[CH] Say no to MIME
Peter Moss (pmoss@yoda.alt.za)
Mon, 14 Dec 1998 21:27:06 RSA-2
>Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 05:45:19 +0100
>From: "Kristofer Blennow" <kristofer@blennow.se>
>Subject: Re: [CH] habaneo, non-ascii and SMTP - Comment
> The only character set you should be using for email to the
> outside world is US-ASCII or plain text.
> Well, thought I was conservative, obviously I lag... ;)
Yes, but also you did not read and understand the complete
message. ;-)
> Set your MIME features on (most mail systems 1998 can handle
> that), and you can use almost whatever strange characters you
> want...
No! do not do this and most mail systems don't. Just like most
home users don't control the net and MS NT does not rule.
Now go and download a copy of the digest and see if you can
get any reader to handle a MIME message in that. I have got
money where my mouth is ;-)
MIME is a form of encoding where characters are translated from
a 8 bit form to 7 bit form to enable correct delivery through a
7 bit transport system. It requires for unencoding the header
information defining the character set and a compliant reader.
I would not state that most readers are compliant and would
guess that there are a very large percentage still in use daily
that are not. Once again for emphasis, the digest can not
contain the headers for unencoding. Do not enable MIME or
attempt to insert non US-ASCII characters. Your efforts will be
wasted and probably not appreciated.
> From Sweden: -lgstek, mor/tter och sRhos, tamefan!
> (roast moose, carrots and gravy, dammit)
> From Mexico: iJalape+/-os, caramba!
See this is not what you wanted is it. So don't do it unless
you know for sure that the recipients reader can handle it. And
it will not be combined with a bunch of other messages where the
headers have no affect.
> After all, what is a chile-head without Spanish...
Chinese?
EOT on the list.
Cheers
Peter