wAt 11:35 AM -0400 05/28/01, Jim Walker wrote (SNIP):
> My post was to try to get LSOFT to feel our pain and change
> language=NOHTML to respect list owners intent.

On Tue, 29 May 2001, Jane-Kerin Moffat wrote:
> Surely any list-owner (LITE or classic) can  establish a rule barring
> html and can enforce it by removing violators.  And  list-owners
> (classic) can easily reconfigure their own list headers to include
> language= NOHTML.

The key benefit to improving Language=NOHTML is that LISTSERV will do all
of the work (and do it correctly and consistently).  If I understand you
two correctly, Jim is asking LSoft to improve the behavior of the Language
keyword in LISTSERV for automatic handling of HTML in e-mail, and you,
Jane-Kerin, are asking human list owners to take responsibility and manual
action.

I side with Jim because I would like to see an automated, consistent, and
correct solution to this problem.  Anything that makes the effort of list
ownership easier is welcomed and encouraged.  Well behaved and
self-policing lists would be ideal, but like most ideals, they are rarely
ever achieved.

I agree with Jane-Kerin in that it is easy to establish a rule barring
HTML.  However, it is not easy to enforce it; for human list owners to
implement this ban manually requires a (for some) non-trivial amount of
effort (e.g. read every single message and dispense disciplinary action).
The important thing to note, Jane-Kerin, is that effort is required to
enforce this rule, and when a human (or many humans) is involved,
enforcement can seem arbitrary and unfair to subscribers who are caught,
while other subscribers get away unscathed.  When an automated system is
in place to fairly and uniformly enforce such a ban, then there are no
loopholes, and no list owners to blame for inconsistent policy
enforcement.  Do you see what I'm getting at?

Again, I think that the key demand here is to make this ban on HTML
automated and uniform at the LISTSERV level, not manual and inconsistent
at the list owner or editor level.

--
Michael S. Johnson   Miyazaki Web and Mailing List Owner
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