Re: [ga] Fixing long lines in the ICANN mailing list and comments archives

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

Just to followup, it appears that the issue has been dealt with (although I've 
not received a confirmation from ICANN staff). Posts like:

http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg06291.html

are now wrapping properly, and I've not seen the issue in new posts (although I 
personally had been reformatting my messages to fit within 80 columns, via 
newline characters after each line).

Thanks for the good work. Now the public message and comment archives will be 
easier to use for everyone.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.leap.com/

--- On Wed, 2/11/09, George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [ga] Fixing long lines in the ICANN mailing list and comments 
> archives
> To: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: robert.hoggarth@xxxxxxxxx
> Date: Wednesday, February 11, 2009, 9:57 AM
> Hi folks,
> 
> Some of you might have noticed that ICANN's mailing
> list and comments archives suffer from very bad formatting,
> e.g. note the long lines at:
> 
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg06291.html
> 
> where you have to scroll to the right to read a complete
> paragraph (tested in IE, Safari and Firefox to have the same
> bad issues).
> 
> I believe I've found the solution, as noted below
> (emails sent to ICANN Webmaster last week), which involve
> making appropriate changes to the MHonArc script settings.
> The actual script is not the latest version (2.6.10 instead
> of the newer 2.6.16), so it might also be wise to upgrade in
> case of security issues in the older version.
> 
> Hopefully this matter will be addressed soon, if not for
> all the past archives, at least for new posts. I'm
> cc'ing Robert Hoggarth of ICANN who got some website
> bugs fixed in a timely manner last week. I'm not one to
> withhold praise from those few standouts at ICANN who do
> perform their duties well, so kudos to him for a job well
> done.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> George Kirikos
> http://www.leap.com/
> 
> --- On Fri, 2/6/09, George Kirikos
> <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > From: George Kirikos
> > Subject: Re: Linebreaks or changed formatting for
> mailing list archives?
> > To: webmaster@xxxxxxxxx
> > Date: Friday, February 6, 2009, 1:50 PM
> > Hi again,
> > 
> > I believe I found the solution. You're using the
> > MHonArc v2.6.10 script, according to the
> > "View->Source" of one of the messages.
> The
> > appropriate solution appears to be:
> > 
> >
> http://www.mhonarc.org/MHonArc/doc/faq/mime.html#lineclip
> > 
> > "Can long lines be wrapped in converted
> > messages?"
> > 
> > Yes. See the options available for the
> > m2h_text_plain::filter described in the MIMEFILTERS
> resource
> > page of the documentation. Example:
> > 
> > <-- Make sure lines are no longer than 80
> characters
> > -->
> > <MIMEArgs>
> > m2h_text_plain::filter; maxwidth=80
> > </MIMEArgs>
> > 
> > By the way, according to http://www.mhonarc.org/ the
> latest
> > version is 2.6.16, so it might be worth upgrading the
> > script.
> > 
> > According to:
> > 
> >
> http://www.mhonarc.org/MHonArc/doc/faq/msgpgs.html#chngmesgfmt
> > 
> > you can also easily rebuild the archives using the
> > "EDITIDX" (probably best to make backups,
> just in
> > case things go wrong), or use "Reconvert" if
> you
> > still have the original messages.
> > 
> > Hopefully these fixes would make it easier for the
> ICANN
> > community to use the message archives.
> > 
> > Sincerely,
> > 
> > George
> > 
> > --- On Fri, 2/6/09, George Kirikos wrote:
> > 
> > > From: George Kirikos
> > > Subject: Linebreaks or changed formatting for
> mailing
> > list archives?
> > > To: webmaster@xxxxxxxxx
> > > Date: Friday, February 6, 2009, 1:28 PM
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > I notice that the mailing list archives are
> showing an
> > > increasing number of messages with very long
> lines, so
> > that
> > > one has to scroll far to the right to read each
> > paragraph,
> > > e.g. see the formatting:
> > > 
> > >
> >
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg06278.html
> > >
> >
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga-200709/msg02560.html
> > > 
> > > I believe it's because certain email clients,
> even
> > in
> > > plain text mode, don't set a "hard
> > limit" of
> > > 72 characters or whatever, like many used to do
> in the
> > past.
> > > I think Yahoo recently switched their behaviour
> (that
> > 2nd
> > > link was from a Yahoo account), see the first
> link
> > below
> > > which does have the hard column limit:
> > > 
> > >
> >
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga-200709/msg02540.html
> > >
> >
> http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga-200709/msg02546.html
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Anyhow, there's obviously a script that
> processes
> > the
> > > messages before they hit the archives. You might
> want
> > to
> > > suggest to the author of the script that the body
> of
> > > messages has appropriate <p> paragraph tags
> for
> > each
> > > paragraph, instead of using the <pre> tag:
> > > 
> > > http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tag_pre.asp
> > > 
> > > which ultimately causes the long lines, because
> it
> > relies
> > > on the sending email client to format things for
> the
> > web,
> > > something the email client probably was not
> intending.
> > > 
> > > Or, if they want to still use the "pre"
> tag,
> > > using a universal style sheet might permit a
> maximum
> > width
> > > (or force the text to wrap properly on all
> browsers?
> > > 
> > > One has to be careful not to change anything that
> > might
> > > allow XSS attacks, etc. (perhaps that's why
> > > "pre" was used?), so a stylesheet might
> be a
> > > change that is least intrusive and can do the
> least
> > harm.
> > > The best solution would be to sanitize all
> emails, and
> > then
> > > take the pure text to be formatted cleanly, but
> that
> > might
> > > be more complex.
> > > 
> > > Sincerely,
> > > 
> > > George Kirikos
> > > http://www.leap.com/