Re: Can we have...

[Nick FitzGerald <nick () virus-l demon co uk>]

Valdis Kletnieks to Brian Anderson:

> > I enjoy reading some of the messages in the Full Disclosure list however I opt 
> > to receive the list as a daily digest. This has the problem (for me) that I have 
> > to scroll thru the entire email message looking for the item(s) that I want to read.
>
> Some mailing list software (such as LSoft's Listserv) allow the user to decide whether
> to receive each item in a separate mail, or in a standard flat-ascii digest,
> or a mime/multipart format digest.

As defined in section 5.1.5 of RFC 2046...

   ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2046.txt

> I have no clue as to whether Mailman supports it, however - merely that it's
> not a totally outrageous request, and it's at least theoretically doable...

Mailman apparently supports it:

   http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-admin/node19.html

   Mailman supports two standard digest formats, and if digests are
   enabled, users can select which of the two formats they receive. One
   is MIME digests, where each message is an attachment inside a
   multipart/digest. This format also contains a summary table of
   contents, and of course the an optional header and footer, and it
   retains most of the headers of the original messages.

   The second type is called ``plaintext'' digests because they are
   readable in mail readers that don't support MIME. Actually, they
   adhere to the RFC 1153 digest standard. The retain some, but not all
   of the original messages, but can also include a summary and headers
   and footers. 

> (Incidentally, getting a digest as a mime/multipart is a *BIG* win if your
> mail software deals well with it, especially if (for example) somebody attaches
> a .tar.gz or .zip of data to the mail - if your MUA does multipart well, it's
> just as easy as handling any other .tar.gz attached to a mail.  If it shows up
> as a flat-ascii, you're going to have some hand-editing to recover that
> attachment....)

Indeed, though I don't use the digested form of the list, so am not 
sure my "vote" should count.

That said, the current Mailman dox seem to say that enabling digest 
mode should give the _subscriber_ the option of which digesting method 
they get.  Perhaps the list admins need to update their version of 
Mailman, as I seem to recall that earlier versions supported only the 
non-MIME digest format...


Regards,

Nick FitzGerald

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