[alpine] multipart quoting of big5 [Was: making posts unreadable...]

In news.software.readers on Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:24:09 -0500, Jeffrey
Goldberg <nobody@goldmark.org> wrote:

> This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
> while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
>
> --0-1219551813-1190669052=:468
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE

You're doing it again, and this time it's ordinary UTF-8 that's being
sent as multipart/mixed for no reason. Why can't pine just specify the
charset in the headers for the whole post, like other newsreaders?

I'm now satisfied that the bug is in pine, not in slrn.

--
PJR :-)

In news.software.readers on Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:02:26 -0700, Eduardo
Chappa <chappa@u.washington.edu> wrote:

> On Mon, 24 Sep 2007, Peter J Ross wrote:
>
> I have no problem reading other MIME-encoded posts with slrn.
>
> Well, you have found a case where you have a problem reading a
> MIME-encoded message with slrn. The question is whose fault is it? lack of
> support in slrn? over zealous behavior of Pine? Take your pick.

Pine seems to be the only newsreader that sends non-ASCII posts as
multipart MIME messages.

To me, it's a bug. To you, it's a feature. *shrug*

<...>

> Your test should fail with my message. I have enabled that feature in
> Pine, so my messages get downgraded automatically.

Compliance with standard Usenet conventions isn't "downgrading".


--
PJR :-)

On Mon, 24 Sep 2007, Peter J Ross wrote:

> This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable
> text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without
> MIME-aware tools.
>
> --0-1219551813-1190669052=:468
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE

You're doing it again, and this time it's ordinary UTF-8 that's being
sent as multipart/mixed for no reason. Why can't pine just specify the
charset in the headers for the whole post, like other newsreaders?

Let me put it this way, maybe you will get it now.

Imagine I send you letters to your home. Normally I would just put them
in an envelope and you can just open it and read it at home as is normally
done. You do not have problems with that mail.

Assume that for whatever reason, I decided to send you a letter in a box
that requires a special kind of scissors for it to be opened. Scissors can
be found in any store.

Now if you do not have scissors at home, is it my fault that you can not
open the box where I put the letter? Of course you can be mad at me for
sending the letter in a box, but it is not my fault that you can not read
it; after all anyone with scissors can open the box.

You have to make a choice:

* Get the scissors and open the box
* Do not get scissors.

Of course in the future you can request, and even ignore all people that
send you letters in boxes, but that won't stop the world from using boxes,
so it's up to you.

The encoding of the message was done in a standard compliant way. Known
and practicesd for years already. If slrn does not support it, you may
want to request to anyone developing it that they add support to it,
because it seems to be that people exchange messages in that form, even if
you see no reason for it. If the feature gets added, great.

--
Eduardo
http://staff.washington.edu/chappa/pine/

In news.software.readers on Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:48:49 -0700, Eduardo
Chappa <chappa@u.washington.edu> wrote:

> Let me put it this way, maybe you will get it now.

Let me put it this way:

"Content-Type: multipart/mixed" has no place in Usenet outside
alt.binaries, with the sole exception of PGP/MIME signatures, and even
they're generally disliked and are likely to result in the poster
being widely killfiled.

Please encourage the pine developers to fix the bug in their software
that prevents pine users from sending anything other than US-ASCII
without perpetrating an approximate equivalent to text/html.


--
PJR :-)

In <slrnffgke2.7ko.pjr@pjr.gotdns.org>, Peter J Ross wrote:

> Am I the only one who thinks that (a) pine is broken and (b) some
> comp.mail.pine posters are in danger of disappearing up their own
> arses?

The rational for (al)pine using multipart/mixed was explained in the
material Eduardo posted. Do you have an argument with that rationale?
If so, don't just bitch about it among yourselves, tell it to the pine
people.

> Pine is sending "multipart/mixed" articles, and they think that's
> *good*.

Apparently slrn only implements MIME standards in a half-assed way, and
they think that that is good. Furthermore those users want the rest of
the world to adjust slrn's non-standard implementation.

> (I've snecked the crosspost, because I'm talking about them, not to
> them.)

Ooops. I put it back in because now I'm talking about slrn users who like
to lecture others about standards and correctly say that people shouldn't
"break" their own software to adjust to others' non-standard
implementations. We like talking *about* such things on comp.mail.pine.

-j

--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read top-posted, over-quoting or HTML postings.
http://improve-usenet.org/

On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:50:05 -0700, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

> On Mon, 24 Sep 2007, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:
>
> Eduardo,
>
> That makes absolute sense for mail. (Al)pine's default before is the
> correct choice for mail. The difficulty it seems is that there are a
> lot of people using newsreaders that don't do MIME properly.
>
> So I guess what I would want is a
>
> "Downgrade-multipart-to-single-part-when-posting-to-news"
>
> which seems like a lot to ask.
>
> But consider that there could be a "free" news server out there that is
> appending stuff (e.g. ads) to free posts and appends these messages
> without regards to the charset of the message. Then wrapping makes sense.
>
> I do not claim this is right or wrong. I only claim that this is the way
> it works and why it works this way.

It does happen and it happens because the server allows it and people that
never heard of USENET are running the show. They look and see a way to get
some "free advertizing". Then they don't even know how to do it cleanly.

Top

On Mon, 24 Sep 2007, Top wrote:
> It does happen and it happens because the server allows it and people that
> never heard of USENET are running the show. They look and see a way to get
> some "free advertizing". Then they don't even know how to do it cleanly.

The good news in all of this is that USENET is dying rapidly and in a few
years nobody will care. Many formerly-respectable newsgroups have become
sewers, with the result that many former participants have dropped out.

Our USENET servers will probably be shut down due to disuse (only a few
dozen people still read news) in the not-too-distant future. I read fewer
than 10 newsgroups these days.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Mark Crispin wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Sep 2007, Top wrote:
>> It does happen and it happens because the server allows it and people
>> that never heard of USENET are running the show. They look and see a
>> way to get some "free advertizing". Then they don't even know how to
>> do it cleanly.
>
> The good news in all of this is that USENET is dying rapidly and in a
> few years nobody will care. Many formerly-respectable newsgroups have
> become sewers, with the result that many former participants have
> dropped out.
>
> Our USENET servers will probably be shut down due to disuse (only a
> few dozen people still read news) in the not-too-distant future. I
> read fewer than 10 newsgroups these days.

I saw something about a major state university turning off its servers a
month or two ago; I think it was in Virginia, but it might have been in
North Carolina -- I just have a vague memory of the general area.
That was sad; two is sadder yet.


--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project moved to this site August 28th:
http://improve-usenet.org

["Followup-To:" header set to news.software.readers.]
> On 2007-09-25, Mark Crispin wrote:
>> It does happen and it happens because the server allows it and people that
>> never heard of USENET are running the show. They look and see a way to get
>> some "free advertizing". Then they don't even know how to do it cleanly.

> The good news in all of this is that USENET is dying rapidly and in a few
> years nobody will care.

How is that "good news"?


--
"Ubuntu" - an African word meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

On 2007-09-24, Eduardo Chappa <chappa@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Sep 2007, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:
>
> That makes absolute sense for mail. (Al)pine's default before is the
> correct choice for mail. The difficulty it seems is that there are a
> lot of people using newsreaders that don't do MIME properly.
>
> So I guess what I would want is a
>
> "Downgrade-multipart-to-single-part-when-posting-to-news"
>
> which seems like a lot to ask.
>
> But consider that there could be a "free" news server out there that is
> appending stuff (e.g. ads) to free posts and appends these messages
> without regards to the charset of the message. Then wrapping makes sense.

And why are only posts with non-ascii characters mangled to pseudo
multipart postings? The above argument is also valid for pure us-ascii
postings.

I've never seen newsservers adding ads to postings. I've seen that on
mailing lists.

Thomas