Re: info-cvs] Re: a newbie facing tagging problem

[R P Herrold]

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005, address@hidden wrote:

> > Please do not send MIME and/or HTML encrypted messages to the list.
> > Plain text only, PLEASE!
>
> Why doesn't this list run something like the demime package 
> to scrub HTML/MIME postings to this list, so people don't 
> have to be bothered with worring about how their mail client 
> is configured?

'I am not a number'
  -- Number Six, from 'The Prisoner'

Are you truly a number?

That out of the way, I write as the closest thing to a list 
admin which this list has.  The list is heavily spammed, and 
the target of automatic 'spambots'.  A couple years ago, when 
I started doing list admin, I spent several days getting the 
attention of the upstream server admins, simply to undertake 
getting rights in the Mailman.  I have writen three following 
times on issues which have arisen, with simply no response 
from the upstream admins.

Sad but true.

The list is de-spamed (largely) by a pair of policies -- limit 
the size of posts (which is set low enough that much 
multi-part (mime-laden) email is caught and held; and posts 
limited are to subscribers only.  Because of the huge spam and 
held load, I do not pick through that cesspool of held posts, 
and they are functionally deleted.

So one answer is that I cannot add a further explicit 
demimeing (in the fashion as suggested).  As a matter of good 
news, the available de-mimeing options within Mailman are 
enabled.

More broadly, the issue of demimeing and de-htmlizing email 
has been done by me locally for years as part of my inbound 
filters.

That option exists for anyone willing to take control of their 
email stream; I am reasonably indifferent to a preson's 
complaint who says that they cannot -- for really, email 
addresses and domains, and the necessary compute resources to 
subscribe an alternative (filtered) email address are 
essentially freely available these days -- as 'cannot' really 
means they _will not_ take ownership of their own infosec.

- Russ Herrold