[AT] Re: the new server

Spencer Yost Spencer.Yost at piedmontsystems.com
Fri Feb 13 08:18:57 PST 2004


Per user discussion, I configured the software at the new list to disallow attachments.   Since all your messages have attachments, even if you tell it to send plain/text, your message was rejected.   However, as you are aware, I reconfigured it this morning to allow attachments but I cut message size down to 10K

WARNING dry technical information ahead......

I want to explain this and think it would helpful to everyone to understand how these messages are formatted and why the HTML vs plain text and the Attachment vs. Non-attachment arguments are typically pointless because most email packages don't even agree what these terms mean.

Mailers send messages in a format that breaks the message up in "parts".   That is how and why you can have attachments.   If you didn't have this, you could not have attachments.  This special format is called MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions).

Here is the crux of the problem though.   TRUE plain text messages don't use MIME.   It is just some headers, then some text.  Some email packages like Farmer's (Outlook) send this type of true plain text.  His reply to Cecils message is below.   My mailer (Calypso) also sends true plain text messages.  Some mailers, like the Netscape you use Cecil, don't.   What they do is send a MIME formatted message with the plain text message _as_an_attachment_.  So the new mailing list software sees your attachment and rejects the message because of it - even though the attachment is plain text.

So basically Cecil, you have no control and there is nothing you can do.   It isn't your fault.   


Anyway, I hope this helps,

Spencer

=======================================
Cecil's Message:   Notice the MIME "parts" and their boundaries.   The attachment is text/plain but
it still has attachments, or "parts"
=======================================

...snip... extra header stuff...
From: Cecil E Monson <cmonson at hvc.rr.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax; CDonDemand-Dom)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "antique-tractor at atis.net" <antique-tractor at atis.net>
Subject: the new server
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------010109080608070103090000"
Sender: owner-antique-tractor at newidea.atis.net

...snip more extra header stuff

--------------010109080608070103090000
Content-type: text/plain

    I tried the new List again this morning but it rejects my posts 
entirely.  So it
does not strip html and post in plain text, it just rejects them.

Cecil

-- 
...snip rest of message


--------------010109080608070103090000

=======================================
End Cecil's message
=======================================

=======================================
Farmer's Message:   Notice there are no "MIME" parts.  It is a true text message and the entire message is typed "text/plain"
=======================================

..snip extra header stuff....
From: "Robinson" <robinson at svs.net>
To: <antique-tractor at atis.net>
Subject: RE: the new server
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 09:11:12 -0600
Message-ID: <LJEMIANELJLPDGNFJKCJKEJBCIAA.robinson at svs.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

...snip extra header stuff

-----Original Message-----


    I tried the new List again this morning but it
rejects my posts entirely.  So it
does not strip html and post in plain text, it just
rejects them.

Cecil



	Knowing where you live I suspect that your messages
are infected with snow and ice...   :-)




"farmer"

My most recent list
mailto:budget_muzzleloading-subscribe at yahoogroups.com

Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
robinson at svs.net

=======================================
End Farmer's Message
=======================================





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