I am the owner of a list that recently moved from Majordomo software to ListServ.

Things are going well, but I am encountering one problem, having to do with variations in the Content-type of the messages sent by different subscribers.  Perhaps someone can help me solve this.

The problem began with a user who was using "mulitpart/alternative".  This generated hundreds of extraneous characters, more than doubling the size of the message, and filling it with junk which rendered the message nearly unreadable.  I tried urging this user to set his options to "plain text."  His response was (basically), "hunh?"

So, I thought, I should be able to fix this from the ListServ end.  Doing some quick research into the manual, I settled on:
Attachments = No, filter
Language = NoHTML

I thought this would filter out the multipart MIME stuff, guard against attachments, and allow the plain text to shine on through.

It seemed to work OK for a couple of days.  My multipart user is posting away and ListServ is stripping him down to plain text.  My "enriched text" posters were getting messages through as well, also stripped to plain text.  This had the added advantage of fixing a problem I was having with ListServ refusing to attach the Bottom Banner to anything but plain text postings (since now they're all converted to plain text, no problem).

Then yesterday (about 4 days into the experiment), I got questions from 2 different "enriched text" users about messages that were rejected because:

"the list
is configured  to remove unwanted material  and process the remaining  text, in
this case there  would be nothing left after removing  the disallowed material.
You may want to resend your message in plain text, which is always allowed."

The odd thing is:  I changed the header settings last Thursday (5/1/03).  He posted successfully on Sunday, 5/4/03.  His next posting was rejected on Monday, 5/5/03.  He says both postings were from the same computer, using the same e-mail application and settings.

Since then, he selected the "send plain text" option and successfully posted.

However, I'd rather figure out how to tweak ListServ to do this automatically, so that I'm not constantly trying to remind/educate subscribers to use plain text (I know it's not that hard, but just try to teach unsophisticated users to do anything trickier than use the power button to turn their computer on...).

Any suggestions?

I've attached his full attempted posting (with his name removed) with the rejection error message from ListServ below.

Thanks.

Bill
Bill Schults
Co-list-owner, [log in to unmask]


--- Forwarded message from SUBSCRIBER ---

>Date: 06 May 2003 08:36:03 EDT
>From:SUBSCRIBER
>Subject: Re: [UVB] Black-crowned Night-Heron
>To: [log in to unmask] (William Schults)

Hi Bill,
Yes, it worked. I sent from my home computer both yesterday and sunday, so that's the same settings, I didn't change anything.

SUBSCRIBER

Here is the complete error message:

Your posting to the UV-BIRDERS list  has been rejected because it only contains
material in a format disallowed by the list configuration. Even though the list
is configured  to remove unwanted material  and process the remaining  text, in
this case there  would be nothing left after removing  the disallowed material.
You may want to resend your message in plain text, which is always allowed.
Return-Path: <SUBSCRIBER>
Received: from mailhub1.dartmouth.edu by listserv.dartmouth.edu (LSMTP for Windows NT v1.1b) with SMTP id <[log in to unmask]>; Mon, 5 May 2003 20:15:47 -0400
Received: from newvixen.Dartmouth.EDU (newvixen [129.170.208.33])
        by mailhub1.dartmouth.edu (8.12.8+DND/8.12.8) with ESMTP id h4600iO5376082
        for <[log in to unmask]>; Mon, 5 May 2003 20:15:07 -0400 (EDT)
Message-id: <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 05 May 2003 20:15:05 EDT
From:SUBSCRIBER
Subject: BC Nightheron at Mink Brook
To: [log in to unmask]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/enriched
Content-Disposition: inline
X-MailScanner: No virus detected by mailhub1.Dartmouth.EDU

Hi All,


15 min ago there was a Black-crowned Night-Heron at Mink Brook in Hanover. The
bird can (could?) easily be seen from Rt. 10 as it was stading out in the open
on the exposed mud-flats, I hope it sticks around for a few days.


Good birding,


SUBSCRIBER