> If most people don't post in plain text I guess I have to wonder why the > archives are set up the way they are. This is an excellent question. Here's the answer: the freeware we use for running pianotech hasn't kept up with changing times. It is non-trivial to support HTML email in the archives, because the HTML has to be "cleaned" of any potentially harmful elements. When Mailman was written, that cleaning process was not well understood. But today, most of the email readers and web browsers you use will filter out the dangerous stuff (or at least try to). Mailman, however, still doesn't have the capability to safely expose HTML in the archives or digests. The solution is to either switch mailing list software, or augment it with something more modern. The ECC talked about it and decided to try augmenting our mailing lists with a web-based forum. Jim Moy stepped up and prototyped this for us and the results were quite good. With Jim's work, a list would go both to Mailman and to a web forum and the web forum is fully capable of displaying HTML. But we haven't rolled this out for public use yet because a second solution is also in the works. The second solution uses commercial software, chosen by the board and home office, which is designed for organizations such as PTG. I don't know much about it but other professional organizations I'm in use solutions like these and they tie forums into membership databases, conference registration, etc. I know the formatting in the archives and the digests is annoying, and the lack of a web-based forum interface is overdue. But more modern solutions are in the works, so stay tuned. -andy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100617/f83a64c9/attachment.htm>
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