Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2020 12:20:47 +0200 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: "Norman Gray" <norman.gray@glasgow.ac.uk> Cc: Kurt Hackenberg <kh@panix.com>, <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Flowed text Message-ID: <20200615122047.a559d124.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <BF15CC86-FADF-40DB-ACD9-36B27E5140C8@glasgow.ac.uk> References: <00225a04-237d-9051-9aea-12c192106a20@anatoli.ws> <373EDB20-C750-42E2-A41B-EA61F6E49807@kicp.uchicago.edu> <20200609120136.00005b3c@seibercom.net> <2393a1e0-b073-950a-78be-9f57d8e9934b@anatoli.ws> <e1f6623a-3b3c-a43e-446a-d41f20f69418@kicp.uchicago.edu> <20200610063555.00003707@seibercom.net> <82F57D0D-E0EC-49F7-824E-20A296C9F549@kicp.uchicago.edu> <250b853a-b436-0e99-b05c-9abd6b6019ef@panix.com> <alpine.BSF.2.20.2006101345220.97143@fledge.watson.org> <7018FA7A-32A6-4567-AA5D-1A90FF5FFF6C@kreme.com> <20200613154409.GA89618@neutralgood.org> <082AF774-7886-4E56-8482-768A7FE6E5EF@kreme.com> <CAGBxaXm4NLfCcA0jGzEvM4hCGoF_7L0y_Yd_X9kEEGHGL%2Bs1oA@mail.gmail.com> <20200614100602.7f5c8092@archlinux> <e80e54d0-ec7b-2ebf-9778-6420431cd65b@panix.com> <BF15CC86-FADF-40DB-ACD9-36B27E5140C8@glasgow.ac.uk>
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On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 10:46:20 +0100, Norman Gray wrote: > The email client I use does set format=3Dflowed on outgoing text/plain=20 > emails, but when I cc myself, that comes back to me via an Exchange=20 > server, which (at some point in the message's labyrinthine passage=20 > through the server) strips or replaces the content-type header, losing=20 > the format=3Dflowed. This seems straightforwardly an error, but when I=20 > reported it to local mail admins, they were sympathetic, but also=20 > realistic about how far down their priority list fixing it, or reporting= =20 > it upstream, would be. A few years ago, I visited a company office where they used a combination of "Outlook" and "Exchange" and even had their own "mail admins" to support this construct. Strangely, every message sent through this construct became mangled in a very unpleasant way: the time was changed, the timezone was changed, and all message content was collapsed into one line (spaces and tabs became a space, newlines became a space). So messages always looked like this: Yes. Original Message From: Bob <bob@example.con> To: Joe <joe@example.com>= CC: Management <management-list@example.com> Subject Re: AW: Re: AW: Re: A= W: AW: Re: Re: Re: Meeting on Tuesday Date Mon, 15 Jun 2018 00:20:10 +0000 = Should wwe arrange the meeting at 14:00 or at 15:00? What do you think? Ton= y suggested we talk also talk about -Foo -Bar -Baz Please verify with Karen= ! Original Message From: Joe <joe@example.con> To: Bob <bob@example.com> CC= : Management <management-list@example.com> Subject AW: Re: AW: Re: AW: AW: = Re: Re: Re: Meeting on Tuesday Date Mon, 15 Jun 2018 00:14:31 +0000 Samanth= a from accounting dept. wants to know if she is supposed to attend the meet= ing Mit freundlichen Gr=FC=DFe / Kind regards, Joe Q. Sixpack M.B.A. -- ABC= DE Stupid Title Office Director 2nd Class The Example Company GmbH & Co. KG= Businessing since 1995 Excellence office Certified ISO-9660 Boring corpora= te signature Instead of fixing the problem - obviously something was wrong with the configuration of their "mailing system", they invented a workaround that wasn't exactly good, but worked so well that everyone in the office had adapted it: They printed (!) the messages, took colored markers to highlight the relevant names and content, and then wrote their reply, leading to a new "message line" prefixed with their answer (where the reply looked normal in their composer window, but was added infront of the "message line" for all recipients). After a few weeks, nobody found that their solution, while working, was _not_ what you were supposed to do in such a case, i. e., talk to the "mail admins" and make them do their job. On every desk, there were binders and stacks of printed and colored emails... I bet they still praise their "paperless office" today. :-) To summarize: Sometimes, the right thing to do is to complain, and demand the responsible parties to do their fscking job, than to ignore it and learn to live with broken workarounds. --=20 Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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