Feb 28, 2007 13:48 pm

This morning I received an email from a subscriber who noted that she was having a difficult time reading the listserv digest. More specifically, there were sections of the digest that were rendered nearly illegible due to posts being sent to the listserv in html. I've pasted below a portion of the digest she forwarded to me so that you can see what she is receiving:

@page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;}

html posts to the listserv generates the above problem for email clients that either cannot or are not set to render html. Posts that are made in html, however, also play havoc with the online archive. Each week my assistant "cleans" the html out the last week's posts in order to make the online archive readable.

Given these two issues, I'd like to solicit some feedback on the following:

1. Are you having a difficult time reading the digests due to html posts? If yes, can you set your email client to render the digests in html rather than plain text? That is, most email clients allow you to render html emails which removes all of the markup language that you see above.

2. What do you think of prohibiting html posts to the listserv? If these posts were prohibited, anyone sending a post in html would receive an error message requesting them to resubmit the post in plain text. With nearly 4500 subscribers to the listserv it is difficult to come up with a solution that will serve everyone. However, I'd like to find a solution that provides the 'best fit" possible and causes the least aggravation.

Thanks in advance for providing me with some feedback regarding these issues. Please post your feedback to the list.

Best,
Doug

Doug McKenzie-Mohr, Ph.D.
McKenzie-Mohr Associates
(506) 455 5061 voice/pager
(506) 455 0550 fax
[email protected]
http://www.cbsm.com