The following was sent to all Listowners at Rootsweb.
D. Scott Dingler
Listowner
Hi, folks --
Well, it took almost two months longer than expected, but we're
right now installing a SmartList hack that blocks file attachments
(including VCARDS), HTML messages and enriched text postings.
Sorry about the delay: things have been crazy around here.
This note is to let you know how it works. When a poster sends
something to a mailing list written in HTML, or with a
non-plain-text attached file, the list server will send the
poster's message back to them, with a note at the bottom
explaining the plain-text requirement at RootsWeb. A COPY OF THIS
REJECTION MESSAGE WILL BE SENT TO YOU AS WELL! That's because the
poster may write back to you to complain or to ask for help, and
it can be pretty confusing if they write a reply to a message that
you never saw.
So when you suddenly start getting messages from
YOURLIST-L-REQUEST(a)rootsweb.com, quoting some ungodly HTML mess
that you never saw before, don't be alarmed. :-) It just means
the list server is rejecting a MIME message that was sent to your
list, and that you may get a response from the poster.
This change is not currently something the listowner can turn on
and off. Attachments will be blocked from every list alike. This
might not be to the taste of some listowners, so we'll consider
closely whether it would be safe to make it an optional setting.
Thanks to Marc Nozell for finding the SmartList patch that was
used as the basis for this fix!
Regards,
Tim Pierce
RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative
volunteer sysadmin and general hacker