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Re: MHonArc mail archive line wrapping

2011-02-16 06:01:45
---- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Petit-Huguenin" <petithug(_at_)acm(_dot_)org>
To: "Bjoern Hoehrmann" <derhoermi(_at_)gmx(_dot_)net>
Cc: "Stuart Cheshire" <cheshire(_at_)apple(_dot_)com>; "IETF-Discussion list"
<ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 12:22 AM

On 02/15/2011 01:32 PM, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:
* Stuart Cheshire wrote:
In the MHonArc mail archive there are often super-long lines, which
would be wrapped to the window width when viewing in most mail
clients, but when viewed in a web browser they appear as long single
lines which take a lot of left-to-right scrolling to read them.

That is the result of some clients and users violating netiquette and
mail standards, for instance, RFC 1855, section 2.1.1:

  - Limit line length to fewer than 65 characters and end a line
    with a carriage return.

and RFC 2822 (and similarily RFC 5322), section 2.1.1:

  There are two limits that this standard places on the number of
  characters in a line. Each line of characters MUST be no more than
  998 characters, and SHOULD be no more than 78 characters, excluding
  the CRLF.

And this does not cause problems just with unwrapped lines, it also has
other effects, like people quoting excessively long lines on one line
but then write their own text properly wrapped (that's appropriate be-
havior if long lines are rare and most likely intentional, such as when
including some computer code you don't want wrapped at odd positions.)

I note that one of the main culprits here are Apple Mail users, although
you seem to be using it yet have managed to send properly wrapped lines.
If there is something Apple Mail users can do to stop their netiquette
and standards violations, I would apprciate any pointer you may have.

If only Apple Mail users would stop signing mails it would be a major step
forward.

Depending on the algorithm, I either get a blank pane, and have to
get into properties to see the text, or, with more recent PKIX-based
algorithms, have to wait for a megabyte download of CRL (or, if
I am offline, a two minute lockup of my PC).

Grrr  I don't care what standard signed mails conform to, I just
want them filtered out at source:-)

Tom Petch

<snip>

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