Briefly, I'll echo the common theme that while
1. attachments are a nuisance to many
and as such deprecated by the list
(N.B. also virus implications, and a desire to
keep messages short)
2. in practice, some members find it
difficult, for corporate or technical
reasons, to avoid sending them.
While these issues have been aired many
times, neither will they go away.
In the particular case of winmail.dat,
and MS Outlook at least, I have found --
as a variation on Nick Winter's suggestion --
that if you receive a Statalist message with winmail.dat attached,
and wish to reply, then do not do so directly.
You are all too likely to find that the mailjunk
is attached to your reply. Copy and paste the original
text into a new post, and add your reply. That's a small pain,
and better solutions would be welcome (modulo
changing to Unix or Macintosh, not a universal
option).
Having said that, I'm not aware that there are valid
reasons for sending text in HTML or MIME-encoded,
which are also deprecated.
To see your posts in the way that many people
see them, look at the archives! You may get
a surprise.
Finally, an appeal to self-interest:
I know from private exchanges and infer
from some public comments that several
Statalisters who answer many questions
discriminate against questions which
are sent with mailjunk attached
or embedded (attachments, .vcf, winmail.
dat, HTML, MIME). In some cases, they
have no choice, as to them raw HTML
or MIME-encoded text is totally
unreadable or too much of an effort
to be worth their time. In short,
if you don't follow the rules, not
only may you get some flak, it is
much less likely that your question
will be answered.
Nick
[email protected]
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