[Elecraft] Digest version of this listserve

[David Woolley (E.L)]

Robert Klein wrote:
> When there are 10 or more messages in the digest, it takes a while for the
> email to load because each message is an attachment and the size of the
> email is many times larger than than most emails.  May I suggest that the
> listserve be changed so that the contents of the emails submitted be made
> into the digest rather than using each one as an attachment?  Every other
> list to which I have ever subscribed does it this way.

You can select either way on an individual subscriber basis.  One of the 
big problems the list has, big enough to require a warning at the start 
of every digest, is people who configure it in your preferred way, and 
then try to reply by simply editing out the other messages.  Often this 
ends in the subject being that of the digest, in spite of explicit 
warnings not to do so, at the beginning of the digest.   Almost 
invariably it results in broken threading, because the In-Reply-To 
header reflects the digest, not the article being replied to.

On the other side, MIME digest format, which you object to, isn't much 
bigger than the pre-MIME format.  The only real difference is the 
inclusion of the full incoming mail headers, not just a subset. 
However, as most people fail to prune copies of previous articles in the 
thread, the proportion of the space taken by extra headers is relatively 
low.

You talk of attachments, but that is actually a user interface concept. 
  The MIME digest messages are just all the messages strung together in 
single body, with a specially formatted line between each message.

However, because of the structure, you can pull them out individually, 
to reply to them properly, and, whilst Thunderbird is broken in this 
respect, you can also move them individually to folders, etc.

If you do select simple digests, please do not reply to them unless you 
understand email header formats and can construct a properly formed 
reply to the specific article.

> 
> Elecraft is unique in all the good ways, but not in this relatively trivial
> matter.  I¹m just seeking perfection, just as Elecraft is.

You can have it both ways, but in my view, MIME digest is the only 
sensible way with modern email clients.

-- 
David Woolley
"The Elecraft list is a forum for the discussion of topics related to 
Elecraft products and more general topics related ham radio"
List Guidelines <http://www.elecraft.com/elecraft_list_guidelines.htm>