[Gloucs] Allowing attachments on GLUG list

[Andrew Oakley]

Paul wrote:
> Andy Smith wrote:
> > ....Am guessing the list is set to discard all but a small list of 
> > content types.....
> Good guess, only a handful of types are let through.  This is 
> how the list was originally set up.  I recently added types 
> for pgp signatures but others could be added if required.  Or 
> we could stop filtering content altogether. If people want 
> this changed then lets have a discussion...

I also used to reject almost all attachments to the various mailing lists I
administered. Mostly this was due to newbies posting all manner of rubbish,
typically w32-virus-infected chain letters in MS Word format.

As of about a year ago, I began allowing attachments through, and haven't
had any trouble. My guess is that almost all internet users have matured
enough to know that most people don't want to receive attachments unless
they've specifically declared an interest.

I'd recommend, instead of filtering by attachment type, simply set an upper
kB limit such as 256kB per message. That way it protects against even an
experienced user sending an attachment that they didn't realise was massive
("that PDF was HOW BIG? OMFG!").

Another issue is HTML email. Personally I think it's the devil's work, but
there are almost zero up-to-date email clients that don't support HTML- even
most terminal-based clients such as Pine now support viewing HTML mail. As a
result, I gave up trying to force everyone to use plain text, even though I
hate HTML mail. The annoyance of trying to explain it became more onerous
than the annoyance of receiving it.

-- 
Andrew Oakley




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