On Tue, 14 Jun 1994 12:58:41 -0500 David E Boyes <[log in to unmask]>
said:
>The point I want to focus on, though, is that by *not* passing these
>headers, the rest of the message body is rendered useless.
To people with a MIME-compliant mail program. They will be useless to
people without MIME anyway.
The hard reality is that MIME is just a slightly less drastic variant of
BinHex, when it comes to mailing lists. Some people have it, the others
don't. People who have it don't understand what the problem is: it works
fine for them, what "rubbish" is everyone talking about? They didn't do
anything special either. They just sent mail the normal way, their office
mate got it fine, everything is ok. These (non-Mac) people must be nuts.
Tell you what, THEY probably pressed the wrong button, got all sorts of
user-unfriendly garbage from their inferior, non Mac systems, and can't
figure it out. And then they have the nerve to claim it's our fault!
Gee... ;-)
Again, the hard reality is that you have three types of lists. Lists
where nobody uses BinHex, lists where everyone can read BinHex, and Big
Ugly Messes. The first two don't create any problem, the mixed ones are
simply unmanageable. I know because I've tried it. The minority of Mac
users that do accept that a problem exists in the first place usually
don't want to lift a finger to make life easier for the others. Everyone
should buy a Mac! The only way out would be to insert a filter that would
screw up their BinHex headers, so that they too would get garbage. But,
of course, it is not a good solution.
And if you look at the facts, it's really just the same with MIME. MIME
(technical) people think everyone should use MIME. That's a noble and
worthy goal, but in reality telling a PROFS user to switch to a
MIME-capable program is about as effective and pragmatic as telling a
unix system manager to get a Mac. Operationally, the situation is just
the same. If everyone (or almost everyone) on the list has MIME, great,
use full headers by default! If only half of the members among the most
technically aware have MIME, you're in trouble. What you'll have really
is two sub-lists, one with MIME people and one with people who can only
read plain text. And that is a *much* bigger operational problem for the
list owner than setting the default headers to full.
>I understand the reasoning behind why LISTSERV removes unnecessary
>headers. My argument is that the MIME headers are becoming necessary,
>and should be passed through as part of the default set.
And that is a perfectly reasonable request. You have the ability to
choose among five types of headers for the default set. Select the one
you deem most appropriate for your list, and let people who can't handle
MIME enjoy leaner headers. What really annoys me is when people say
"since MIME headers are so important to MIME people, it should not be
possible to filter them out under any circumstance, even if this
inconveniences the majority of non-MIME users". If I'd made this
statement about BinHex, everyone (except the Mac users ;-) ) would agree
this doesn't make sense. But say MIME instead, and suddenly I'm all
wrong. MIME is some sort of Holy Cow on the Internet. Like it or not,
MIME is a major change and it will take a couple years to become
generally usable. It really doesn't help to push it faster than it will
go. It will just serve to give end-users a bad impression of MIME, and
make them migrate more slowly. Tell you what, something that would be
genuinely useful would be for short headers to automatically decode
base64 or QP MIME messages and translate them to plain text, so that
non-MIME people get a chance to take part in the conversation. This would
allow a much smoother phase-in of MIME. Ordinary users wouldn't feel
excluded from the club, they'd just see MIME as a more powerful tool they
may want to use someday. Subject them to base64 junk on a regular basis
and they'll just sign off.
Eric
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