Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 08:21:46 -0600 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Andrew Hesford <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Mailing List Suggestions Message-ID: <15040.41466.579001.557654@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <123643479@toto.iv>
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A couple of additions, based on the digest behavior. I'm not going to bother with the other things I don't agree with: Andrew Hesford <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx> types: > 6. This is probably the only unanimously supported suggestion in here: > NO HTML! Being a FreeBSD-related mailing list, the vast majority of us > probably use mutt or pine, which won't handle HTML without some > tweaking. Plain text conveys email thoughts just as well as HTML, and it > avoids clutter for those who haven't configured their mail readers. Note that the digestifier at FreeBSD.org throws out all the headers but From, Subject and Date. In particular, the MIME headers are gone. So if you use a mail reader that handles HTML correctly, it won't recognize it as HTML, and so can't display it. Likewise, some mailers send both HTML and plain ASCII. While this can be read without having to parse the HTML, it's still broken by the digestifier, and means you're sending more than twice as much stuff as you need to. It's not a good idea either. > 7. I imagine this will be the point to generate the most disagreement, > but please don't have the contents of long files in the message body. If > long files (e.g., kernel configs) are attached rather than pasted in, > people who aren't interested don't have to read the files. Furthermore, > if there are changes that can be made to files, readers can easily save > the attachment, edit it, and send it back to the original poster. See the above note about MIME headers above - those are used for attachements, so they don't work properly if you read the digest. I'd say it's far better to not send all of such files unless they someone asks for them. Instead, take the effort to figure out what the relevant parts of the kernel config or dmesg or etc are, and send that instead. Not only does that mean you don't need a MIME attachment, it saves the people you're asking for help the work of finding those portions, which makes it more likely you'll get help. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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