reading mail sent by Outhouse
Allin Cottrell
paragraphs appear as one very long line. It's easy enough
to make such mails legible in pine using ^J. I presume
that mails of this sort violate some Internet standard or
other. Can anyone tell me which one?
I'm asking because I'm in charge of archiving a mailing list
(using hypermail) and one of the users complained to me
recently about how his posts (from msn.com) were coming
out illegible in the archive (the long line issue) while
"he had no trouble" viewing them with this or that
proprietary rubbish mail client. I'd like to be able to
cite a specific reference on why he shouldn't expect to
see any line breaks in his mails unless he puts them
there.
Allin Cottrell.
Mark Crispin
> I expect most of us have seen mail from MS users where
> paragraphs appear as one very long line. It's easy enough
> to make such mails legible in pine using ^J. I presume
> that mails of this sort violate some Internet standard or
> other. Can anyone tell me which one?
RFC 821 (SMTP) stipulates (page 43) that the maximum total length of a
text line including the CR/LF is 1000 characters. The issue at hand is
whether or not mail should have line breaks before that point.
Because of the limitations of 80 column terminals, and the tendency today
to use terminal emulator window sizes of 24x80, 60x80, etc. but with "80"
as the most common width, it is considered to be common courtesy to format
your messages so that they display reasonably with such margins.
The practice of sending very long lines assumes:
1) the recipient's mailer will break those lines automatically
2) the breaks will happen at word boundaries
Neither assumption is particularly wise. In particular, many mail reading
programs do NOT automatically break lines, so as to maintain the sender's
representation of text in tabular format which may exceed the margins.
One of the common questions by those who use inferior losing programs that
generate long lines and do automatic breaking is "how do I get it to stop
messing up the tables?" The answer is: "use a good mail program, such as
Pine."
> I'm asking because I'm in charge of archiving a mailing list
> (using hypermail) and one of the users complained to me
> recently about how his posts (from msn.com) were coming
> out illegible in the archive (the long line issue) while
> "he had no trouble" viewing them with this or that
> proprietary rubbish mail client.
Tell him that it is extremely discourteous to impose the behavior of his
mail program upon others; that line breaks within 80 columns have been
considered common courtesy for decades; and that he should comply with
such rules of courtesy instead of expecting others to comply with him.
Should he persist in being obstreperous, regretfully inform him that the
mailing list will refuse all subsequent posts from him until such time as
he learns his manners.
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Jeffrey Goldberg
> I expect most of us have seen mail from MS users where
> paragraphs appear as one very long line. It's easy enough
> to make such mails legible in pine using ^J. I presume
> that mails of this sort violate some Internet standard or
> other. Can anyone tell me which one?
They don't violate any convention (unless the lines are extremely long),
but they violate convention (of under 80 characters) and the spirit of
Internet Email.
Back in the old days, when the Internet comprised smart people sitting in
front of dumb terminals, as opposed to now when it is ... the terminals
were typically 80 characters in width. So mailers hard wrapped at around
75.
When someone designs a mailer with a window width larger than 80 chars or
does no hard wrapping (as in the case you described) they are basically
playing a game which says.
(1) Everyone using my product (or similar) will so nothing wrong with
the mail.
(2) Everyone using a traditional product (or similar) will find it
from mildly to very annoying to exchange mail with users of my
product.
This is probably a marketing strategy. Violate the (spirit) of the
standards to maximize trouble for those who don't use my product, but not
so much that adminstrators will actually ban my product.
> I'm asking because I'm in charge of archiving a mailing list
> (using hypermail) and one of the users complained to me
> recently about how his posts (from msn.com) were coming
> out illegible in the archive (the long line issue) while
> "he had no trouble" viewing them with this or that
> proprietary rubbish mail client. I'd like to be able to
> cite a specific reference on why he shouldn't expect to
> see any line breaks in his mails unless he puts them
> there.
Tell the user that if he continues to use an Internet-unfriendly mailer or
use his mailer in an Internet-unfriendly fashion that they shouldn't be
surprised to find themselves excluded from various things.
But, and this has gotten off topic, does anyone know how to instruct
Outhouse users to get Outhouse to hard wrap on composistion below 80
chars? I do know Outhouse users who want to do the right thing, but I
don't know how to tell them how to configure it.
-j
--
Jeffrey Goldberg
I have recently moved, see http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/contact.html
Relativism is the triumph of authority over truth, convention over justice
From line IS valid, but use reply-to.
Mark Crispin
> When someone designs a mailer with a window width larger than 80 chars or
> does no hard wrapping (as in the case you described) they are basically
> playing a game which says.
>
> (1) Everyone using my product (or similar) will so nothing wrong with
> the mail.
>
> (2) Everyone using a traditional product (or similar) will find it
> from mildly to very annoying to exchange mail with users of my
> product.
>
> This is probably a marketing strategy. Violate the (spirit) of the
> standards to maximize trouble for those who don't use my product, but not
> so much that adminstrators will actually ban my product.
This type of bad behavior has gone on for many years. The Evil Empire is
just the latest in an old dishonorable tradition. It was first observed
in the 1970s. HTML mail has similar precedents.
Microsoft's statue in the Hall of Shame is right next to the earlier ones
erected for Xerox and NeXT. Of course, Microsoft deserves a larger one
for its much greater contribution to email unusability.
The biggest crime of all has got to be the new spammer trick of getting
around filters by hiding the spam text inside BASE64 encoding.