[SpamCop-List] Re: Signatures in SC news and forum

[Frank Ellermann]

Mike Easter wrote:

> Your header has this line:
> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (OS/2; U)

In other words a Netscape 2.02 GUI with a Netscape 3.0 engine
compiled for OS/2 and the "unrestricted" US version (some old
business about SSL3 crypto not for export, ignore it... :-)

> I can only interpret that to mean you are using some /n/x
> newsagent -- and that some who use /n/x newsagents use an
> external editor -- so I'm fuzzy on how that works in your
> specific case.

Among others it has two options for all mail and news I write:
"immediate delivery" (send when I click "send") or "deferred
 delivery" (= save finished mail or news in mbox file "outbox"
until I click "send now" Ctrl-H).

While the ready to be sent mails and news wait in file "outbox"
I can edit it, it's an ordinary text file in mbox format, i.e.
lines starting with "From " (case sensitive) separate messages.

I have a simple script starting my normal text editor on this
file, going to the last "From " above the end of file, that's
the begin of the last message.  There's one additional "magic"
line X-Mozilla-Status: (a pseudo header field, you never see
it, it's not sent later) for each message in this file, where
Netscape notes if a message already has been sent / flagged /
read / and other stuff, I rarely touch it.

For news articles there's another special pseudo-header field
noting the news server for later posting (NNTP).  The smart
host (aka MSA) for mail submissions (SMTP) is determined with
another mechanism outside of the "outbox" file, and this also
dictates which MAIL FROM mail will get.

Otherwise that's the raw message as it will be sent or posted
later, when I click "send now".  If I try to close my browser
with pending messages it will ask me "pending mail, send now ?"

When I compress the "outbox" or all mail folders (triggered
when I start the browser or use "empty trash folder") then old
already sent messages are removed from "outbox".  I still have
a copy in mail folder (mbox file) "sent" or "posted" in this
case, but I digress.

> How do most /n/x folks who use an external editor which can
> remove or not remove trailing spaces deal with the issue of
> compliant sig delimiters, as it is a very common condition to
> see /n/x newsreaders with compliant sigs.

I think that I'm the last user of "Mozilla 3.0" worldwide, and
that other users would stay away from editing file "outbox".

But I kind of like that, testing links in "outbox", and fix it
when there's a typo, trim the MIME overhead to a bare minimum
if I post or mail multiparts with text/html, etc.

Sometimes it's absolutely necessary, "Mozilla 3.0" does not
trim References, and some news servers reject execessively long
References.  Or if there's a typo in To: or Newsgroups: the MSA
or news server would reject it:

In that case I'd end up with a bad pending message in "outbox"
even if I'd use "immediate delivery".  I can then fix (= edit)
or delete it, and to fix it I need an external editor.

                         $TBD, Frank