mangled messages

[Victor]

Interesting. I tend to avoid web-based mail clients if I can help it. So
I use Thunderbird both on PC and Mac. I just checked all the messages in
the thread and found nothing unusual in them, except some
quoted-printable (end-of-line=20) problems. This is actually one of the
reasons why I avoid webmail.

On a different note, however, much of the email I receive from ADS-L
shows up oddly formatted. Rather, the *complete* lack of formatting is
apparently interpreted somewhere along the way as a particular kind of
formatting (i.e., fixed-width and other assorted niceties). So when I
reply, I must make sure that all formats are stripped *before* I send
the message *and* still send it as text-only. If one of the two is not
followed, html codes (and, especially, duplicated links) show up in the
received message. It happened a couple of times, which is why there was
a bunch of <p>s and other codes in the messages.

But this seems odd. In most list handlers, it's a matter of a couple of
flags on the server to allow HTML to go through. Unless, of course, it
is *undesirable* to have HTML formatting in the messages. So is it a
particular list-management software problem or is it just unwillingness
to adjust the settings? (Yes, I understand that allowing full formatting
may let in some undesirable things as well, so, not surprisingly, there
are lists in the universe that consciously make that decision. Which is
precisely why I am asking.)

    VS-)

Chris Waigl wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:19:23 +0800, Randy Alexander
> <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
>> There's also the problem with "=20" etc being scattered throughout
>> Ron's messages.  It's quite hard on the eyes, but of course it's not
>> as bad as "....BhYm91dCB0aGUg....".  I think anyone who sends a
>> message that's not plain text comes out completely garbled.  Am I
>> right about that?
>>
>> Randy
>>
>>
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 12:59 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> wrote:
>
>>> i had the same problem you did (and just on this one posting of
>>> Ron's).  presumably he inadvertently sent it in a format other than
>>> plain text.
>>>
>>> arnold
>>>
>
> The format with "=20" at the end of lines is called "quoted-printable" and
> the one like ....BhYm91dCB0aGUg...." is called "base64". These days, pretty
> much every email program can correctly read AND WRITE these types of
> messages. A correctly sent message in these formats will, in addition to
> the actual content, contain a header that announces the message's format
> and character set.
>
> The problem here is not, really, that when appropriate, modern email
> programs send this format. The problem is that in the current
> configuration, the software used for managing the ADS-L mailing list is
> just ignoring this all-important header information. As it also inserts
> additional text into the message body, our email programs are not capable
> of decoding the content (which they WOULD be if the header was preserved
> and the additional content was not added).
>
> Ultimately, the solution of this problem would come from changing the
> configuration of the ADS-L mailing list software.
>
> Best,
>
> Chris Waigl
>

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