[WEB4LIB] Re: Attachments are now stripped

[Roy Tennant]

Many email applications find and properly link web addresses without 
HTML markup. For example, the very message in which I announced this 
change has a URL in it, and the message was not stripped. I'm sorry, 
but I do not think that limiting postings to plain text is too high 
of a barrier for participation in this discussion, and in fact will 
make the discussion more usable for those who are without the kind of 
robust, full-featured email clients that many of us are blessed with.

As for Bob Rasmussen's display problem, I'm looking into it. This is 
hampered by not being able to reproduce it. I would like to remind 
everyone that the 3,200 readers of this list represent dozens of 
different software environments, all with their particular 
idiosyncracies. We are also somewhat limited in our ability to 
provide the best experience for everyone. In the end, the best 
possible situation for us all is to post in plain text as we have 
established as list policy and are now doing our best to enforce.

If you must provide access to something that is not plain text (web 
page, PDF, etc.), provide the (unmarked-up) URL for it in your 
message. Thank you for your cooperation, patience, and understanding.
Roy Tennant
Web4Lib Owner

At 2:06 PM -0800 1/23/01, Andrew K. Pace wrote:
>It also strips HTML.  In my recent post, I created a link to "recent 
>thread" that
>pulled up the web4lib archive search.  I did this as a convenience 
>to email apps
>that could read the link, knowing that it would not harm those that could not.
>There was also no indication (other than the fact that I got replies) that the
>text of my message had indeed been sent.  This seems like a little more than
>stripping attachments.
>-Andrew
>
>Roy Tennant wrote:
>
>>  In the wake of the Melissa virus recirculating, SunSITE system
>>  administrators implemented a script that automatically strips
>>  attachments from Web4Lib postings. The Web4Lib Posting Policy (see
>>  http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Web4Lib/#Policy ) has long discouraged
>>  attachments; now they are simply forbidden.
>>
>>  The way this works is that a software filter examines each message
>>  for lines that start 'Content-type:'. If one of those lines does not
>>  also include 'text/plain', 'message', or 'multipart/digest', it
>>  erases that line and from that line to the end of the message.
>>
>>  When the filter erases an attachment, it inserts the following in 
>>the message:
>>
>>  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>>  *         ---REMAINDER OF MESSAGE TRUNCATED---            *
>>  *     This post contains a forbidden message format       *
>>  *  (such as an attached file, a v-card, HTML formatting)  *
>>  *    This mail list only accepts PLAIN TEXT               *
>>  * If your postings display this message your mail program *
>>  *   may not be set to send PLAIN TEXT ONLY and may need   *
>>  *                      adjusting                          *
>>  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>>
>>  To show you what this looks like, I am sending an attachment along
>>  with this message. Please let me know if you have any questions.
>>  Roy Tennant
>>  Web4Lib Owner
>>
>>    ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>>  *         ---REMAINDER OF MESSAGE TRUNCATED---            *
>>  *     This post contains a forbidden message format       *
>>  *  (such as an attached file, a v-card, HTML formatting)  *
>>  *    This mail list only accepts PLAIN TEXT               *
>>  * If your postings display this message your mail program *
>>  *   may not be set to send PLAIN TEXT ONLY and may need   *
>>  *                      adjusting                          *
>>  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>--
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Andrew K. Pace
>Assistant Head, Systems ~ NCSU Libraries
>North Carolina State University ~ Raleigh, NC
>andrew_pace at ncsu.edu ~ 919-515-3087
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~