[Mailman-Users] Carriage Return in Archives

[J C Lawrence]

On Sat, 9 Nov 2002 12:45:35 EST 
Topaz877  <Topaz877 at aol.com> wrote:

> The problem isn't with mail delivery, it's with the archives. It goes
> without saying that Mailman can't do anything about how users
> configure their mail clients. But Mailman does control how the
> *archives* are displayed.

Should the archive display messages as they were sent, or should it
attempt to "know best" and do what it thinks is right, over-riding the
specifics in the messages?  No matter which answer its easy to come up
with dozens of cases where its wrong.  Once past that there are concepts
and questions of fidelity: Is your archive an accurate representation of
list traffic?  Is the fact that it is (or is not) accurate, significant?

Then there's the question and principle of least surprise: Which is more
surprising, and archive which reformats or one which doesn't?

For me its critical that the archives are accurate, both as to
formatting and content, and that fact is significant as the archives are
(effectively) the one recorded "historical truth" as regards that list.

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.