ADMIN please read

["harp-l listowner" <owner-harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>]

It has been brought to my attention that the harp-l digests are fairly
unreadable due to many of the posts being in rtf or html formats.  Since
our list program doesn't understand mime formats it simply converts them
to text.  An example follows.



Originally this was about a 4 line post.  I've taken out the actual post
so as not to embarass the orignal poster.  I know nobody is doing this on
purpose.  Anyplace it says actual text removed is where the original post
was.  As you can see it gets pretty difficult to read.  5 or 6 of these
posts in a digest and it's almost impossible to wade through.  For posting
to harp-l please do use plain text.  If you're an AOL 7 user, you have
special dispensation.  I don't think there's any way to toggle the format.

There are a lots of really good reasons to avoid mime formatting.  The
obvious one is it makes a mess out of the digest.  Another is plain text
is much smaller, using it conserves bandwidth and memory.  Viruses, many
viruses are transmitted in the underlying formatting codes. I have yet to
see a virus transmitted as a plain text message.

When it gets right down to it this is an issue that's better resolved on
our end.  We did have a program that removed mime formatting codes, it
worked wonderfully.  We had a disk crash and the upgraded software that
was installed after the crash broke demime the html stripping utility.  We
have since that time been unable to get this program correctly
reinstalled.  It is something that will eventually be resolved but for now
your cooperation is greatly appreciated.

As always if you have any suggestions, questions or concerns regarding
harp-l please do write to this address.  Your input is always welcomed.