[Moderator] Mailing list message format etiquette

[Ken Case]

When possible, please try to send plain text messages to the mailing  
lists.  That is, please avoid sending messages with rich text  
formatting, i.e. messages in MIME (or HTML) or NeXT Mail format.   
Beyond the immediate annoyance to those on the list who are still  
using mailers which only understand plain text, those rich messages  
confuse our list processor (which can make digests unreadable as it  
confuses the mime separators) and our list archiver (making it  
difficult to read the web archives of the list).

[Speaking of web archives, as long as I'm posting to all the lists I  
thought I'd mention that you can now search Omni's mailing list  
archives by visiting  
http://www.omnigroup.com/MailArchive/search.html--though  
unfortunately it's quite a bit slower to search than it will be once  
we switch to indexing them using AIAT.  But back to the topic at  
hand...]

The only time it really makes sense to send a MIME message is when  
sending an attachment.  This will still have a negative impact on the  
archives and digests (as described above), but in some cases  
(particularly on lists like the WebObjects list where people send a  
lot of code back and forth) that's probably a price worth paying.

When you do send an attachment:

	Send it in MIME format (i.e., not a proprietary format such  
as NeXT Mail).

	Please be careful about the size of the attachment.   
Remember that everyone will be storing copies of it on their hard  
drives, (and some of the people reading the list will be downloading  
your message over slow pay-by-the-minute connections,) and attached  
files are frequently much larger than the average plain text message.

	Please make sure that you're attaching no more than one or  
two files.  In particular, don't mail a folder using MailViewer or  
NeXT Mail:  there is no MIME standard for folders, so while this  
might appear to be a single attachment to you, it shows up in most  
other mail applications as a separate attachments for every file  
contained in the folder (including any child folders).  If you're  
going to send multiple files, please compress them into a single file  
(e.g., a .jar or .tar.gz or .sit file) first.

	Consider the alternatives, such as posting a URL, or  
describing what you would have attached and asking interested parties  
to contact you directly if they'd like a copy.  Unfortunately,  
neither of these alternatives are quite as convenient for the author  
as posting an attachment--but do keep in mind that they'll be more  
convenient for many readers.

In an ideal world, none of this would be necessary:  subscribers  
would simply tell our list processor the formats they prefer to  
receive messages in and whether they'd like attachments (possibly  
with a size limit), and the list processor would automatically  
convert messages to each subscriber's preferred format before  
distributing them.  Unfortunately, we're don't have that yet (though  
if/when I get a chance to rewrite our list processor, that's what  
I'll make it do).

				Your host,
				Ken