SPUG: dealing with HTML on list (was: Independent project)

Bill Campbell bill at celestial.com
Mon Aug 11 17:10:14 PDT 2008


On Mon, Aug 11, 2008, Andrew Sweger wrote:
>There is an option in this list server to have it convert text/html to
>plain text. There are also options to remove various attachments (many
>options).
>
>Is there general interest from the members to employ these features? Any
>questions? Debate?

While I much prefer plain-text, I don't enforce that on any of
the mailing lists we host as it can cause problems with some
folk's mailers.  A genealogy list I'm on on rootsweb strips all
html, and there's at least one person on the list running a
version of AOL's software so old it can only send html-only.

We use Spamassassin with Mailman, and messages with html content
consistently get high scores with html-only messages almost
certain to be forwarded to the moderator(s) for approval.  People
posting html to the list should be advised that their messages
may be held for approval, and that can take a while depending on
how busy the moderator is.  FWIW, while Mailman has an option to
send a message to the sender when messages are held for
moderation (off by default), I would not enable this feature as
it can either give spammers useful information or result in
blowback to forged From: or Sender: addresses.

Bill
-- 
INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
Voice:          (206) 236-1676  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820
Fax:            (206) 232-9186

A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the
totalitarian state. -- Isabel Paterson, God of the Machine


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