend, as I am given to understand from snippets of Microsoft documentation. >Some of the llists I participate in are literary discussions, and there is >a frequent need for real accents, real italics or underlining, and real >symbols instead of makehift equivalents such as all caps or _ before & >after titles of books. Rules for these things exist in abundance, but >when it is impossible to practice uniform observances of them, it becomes >a free-for-all. > >I do have a specific question: does anyone know how to prevent Eudora >from putting down a rank of angle brackets down the left side of forwarded >messages? Or if it won't, is there any e-mailer that will? Pegasus Mail lets you specify what characters you wish to use for the mark on the left side of the message, anywhere from ">" (the default) to much longer strings. Anthony J. Albert ============================================================== Anthony J. Albert albert@polaris.umpi.maine.edu Systems and Software Support Specialist Postmaster Computer Services - University of Maine, Presque Isle Attention: the next meeting of the Time Travellers' Society will be last Tuesday. From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 19:44:54 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA25803; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 17:43:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from netcom4.netcom.com (netcom4.netcom.com [192.100.81.107]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id RAA25793 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 17:42:51 -0800 (PST) Received: (from das@localhost) by netcom4.netcom.com (8.8.5-r-beta/8.8.5/(NETCOM v1.02)) id RAA09649; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 17:51:59 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 17:51:59 -0800 (PST) From: Das Devaraj Reply-To: Das Devaraj Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists To: Rich Kulawiec cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Fri, 19 Feb 1999, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > On Fri, Feb 19, 1999 at 08:36:55AM -0800, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > > But he's right. This is the SAME BLOODY ARGUMENT as NetScape vs. > > Lynx, but in email form. Users are migrating from Lynx-type email > > systems to NetScape ones. And the people who love Lynx are screaming > > at being left behind. > > No, we're not. At least *I'm* not. > > My gripe is with the mindlessness exhibited by many (most?) of those who > have joined this migration. If they were actually doing so with > a *purpose*, I wouldn't mind so much: but it very much seems to > me that most of them just happen to like the widgets and geegaws, > and have decided to inflict them (and all the useless baggage that > they encompass) on the rest of the civilized world for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. Though I _currently_ bounce HTML and other attachments or strongly discourage their use on a few mailing lists I administer, I have a problem with the above stance. There may be folks (like me :-) who may not have much of a *purpose* in posting to mailing lists! Shouldn't newbies be allowed to quote a whole 10K msg and add the sole thoughtful comment "I agree" and post to the whole list? Won't it be at least bearable, if each of those zillion messages are nicely formatted with different colors, fonts and blinking? My point is that many newbies cut their teeth by doing things that irk the pros. They gradually (hopefully) grasp the "concept" of a mailing list and then may contribute to the list. The current HTML may be unduly complex for email use, but if a meaningful subset is agreed to (is there an RFC already?), vendors may implement that. Many newbies genuinely do not understand what they are doing when they send an email. If there is a happy compromise (or even a workable one) that list-admins and graphics happy users can come to, it may be a step in the right direction. The subscribers are the folks who make a list what it is. IMHO list managers should do what they can to make the life of somebody who does not understand anything other than GUI, at least bearable. das From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 20:52:11 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id UAA28223; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 20:13:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id UAA28215 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 20:13:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA18212 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:23:02 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id WAA27019 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:22:52 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902220422.WAA27019@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:22:51 -0600 (CST) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Michael C. Berch wrote: > I just wish > there was more general support for MIME-compliant digests since > attachments break traditional digests. Although I am also sort of > wondering if the digest paradigm is also somewhat of a dinosaur at this point. The reason for digests is still valid, people who want to receive their messages in bulk, whether that be daily or whenever some size threshold is reached. What's a dinosaur is the standard itself. Is there a MIME standard for digests? -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 21:01:14 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id UAA28486; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 20:31:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [209.239.169.200]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id UAA28479 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 20:31:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197] (may be forged)) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id UAA28672 ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 20:44:33 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <9902181104.aa03218@fsm-1.fsm-1.pica.army.mil> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 20:39:44 -0800 To: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 11:04 AM -0500 2/18/99, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer wrote: > And incorrect. Or are you trying to tell me that the NY Times (black text on > white paper) would be more useful if it contained a bunch of funky > formatting in the body of each article? I think not. In fact, I KNOW not. Sigh. why do people try to over-simplify things into uselessness? There is no single correct design style. Don't believe me? Just look at the New York Times and Spy Magazine. Forbes or Wired. ESPN magazine or National Geographic. Heck, for that matter, the New York Times and the New York Post, or the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. Can we please quit pretending that the list-managers discussion list is the only kind of use for e-mail in the known universe? List-managers and similar lists are the epitomy of text-only e-mail conversation lists, and most would benefit little from the addition of styled text (however, I'd also argue that they WOULD benefit, and would generally benefit more than they'd be hurt. Yes, some people abuse styled text, but people abuse plain email text, too. Do we not do anything just because it's potentially abusable?). But there's more to life than list-managers. Honest. Just like saying that the New York Times is the only possible definition for printed text stylistic designs. Taht's not even true in New York City, much less newspaper publishing, much less publishing in general. And while we're at it, let's not forget that HTML isn't the only way to do stylized text in use today, either. it's just one implementation. So we should take the implementation away and discuss the concept, which is styled text. HTML is just a version of this. If all you're doing is a chat list for 1,000 of your closest friends, you don't need HTML (although I'll bet after you made it available and everyone got used to it, you'd dislike it a lot less than you'd admit to now) -- but please, quit pretending that this is the only kind of e-mail list that exists, and that only things appropriate for that ought to be considered... Or shall we call up Wired and tell them to switch to agate type and newsprint and become the New York Times? Heck, let's stop all this technological gobbeldygook. Let's strip out mailtos and URLS, let's take out all of the code that reads mail and makes clickable links and URLS, let's throw out the spellcheckers and word wrap and all of these things that actually make using e-mail easier, and go back to the good old days of /bin/mail. Heck, we don't need mailx, much less pine. Just like we don't need USA Today. Just good old New York Times greyware... > Why is this so difficult to understand? Well, I dunno. there seems to be a lot going on on all sides that seem more difficult to understand than we think they should. > They should be bounced. As should html, vcards and all the rest. Bottom > line: if it's not signal, it's noise. Configuring your mailer to send plain > text is a trivial exercise. Maybe for you, tom. But I'm seeing four or five users a week completely confused by this now. > I am involved in managing 8 mailing lists, which > deliver anywhere from 10 msgs/day to about 600 users (highly technical > content) to 250 msgs/day to 2000 users (primarily entertainment in nature). And I run about 200 lists to over a million users. And there's strong, growing interest in styled text and other enhanced features -- both from my subscriber base AND from my content creators. Both sides are pushing me on this these days. > None allow any of the garbage you support. All have international reader > bases. All have users with levels of experience ranging from internet "old > timers" to folks who signed up to AOL for the first time last week. None > seem to have any problems living by the rules which have been established. Good for you. Now, can we get past the belief that what works for your lists by definition will work for all mailing lists in the universe for all time, and that nothing should ever change ever for anyone? -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 23:30:20 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA01091; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:55:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA01074 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:55:13 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id WAA28476; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:26:54 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990221222654.A28471@gsp.org> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:26:54 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: mcb@postmodern.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com>; <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> <19990217190036.A8214@gsp.org> <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> <36D07335.BA303A82@postmodern.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <36D07335.BA303A82@postmodern.com>; from Michael C. Berch on Sun, Feb 21, 1999 at 01:01:04PM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, Feb 21, 1999 at 01:01:04PM -0800, Michael C. Berch wrote: > 1) Mailing graphics, especially photos. MIME does handle this nicely, yes. > 2) Sending a Web page, with an annotation. I'd say, "send the URL". > Obviously either of these *can* be handled in other ways, but it is > extremely convenient to use attachments to do this, and the vast > majority of users have mail-reading programs that are compatible with > this either inline or by piping the content to a browser. Do they? Please understand my precise meaning: I tend to agree with this claim. But that's not evidence. What evidence can you produce in its support? > Although I am also sort of > wondering if the digest paradigm is also somewhat of a dinosaur at this point. I have wondered the same thing, and have tried to figure out ways in which the presentation of messages in digest format could be handled on the mail client's side, so that mailing lists need only ship the information out in one format, and so that users could tailor the presentation of digests to a format of their own choosing. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 23:46:53 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA01347; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:12:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [209.239.169.200]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA01340 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:12:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197] (may be forged)) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA35374 ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:26:03 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199902220422.WAA27019@celery.tssi.com> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:20:57 -0800 To: nolan@tssi.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List Managers) From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 10:22 PM -0600 2/21/99, Mike Nolan wrote: > Is there a MIME standard for digests? Starting points: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc1341/7_2_Multipart.html http://info.internet.isi.edu:80/in-notes/rfc/files/rfc934.txt -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Sun Feb 21 23:51:37 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA01437; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:20:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from kachina.jetcafe.org (kachina.jetcafe.org [205.147.43.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA01426 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:19:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from ee-nt (eckert@netcom17.netcom.com [192.100.81.130]) by kachina.jetcafe.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id XAA17173; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:29:28 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990221232913.00a3f100@pop.climber.org> X-Sender: eckert@pop.climber.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:29:13 -0800 To: "Anthony J. Albert" From: SRE Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: References: <199902180900.BAA05682@honor.greatcircle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>A new question: Is there a way to *insert* angle brackets in Eudora Light >>for the text you paste from Word or elsewhere and want to comment on? At 09:13 AM 2/18/99 -0500, Anthony J. Albert wrote: > Unfortunately, I've looked for a way to do this for years, and have >only come up with one solution: paste the text into a vi-style editor Or use "Edit>PasteAsQuotation" from Eudora. >(Let me add a plug here for >Elwin - an Windows editor that has vi built-in.) I use Lemmy, which has all of vi plus the mouse works as per windoze. >And I have never seen a pure >Windows editor that allows search-and-replace on the start of the >line or the end of the line. Believe it or not, MicroStiff Word handles that just fine. They have a whole bunch of metacharacters, not just newline. (but not quite a one-to-one match with Unix standards) From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 00:07:53 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA01336; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:11:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA01327 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:11:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA20485; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 01:21:25 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id BAA29255; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 01:21:25 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902220721.BAA29255@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists To: chuqui@plaidworks.com (Chuq Von Rospach) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 01:21:24 -0600 (CST) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) In-Reply-To: from "Chuq Von Rospach" at Feb 21, 99 08:39:44 pm Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Just like saying > that the New York Times is the only possible definition for printed > text stylistic designs. Taht's not even true in New York City, much > less newspaper publishing, much less publishing in general. Hey, Chuq, I don't have a copy of the New York Times at my desk, but as I recall it uses several different type faces, in several sizes, bold face, italics, and if you get to the feature sections, color and other formatting features start to show up, too. Heck, I think they even print COLOR pictures on the front page now. In fact, the Times could even be used as a model for how to use formatting features without getting carried away with them like USA Today does. (IMHO, at least.) Just because I don't have the tools to handle formatted text on my list properly now, that doesn't mean I reject the concept forever. I've seen the future, and it was bold faced. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 00:21:32 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA29952; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:07:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from server.postmodern.com (server.postmodern.com [209.157.82.3]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA29945 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:07:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from postmodern.com (foucault.postmodern.com [209.157.82.5]) by server.postmodern.com (8.8.5/mcb-980201) with ESMTP id WAA04143; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:17:09 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <36D0F664.7EB15F51@postmodern.com> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:17:15 -0800 From: "Michael C. Berch" Reply-To: mcb@postmodern.com Organization: Postmodern Consulting, California USA X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; U; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en-US MIME-Version: 1.0 To: List Managers CC: nolan@tssi.com Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <199902220422.WAA27019@celery.tssi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Mike Nolan wrote: > > Michael C. Berch wrote: > > > I just wish > > there was more general support for MIME-compliant digests since > > attachments break traditional digests. Although I am also sort of > > wondering if the digest paradigm is also somewhat of a dinosaur at > > this point. > > The reason for digests is still valid, people who want to receive their > messages in bulk, whether that be daily or whenever some size threshold > is reached. What's a dinosaur is the standard itself. > > Is there a MIME standard for digests? It's been in MIME since the beginning (Section 7.2.4 of RFC1341). The current reference is Section 5.1.5 of RFC2046. See http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/htbin/rfc/rfc2046.html The earlier standard for digests was RFC934, but was not, to my knowledge, widely implemented. As for the reason for digests, they were very popular when mail transports were slow, less reliable, and often batch-oriented (like UUCP polling). And mail reading programs were much less sophisticated in terms of sorting messages. People who want to read messages from a mailing list all together can easily sort them into a folder, or use a selection function to pick them out of the inbox. I think the heyday of digests is probably behind us. -- Michael C. Berch mcb@postmodern.com / mcb@greatcircle.com From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 00:37:02 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA00719; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:40:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id WAA00711 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 22:39:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA19789; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 00:49:26 -0600 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id AAA28819; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 00:49:25 -0600 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <199902220649.AAA28819@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists To: mcb@postmodern.com Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 00:49:25 -0600 (CST) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, nolan@tssi.com In-Reply-To: <36D0F664.7EB15F51@postmodern.com> from "Michael C. Berch" at Feb 21, 99 10:17:15 pm Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Michael C. Berch wrote: > And mail reading programs were much less sophisticated in > terms of sorting messages. People who want to read messages from a > mailing list all together can easily sort them into a folder, or use a > selection function to pick them out of the inbox. I think the heyday > of digests is probably behind us. Mail reading programs are not all sophisticated yet today, or perhaps it is that there are too many users who are not sophisticated in their use of mail clients. And there are systems that have limits on the number of messages. At one point I was led to understand that AOL paid more attention to the NUMBER of messages than the byte count, is that correct? A daily digest of my 50-100 messages in a busy day has definite advantages over receiving those messages throughout the day, as well as distinct disadvantages. Yes, the high water mark for the digest is past us, some might even argue that the day of the mailing list is past, too, but that doesn't mean either is archaic quite yet. However, to return to the original thrust of this thread, I don't think an out-of-date digest standard, however badly followed, should prevent us from looking to the future in terms of the types of message formatting we allow on our lists, at least those of us who choose to do so, now or at some time in the future. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 01:09:30 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA01322; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:11:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [209.239.169.200]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id XAA01315 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:11:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197] (may be forged)) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA25032 ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:24:56 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:14:01 -0800 To: Das Devaraj , Rich Kulawiec From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 5:51 PM -0800 2/21/99, Das Devaraj wrote: > Shouldn't newbies be allowed to quote > a whole 10K msg and add the sole thoughtful comment "I agree" and > post to the whole list? Won't it be at least bearable, if each of > those zillion messages are nicely formatted with different colors, > fonts and blinking? If someone can do something stupid with a technology, should we simply ban that technology outright? Did we do away with pagemaker and desktop publishing just because some well-meaning idiots took "I have 50 fonts and by god I'm going to use every one of them!" to heart? No. This kind of argument is silly. You don't define a technology by what can be done wrong with it, and then refuse to adopt it for what it can do right. Unless, of course, you're looking for strawman arguments against the technology. But that's wrongthink. Will these new technologies be misused? Sure. Should we not adopt them, then? No. Heck, current email lists are misused. Let's shut them all down. Email itself is misused by the spammers. Since someone CAN misuse it, let's shut email down, too. Or maybe we should figure out how this stuff can be used properly, and teach users how to do so, realizing some users refuse to be taught and deal with it. Imagine if, since Pagemaker got misused by some users as they were figuring out the new technologies, we simply gave up on Pagemaker. Fortunately, that didn't happen -- instead, people learned how to use it well, and experts helped teach the non-experts. Maybe there's a hint in there somewhere. > when they send an email. If there is a happy compromise (or even a > workable one) that list-admins and graphics happy users can come > to, it may be a step in the right direction. One really easy one -- posting size limits. Most of us do that today. Let users experiement. Don't let them experiment without restrictions. And learn how the system works and doesn't, so we can build help systems to help newbies use it well. Just like we have with mail lists. And email. God forbid, I wrote the first USENET netiquette doc in 1984, and it's still in use today with minimal changes -- and it's been translated to at least 17 languages that I've found out about, and used by literally thousands of organizations worldwide. Imagine if, instead, we had realized that users were misusing USENET and shut it down instead of trying to improve it... Nah, maybe that's not a good example. (grin) > The subscribers are the folks who make a list what it is. > IMHO list managers should do what they can to make the life > of somebody who does not understand anything other than GUI, at > least bearable. Exactly, Das.... the technology isn't good or bad. It's how it's implemented, and how users are taught to use it.... -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 02:07:15 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id BAA03021; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 01:08:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.europa.com (atheria.europa.com [199.2.194.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id BAA03011 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 01:08:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from dialup-b088.europa.com ([204.202.55.88] helo=default) by mail.europa.com with smtp (Exim 2.05 #5) id 10ErV5-0003hl-00; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 01:18:04 -0800 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990222010404.0084cec0@mail.europa.com> X-Sender: nanc@mail.europa.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 01:04:04 -0800 To: Das Devaraj From: Nancy Charlton Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Cc: Rich Kulawiec , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: References: <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 05:51 PM 2/21/99 -0800, Das Devaraj wrote: [snip] Shouldn't newbies be allowed to quote >a whole 10K msg and add the sole thoughtful comment "I agree" and >post to the whole list? Won't it be at least bearable, if each of >those zillion messages are nicely formatted with different colors, >fonts and blinking? Nancy answers: Emphatically, NO! This wastes everybody's time and bandwidth. Moreover, I have subscribers in Europe who have to pay local phone charges whenever they connect to the internet, so it costs them several ways. It's just not considerate of all users to post this way. How difficult can it be, after all, to take mouse in hand, highlight what's extraneous to the point to which you are replying, and dellete it? Das continues >My point is that many newbies cut their teeth by doing things >that irk the pros. They gradually (hopefully) grasp the "concept" >of a mailing list and then may contribute to the list. Nancy replies: I and some computer-savvy subscribers have helped the newbies along by compiling some general instructions, of which I have several versions that get posted about once a month, as well as being sent to new subscribers. We get along pretty well now, without too much repetition. One reader contribution was the use of clear identifiers of who says what, such as "Nancy replies" above, and also addressing posts to a particular individual -- an open letter. The latter particularly has helped sharpen the writing. of the e-mails. Back to Das: The current >HTML may be unduly complex for email use, but if a meaningful >subset is agreed to (is there an RFC already?), vendors may implement >that. Many newbies genuinely do not understand what they are doing >when they send an email. If there is a happy compromise (or even a >workable one) that list-admins and graphics happy users can come >to, it may be a step in the right direction. Nancy: It looks to me as if the next generation or two of word processors will not only have HTML aliases but will have direct e-mail capabilities also. This may offer the standard such as you speak of. Since I started do e-mail about three years ago, I have written more than I did in the prior 10 years put together. Time and space constraints have forced me to think ahead in my writing get it right on the first draft, and make it concise. But I knew how to write before that I've been a freelance writer, editor, and profreader, and also have taught English composition. I know that people can learn these skills, but mark-eting emphasis on pretty visuals at the expense of fundamental writing and reading is deterring rather than enhancing real communication. With that impossibly pontifical salvo, I say good night, and thank you for all your helpful replies to my earlier question. Sincerely, Nancy Charlton nanc@europa.com From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 05:49:08 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id EAA09769; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 04:56:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id EAA09745 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 04:55:33 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id HAA03477 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 07:51:04 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990222075103.A3473@gsp.org> Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 07:51:03 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: The core questions about HTML-formatted email Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I've learned to ask several questions when people propose doing something -- especially when, at least at first blush, it appears that the "something" is gratuitous. The first question is "What problem are you trying to solve?" So I'll ask it here. What problem are you (those who would advocate enabling HTML-formatting of email messages) trying to solve? The second question is "Why is your solution the optimal one?" And the third is "What problems will your solution create, and are they (in the aggregate) worse than the problem you're trying to solve?" I believe these are reasonable questions. If I seem intransigent in viewpoint, it's because I've not yet heard satisfactory answers to them. (Though it's true that many points have touched on them peripherally, I don't believe they have been directly addresssed.) And as to the public and private suggestions (accusations?) that I've for some unspecified reason decided to stop pushing the envelope, that notion couldn't possibly be more wrong. My bleeding-edge goals simply differ from those of a lot of other people, so I *am* pushing -- hard -- just in a different direction from some others. I'd also suggest that my personal agenda, or lack thereof, is not relevant to the discussion. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 05:57:23 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id FAA10342; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 05:37:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id FAA10327 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 05:37:02 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id IAA04009 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:47:23 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990222084721.B3828@gsp.org> Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:47:21 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: ; from Chuq Von Rospach on Sun, Feb 21, 1999 at 11:14:01PM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, Feb 21, 1999 at 11:14:01PM -0800, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > Will these new technologies be misused? Sure. Should we not adopt > them, then? No. *Maybe*. I am unpersuaded that just because technology is new and/or trendy that it should (or must) be adopted. To me, that does not constitute necessary or sufficient reason to do so. I am interested in solving problems, not in the gratuitous use of technology simply because it exists. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 11:18:08 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id GAA10983; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 06:24:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from mushi.colo.neosoft.com (mushi.colo.neosoft.com [206.109.6.82]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id GAA10976 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 06:24:26 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 22679 invoked from network); 22 Feb 1999 14:33:55 -0000 Received: from bonkers.neosoft.com (HELO bonkers.taronga.com) (206.109.2.48) by mushi.colo.neosoft.com with SMTP; 22 Feb 1999 14:33:55 -0000 Received: (from arielle@localhost) by bonkers.taronga.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) id IAA01921 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:33:54 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from arielle) From: Stephanie da Silva Message-Id: <199902221433.IAA01921@bonkers.taronga.com> Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:33:53 -0600 (CST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Mike Nolan : > Yes, the high water mark for the digest is past us, some might even > argue that the day of the mailing list is past, too, I'd have to disagree with this assessment. Mailing lists are booming. From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 11:48:46 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA13012; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:07:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [209.239.169.200]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id IAA12998 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:07:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197] (may be forged)) by plaidworks.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA36770 ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:20:32 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <19990221222654.A28471@gsp.org> References: <36D07335.BA303A82@postmodern.com>; from Michael C. Berch on Sun, Feb 21, 1999 at 01:01:04PM -0800 <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com>; <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990215072345.A4679@gsp.org> <002e01be5a69$753f4820$600c86c0@brd> <19990217122928.A3829@gsp.org> <4.1.19990217133609.00f6cba0@mail.rudbek.com> <19990217190036.A8214@gsp.org> <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> <36D07335.BA303A82@postmodern.com> Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:07:57 -0800 To: Rich Kulawiec , mcb@postmodern.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 10:26 PM -0500 2/21/99, Rich Kulawiec wrote: >> 2) Sending a Web page, with an annotation. > > I'd say, "send the URL". If you're annotating the content IN the URL, you can't do it just by editing the URL itself. -- Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? ) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) + Featuring Winslow Leach at the Piano! From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 12:35:00 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id HAA12568; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 07:48:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from gatem02.netusa1.net (gatem02.netusa1.net [205.139.170.9]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA12561 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 07:48:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from bestofhumor.com (indyA45.netusa1.net [206.30.241.45]) by gatem02.netusa1.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA17762 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 10:57:55 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from shawn@bestofhumor.com) Message-ID: <36D18CCF.C61F7A8A@bestofhumor.com> Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 10:58:55 -0600 From: Best of Humor Organization: http://www.bestofhumor.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Intro and questions Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hello Fellow list owners, My name is Shawn Thayer, I am the owner of 'Best of Humor' (http://www.bestofhumor.com) which is yep, another humor list on the internet. The only thing is that I have been around for about 4 years. My list is hosted on a virtual server by esosoft (http://www.esosoft.com). I have had my humor list for 4 years now and I really enjoy it. I have participated in many other list managers discussion lists, and hope that I can provide some insight on some questions that people might ask and hopefully I will learn a few things also. I would like to know your thoughts on a few different topics: Bounce Processing with majordomo Smartbounce Pro - - Anyone use/used this? Generating more subscribers Best affiliate programs Let me know what you think Shawn Thayer Best of Humor - - the worlds greatest humor list http://www.bestofhumor.com http://www.bestofhumor.com/advertise.html From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 14:43:11 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id HAA12482; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 07:45:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from firefly.cisco.com (firefly.cisco.com [171.69.63.22]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id HAA12466 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 07:45:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from kenny-pc.cisco.com (ricochet-14.cisco.com [171.68.11.206]) by firefly.cisco.com (8.8.5-Cisco.1/8.6.5) with SMTP id HAA20799 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 07:54:27 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199902221554.HAA20799@firefly.cisco.com> X-Sender: kenny@firefly.cisco.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.0.2 Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 07:53:50 -0800 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Kenny Paul Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: References: <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I think one of the things that might be getting missed in this whole discussion is why a number of people feel that HTML is "bad". I think that when you drill down, it isn't because people are so convinced that it is evil, as it is a self preservation issue. Before you get your underware in an uproar, hear me out. There are a lot of list managers tend to be either current or former sysadmin types that for years have had to read mail from a wide range of platforms on any given day out of necessity. For example, right now I am on a bus, using eudora on my laptop w/ a wireless modem. Later, I'll be in the datacenter for a short time working on a vt100. When I'm at a training class, I'd be using a telnet window, at my desk I use MH and at home I use netscape. It is only natural for a person that works in such an environment to go for the plain text, lowest common denominator for readability's sake. Is this the right way or the wrong way? No. It is what it is: someone trying to get something done. Joe internet-user on the other hand usually has a single machine that they read mail from. This person has no reason to worry about plain text and it only makes sense to use something that will allow him or her to put better emphasis in a message that they send. Is this the right way or the wrong way? No. It is what it is: someone trying to get something done. I currently block html and RTF on the couple of small lists the I run. In fact, I am pretty rabid about it. It isn't because html is "bad", it is because it meets my personal requirements for managing the lists. The restriction serves no one except me. Pure selfish motivation. Eventually, when the size of the lists reach some critical mass, where it becomes a burden to try and coach _subscribers how to set their mail readers to plain text, I will lift that restriction. Until then however, I have a responsibility to mentor the list members that might not know any better, how to send mail to the list and I need to do so in a courteous, supportive fashion. After all, It isn't thier fault that I don't like the way that they choose to format their messages. Just something to consider. Regards, Kenny Paul "live from the BART CART" From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 15:18:33 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA19016; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 13:43:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from venus.communitech.net (venus.communitech.net [199.79.146.241]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id NAA19004 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 13:43:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from thorby ([24.94.80.128]) by venus.communitech.net ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 15:49:29 -600 Message-Id: <4.1.19990222113801.00f74950@mail.rudbek.com> X-Sender: vawjr@mail.rudbek.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 11:52:43 -1000 To: Rich Kulawiec , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: "Victor A. Wagner, Jr." Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists In-Reply-To: <19990222084721.B3828@gsp.org> References: <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At Monday 2/22/99 08:47, Rich Kulawiec wrote: >On Sun, Feb 21, 1999 at 11:14:01PM -0800, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: >> Will these new technologies be misused? Sure. Should we not adopt >> them, then? No. > >*Maybe*. I am unpersuaded that just because technology is new and/or >trendy that it should (or must) be adopted. I believe the reason anyone is carrying on this topic at all, isn't the questions of whether we should adopt a new technology, it's whether or not we should FORBID it. You're initial blast (from my point of view) seemed to suggest prohibition (on a public scale, I couldn't care less what you do on YOUR lists) and I chided you for it. >To me, that does not >constitute necessary or sufficient reason to do so. Apparently, to you, it must solve a problem you see immediately, or you have no use for it. What seems stranger to me, you wish to FORBID its use. >I am interested >in solving problems, (that _I_ see, not necessarily any that would benefit mankind) >not in the gratuitous use of technology simply >because it exists. Few of us are (though, I think new toys are kinda neat to play with). Take a close look at the end of my signature, it applies (in spades) to this 'conversation'. (geez, this would have been so much easier to read if both had some kind of "rich" text system. > >---Rsk >Rich Kulawiec >rsk@gsp.org Victor A. Wagner, Jr. PGP RSA fingerprint = 4D20 EBF6 0101 B069 3817 8DBF C846 E47A PGP D-H fingerprint = 98BC 65E3 1A19 43EC 3908 65B9 F755 E6F4 63BB 9D93 The five most dangerous words in the English language: "There oughta be a law" From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 15:35:55 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id FAA10383; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 05:40:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from scifi.squawk.com (scifi.squawk.com [208.235.116.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id FAA10372 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 05:40:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from tpad.squawk.com (root@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by scifi.squawk.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id IAA21402; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:49:15 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990222082603.03de78e0@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: njs@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:26:03 -0500 To: mcb@postmodern.com From: Nick Simicich Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists Cc: List Managers , nolan@tssi.com In-Reply-To: <36D0F664.7EB15F51@postmodern.com> References: <199902220422.WAA27019@celery.tssi.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 10:17 PM 2/21/99 -0800, Michael C. Berch wrote: >As for the reason for digests, they were very popular when mail >transports were slow, less reliable, and often batch-oriented (like UUCP >polling). And mail reading programs were much less sophisticated in >terms of sorting messages. People who want to read messages from a >mailing list all together can easily sort them into a folder, or use a >selection function to pick them out of the inbox. I think the heyday >of digests is probably behind us. That is why a third or more of my users are on digest? The answer is that they want to "skim". -- That which does not kill us, makes us stronger. That which does kill us makes us smell stronger, after a few days, anyway. Nick Simicich mailto:njs@scifi.squawk.com or (last choice) mailto:njs@us.ibm.com http://scifi.squawk.com/njs.html -- Stop by and Light Up The World! From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 16:18:59 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id FAA10287; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 05:33:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.itw.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id FAA10269 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 05:32:52 -0800 (PST) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) id IAA03954 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:43:15 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <19990222084313.A3828@gsp.org> Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:43:13 -0500 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <19990219172240.B8735@gsp.org> <3.0.5.32.19990222010404.0084cec0@mail.europa.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990222010404.0084cec0@mail.europa.com>; from Nancy Charlton on Mon, Feb 22, 1999 at 01:04:04AM -0800 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, Feb 22, 1999 at 01:04:04AM -0800, Nancy Charlton wrote: > Emphatically, NO! This wastes everybody's time and bandwidth. Moreover, I > have subscribers in Europe who have to pay local phone charges whenever > they connect to the internet, so it costs them several ways. It's just not > considerate of all users to post this way. How difficult can it be, after > all, to take mouse in hand, highlight what's extraneous to the point to > which you are replying, and dellete it? Consider also the growing number of Internet users in third-world countries which have abysmal telecommunications infrastructure and where bandwidth is scarce and expensive. > I know that people can learn these skills, but mark-eting emphasis on > pretty visuals at the expense of fundamental writing and reading is > deterring rather than enhancing real communication. Bingo. If the goal is to enhance communication among readers and writers on mailing lists, then the effort should applied toward providing fundamental education in grammar, spelling, rhetoric, debate, comprehension, and composition -- because that is where the problems are. Providing readers/writers with fancy formatting[1] does not address these issues, and in fact only obscures them by introducing additional complexity that does not facilitate communication, but frequently impedes it. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org [1] I'd make an exception for support for additional character sets, based on the arguments I've read here. From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 17:34:29 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA23103; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 17:13:19 -0800 (PST) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) id RAA23095 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 17:13:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from triceratops.com (triceratops.com [206.83.162.235]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with SMTP id KAA18662 for ; Sun, 21 Feb 1999 10:55:20 -0800 (PST) From: johnjohn@triceratops.com Received: (qmail 14850 invoked by uid 100); 21 Feb 1999 19:02:05 -0000 Message-ID: <19990221110205.C12412@triceratops.com> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 11:02:05 -0800 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists References: <199902201414.IAA16379@celery.tssi.com> <000001be5d84$11e8faa0$600c86c0@brd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <000001be5d84$11e8faa0$600c86c0@brd>; from Nicolas Brouard on Sun, Feb 21, 1999 at 11:22:22AM +0100 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, Feb 21, 1999 at 11:22:22AM +0100, Nicolas Brouard wrote: > > I looked at the Mutt mailer which is yet another mailer (on Unix only and > not on X, look at www.mutt.org), very similar to pine (they recently added > IMAP); why all this lost of energy to have a similar product > instead of merging pine and lynx (both in source code) to have a modern > plain text mailer (modern meaning being able to decode HTML into plain > text). > I'm dissapointed at the inefficiency too. Not theirs. Yours. Why write a complaining letter about merging two source trees? Why didn't you DO it, and write to ANNOUNCE it? Quite frankly, I wouldn't use the resulting mailer unless you also embedded a JVM, a Perl interpreter, and an ASCII VRML renderer. -- John White johnjohn@triceratops.com PGP Public Key: http://www.triceratops.com/john/public-key.pgp From list-managers-owner Mon Feb 22 17:49:07 1999 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA23356; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 17:17:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp2.vnet.net (smtp2.vnet.net [166.82.1.32]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-980202-1) with ESMTP id RAA23327