On Saturday, August 4, 2001, at 09:26 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Sat, Aug 04, 2001 at 12:00:34PM -0700, Eric Murray wrote:
Posts that are received (enter the CDR system) at lne and are forwarded to the other CDRs are demimed.
Posts originating from another CDR are demimed on the way to lne CDR subscribers.
Posts originating from another CDR and being forwarded to another CDR aren't demimed.
I have no problem with demime-ing posts, and applaud Eric's work to maintain a readable cypherpunks node.
My only point, addressed to the fellow who sent an attachment, is that sending such things to any cypherpunks node makes little sense. Many of the more frequent posters now use the lne.com node, so we'll never see your attachment. And, depending on where the message enters the system, others may not either.
There are many good reasons why mailing lists should not use attachments: -- viruses, worms -- attachments are best arranged beforehand, for the virus/worm reason, and to minimize sudden bogdowns in downloads -- with URLs so common, a pointer to a stored file someplace accomplishes most tasks people intend to do with attachments -- attachments that are not pictures (vacation pics sent by mail, commonly) are usually formatted Word or whatever documents...not needed for mailing lists, and not welcome -- mailing lists of several hundred subscribers...'nuff said. -- diverse mailers...everything from Emacs to elm to Eudora to AmigaMail. Expecting hundreds of subscribers on dozens of mail systems to open an attachment is foolish. Anyone who _did_ get a big attachment through would likely go into my kill file. --Tim May