ANST - Wading through reams of HTML

Sun Jan 23 14:07:57 PST 2000

gunnora at realtime.net (gunnora at realtime.net) said something that sounded like:
> Is there any way to filter the lists such that they would automatically delete
> any portion of a post that began with <HTML> and ended with </HTML> ?? 

I've been thinking on this and ...

There currently does not exist a method for doing this. It is not as
simple as it appears at first glance. Due to the MIME attachment, there
are many people who would get nothing but blank email messages as they
will prefer the text/html portion of the message.

My suggestion to the list is that until such time as a way to auto-strip
this second (text/html) MIME message is found that I add them to the
filters that exist for binary attachments, etc. This will also have to
be smart enough to determine that the mail message is now empty for
those people who only post in HTML, which I don't believe I have seen
any on these lists.

When the poster receives the returned email, it will include instructions
on how to turn this feature off in the most likely/popular mail clients.
I will even attempt for it to be specific about *their* mail client if I
can determine that programatically correctly.

As for 'wolf's concern of "censorship", it is not the members of the list
that receive it daily that I am concerned with, it is the people who get
it as a digest that have the true problem. They, as well as those who
read the archives via ftp, have to wade through this stuff no matter
what their email client does or doesn't do with text/html mail messages.

Is this a reasonable solution to everyone? Please let me know of your
vote/opinion privately and on February 1st I will let the decision be
known. This is a little more than a week and should be plenty of time
for all to let their opinion be known.

In Service,

-- 
Phelim "Pug" Gervase   | "I want to be called. COTTONTIPS. There is something 
Bryn Gwlad - Ansteorra |  graceful about that lady. A young woman bursting with 
Dark Horde Moritu      |  vigor. She blinked at the sudden light. She writes
pug at pug.net            |  beautiful poems. When ever shall we meet again?"
  Note: The views do not reflect the SCA nor the Kingdom of Ansteorra.
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