On Wed, 13 Oct 1999 17:03:13 -0700, <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> What effect, if any, does Listserv have on attachments?

It's an undesirable effect.

> I have a group of users who are experiencing the following problem:  When
> they send mail with attachments to eachother, the attachment is "attached"
> normally, but when they send attachments through Listserv, the message
> shows up with the following at the top:
>
>   This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable text
>   while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
>   Send mail to [log in to unmask] for more info.
>
> The attachment is then included encoded in the message and has to
> be decoded (say with WinZip).  That solution works for me, but is
> apparently unworkable for my users.
>
> I realize that this problem probably has something to do with the mail
> program they are using,

The "problem" is that when you send MIME-encoded E-mail,
with whatever MUA that you use, MIME inserts some lines
in the "header" of the message, to indicate that the "body"
of the message contains various "dividers" between attachments,
whether you send E-mail to a colleague or to the ID of a mailing-list.

LISTSERV strips those lines from the headers of your message,
and then distributes this "modified" version of your message
to the subscribers.

The MUA that a subscriber uses cannot see the now-removed "headers", and
thus processes the message as "text".  The first few lines of the text are,
as you indicate, a "warning" that MIME encoding is present;
those lines are always there (in different wording & languages),
but generally are "hidden" from view.

> However, obviously Listserv is doing something, and I'd like to know
> what the difference is.  Does it have something to do with the format
> that the attachments are sent in?  What exactly is happening here?  Any
> insights would be much appreciated.