Interaction between Windows Live Mail and GNU Mailman

Hi,

I'm using Windows Live Mail 14.0.8089.0726. I'm having an issue between WLM
and GNU Mailman, a popular mailing list management program. I'm not sure if
WLM or Mailman is at fault, but since I don't have this problem in other
mail clients (like Mutt or Mozilla Thunderbird), WLM seems like the most
likely candidate.

The issue is this: Mailman adds its own signature to each list posting with
some details on the mailing list (such as unsubscribe instructions). When
posting a signed message to a list (using S/MIME or OpenPGP), Mailman tries
to avoid modifying the actual message, as that would cause the signature to
not validate. Instead, it adds the list signature as another text/plain
attachment. This means there are two text/plain parts - the original
message, and the list signature.

In most mail clients, this works fine; the first text/plain part--the
original message--is displayed first, followed by the signature. WLM,
however, displays *only* the list signature part, and the original message
appears as an attachment. This is rather irritating, since it means all
signed list posts appear as empty messages with just a signature, unless the
reader happens to notice that the real message is hidden in an attachment.

Is this a bug in WLM, or Mailman, or something else entirely?

Thanks,
River.

What encoding are you using?
Tools, Options, Send, .......
--
Ron Sommer
MS MVP-Mail

"news.individual.net" <> wrote in
message news:...
> Hi,
>
> I'm using Windows Live Mail 14.0.8089.0726. I'm having an issue between
> WLM and GNU Mailman, a popular mailing list management program. I'm not
> sure if WLM or Mailman is at fault, but since I don't have this problem in
> other mail clients (like Mutt or Mozilla Thunderbird), WLM seems like the
> most likely candidate.
>
> The issue is this: Mailman adds its own signature to each list posting
> with some details on the mailing list (such as unsubscribe instructions).
> When posting a signed message to a list (using S/MIME or OpenPGP), Mailman
> tries to avoid modifying the actual message, as that would cause the
> signature to not validate. Instead, it adds the list signature as another
> text/plain attachment. This means there are two text/plain parts - the
> original message, and the list signature.
>
> In most mail clients, this works fine; the first text/plain part--the
> original message--is displayed first, followed by the signature. WLM,
> however, displays *only* the list signature part, and the original message
> appears as an attachment. This is rather irritating, since it means all
> signed list posts appear as empty messages with just a signature, unless
> the reader happens to notice that the real message is hidden in an
> attachment.
>
> Is this a bug in WLM, or Mailman, or something else entirely?
>
> Thanks,
> River.

"Ron Sommer" <> wrote in message
news:#...
> What encoding are you using?

WLM's default encoding is set to "Western European (ISO)". The message that
triggers the problem has "iso-8859-1" for the original message part, and
"us-ascii" for the Mailman-generated list signature.

Regards,
River.

"River Tarnell" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> "Ron Sommer" <> wrote in message
> news:#...
>> What encoding are you using?
>
> WLM's default encoding is set to "Western European (ISO)". The message
> that triggers the problem has "iso-8859-1" for the original message part,
> and "us-ascii" for the Mailman-generated list signature.
>
> Regards,
> River.
I will let someone else take over now.
--
Ron Sommer
MS MVP-Mail

On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:00:34 -0000, River Tarnell wrote:

> "Ron Sommer" <> wrote in message
> news:#...

>> What encoding are you using?

> WLM's default encoding is set to "Western European (ISO)". The message that
> triggers the problem has "iso-8859-1" for the original message part, and
> "us-ascii" for the Mailman-generated list signature.

I don't think the character coding would be the issue. More likely the MIME
encoding. Also, I am reasonably certain I did not change the MIME encoding
in WLMail, so I'd say the default MIME encoding is: None (for "Plain Text"),
or: Quoted Printable (for "HTML"). Your headers are showing:

| Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response

That looks like the default for "Plain Text" posting: MIME type = None. If
you never changed those settings, your MIME encoding is probably also "None"
for email.

I am not sure of the relevance to received email messages, though. I do know
that Microsoft has a habit of going their own way on this kind of stuff.
Something about, "Not invented here".

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

The problem is WLM. It doesn't' handle signed messages as well as it
could.

To make a suggestion to Microsoft
Help -> Send Feedback (web)


--

Mike - http://TechHelp.Santovec.us



"news.individual.net" <> wrote in
message news:...
> Hi,
>
> I'm using Windows Live Mail 14.0.8089.0726. I'm having an issue
> between WLM and GNU Mailman, a popular mailing list management
> program. I'm not sure if WLM or Mailman is at fault, but since I
> don't have this problem in other mail clients (like Mutt or Mozilla
> Thunderbird), WLM seems like the most likely candidate.
>
> The issue is this: Mailman adds its own signature to each list posting
> with some details on the mailing list (such as unsubscribe
> instructions). When posting a signed message to a list (using S/MIME
> or OpenPGP), Mailman tries to avoid modifying the actual message, as
> that would cause the signature to not validate. Instead, it adds the
> list signature as another text/plain attachment. This means there are
> two text/plain parts - the original message, and the list signature.
>
> In most mail clients, this works fine; the first text/plain part--the
> original message--is displayed first, followed by the signature. WLM,
> however, displays *only* the list signature part, and the original
> message appears as an attachment. This is rather irritating, since it
> means all signed list posts appear as empty messages with just a
> signature, unless the reader happens to notice that the real message
> is hidden in an attachment.
>
> Is this a bug in WLM, or Mailman, or something else entirely?
>
> Thanks,
> River.