Eric:
 
You said, first quoting me:
 
> >FULLHDR settings increase the volume of each message
>
> We're talking about  a total of maybe  another 100k of data  in an active
> user's mailbox.  If you  have 10,000  users, it  will add  up to  a whole
> gigabyte :-)
 
I am not sure if I understand you here. It sounds like you are agreeing
that setting subscriptions to FULLHDR just to be able to get the MIME
header lines is a solution that creates a disk space problem for most
system administrators (in addition to the too many hop issue I already
addressed):
 
> >and, in some  cases, result in the message having  a header that exceeds
> >the  maximum   hop  count  for   the  reciving  mail   systems,  causing
> >non-delivery.
>
> That's a problem  with the receiving mail system, not  with LISTSERV. The
> 17 hop limit dates back to the early 80s. The users who are impacted will
> complain to  their local system  administrators, who are the  people with
> the ability to change this setting.
 
Well... forcing everyone on the planet to change their system
configuration to allow more than 17 hops in a header seems like a rather
excessive position when all you need is three extra lines that would not
add to the hop count at all but *would* allow people to actually READ the
messages delivered by LISTSERV instead of having them be garbage. For
lists that support international dialog, I think that the default
subscription method would be set to MIMEHDR, which would be the SHORTHDR,
plus the three MIME lines.  I cannot believe it's that hard to program it
nor can I see the validity of your philosophical objections:
 
> Let's face it, there  will always be people who use  10 year old hardware
> or software, but you can't hold progress because of them.
 
Lets face it too that, as good as LISTSERV is, if you ignore the
real-world requirements in favor of adhering to an abstract philosophy,
other programs will come along which *will* be happy to address these
important issues.  At the very least, it makes using LISTSERV more
difficult for a definable segment of Internet users.
 
 
Cheers
 
Mark Hunnibell                  Email: [log in to unmask]
KIDLINK Gopher/WWW Coordinator  http://www.connix.com/~markh/index.html