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Re: st: Re: Difficulty with posting and replying
Frank:
For what it's worth, I also post to Statalist from a .Mac account
using Apple's Mail.app with OS X 10.5.6 (Leopard). However, I have not
experienced any of the issues you cite. Here are my settings that may
be relevant:
1. Default format for mail messages in Mail.app: Plain Text. (In
Mail.app, open Preferences and click on "Composing" among the icons
along the top of the dialog box. The first item under "Composing"
should read "Message Format:" -- choose "Plain Text" from the drop-
down menu.)
2. Text encoding in Mail.app: "Automatic".
3. "Use fixed-width font for plain text messages" in Mail.app:
checked. (In Preferences of Mail.app, go to "Fonts & Colors" and look
for the corresponding checkbox. On the Mac I find Monaco to be a good
fixed-width font for reading code -- one can distinguish "1" from "l",
"0" from "O", and "`" from "'" fairly easily.)
4. Signature in Mail.app: None.
5. Default font in Stata: Monaco.
6. Default line endings in Stata: Unix.
Some other notes and thoughts; apologies if these are already known to
you:
1. Stick some garbage characters at the top of your messages. Martin
uses "<>" (that is, "less than sign" then "greater than sign"); after
some experimenting (years ago), I have settled on typing a space, a
period, a tab, and two returns before I start the text of my messages
(including replies). (Note that the FAQ states that "Majordomo
sometimes misreads posts and in particular can chop the first line",
while my experience has been that it takes my first 2 lines _every_
time for messages from my .Mac account. YMMV.)
2. I send my messages to "[email protected]", and they
seem to always go through (although occasionally with a delay). Per
the FAQ, avoid replying to old messages to start a new (and unrelated)
message -- that will screw up message threading both in Mail.app and
the archives.
3. If you are uncertain if a message went through, check the archives
at <http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/>. Worst case, you could e-
mail Marcello (very rarely!!) or the person to whom you are replying
to see if they have received your message, or would be willing to (one
time only) post on your behalf. Do not abuse this suggestion.
4. Delete the long trail of Statalist footers at the end of messages
when multiple replies are included in your message. If more people
would take this courtesy, it would help make the archives smaller and
easier to read for all. (Forgetting on occasion is hardly a major
faux pas.)
Hope this helps,
Mike
On May 2, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Martin Weiss wrote:
<>
"> Martin uses the <> at the top of his messages because Stata FAQ
2.2
(see: http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/
statalist.html#before ) states that the list server can sometimes
"chop the first few lines" "
True, I used to put a sentence there, but the "<>" is much less
intrusive. I do not recall the last incident where it was needed,
though...
HTH
Martin
_______________________
----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric A. Booth" <[email protected]
>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2009 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: st: Re: Difficulty with posting and replying
Frank:
Martin uses the <> at the top of his messages because Stata FAQ
2.2 (see: http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/statalist.html#before
) states that the list server can sometimes "chop the first few
lines" of an email/posting. So, his <> symbol will be cut if
any of the server does remove the first line(s).
You've probably tried this, but if the email program you are using
(which according to your X-MAILER properties in your message is
Apple Mail (mail.app) 2.9) is attaching a signature to your
outgoing mail, this signature is html format. So, while you may
be converting you message to 'plain-text' before sending it on the
mac (by highlighting you message and pressing Shift+Command+T),
your signature injects new html code into your message as it
leaves your computer.
(Remember that mail.app can be synching your signatures with your
mobile me account in the background (see Mail Menu>Preferences>
General Tab> Mobile Me... ) )
If this is not your problem, then there may be bigger issues:
1. what kind of text encoding are you using (see Message Menu>Text
Encoding)? You might try switching to utf-8 (which would get you
to 8- Bit encoding), right now your messages use are using mac's
automatic encoding (text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed;
delsp=yes) & your content-encoding scheme is 7-bit. Your outgoing
server (smtp.mac.com) provides a content transfer method for
encoding the message (e.g., 7-bit, 8-bit, and binary methods),
when SMTP transmits data in 7-bit MIME defines how 8-bit data can
be encoded in 7-bit byte stream for transmission in SMTP. So,
there may be something going on with your outgoing server @mac.com
that could be resolved by using a 8-bit encoding, like utf-8.
2. It is likely that the mac.com SMTP server may be your own
worst enemy.
There are lots of reports of mobile me (mac.com) periodically
dumping messages from certain ISP's (especially after they've been
tagged as having some user sending out a lot of spam). I notice
that your IP address and your outgoing smtp relay (e.g.,
asmtp011.mac.com, asmtp022.mac.com) have changed over the course of
your email messages to Statalist from April 24 to today. Are you
noticing any patterns of your Statalist postings being 'lost' when
sending just from work or home, etc? See this link for an
interesting example of similar messages being 'lost' and someways
to test this using Terminal and telnet( http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2008/03/09/1100
).
If you go to the Mail Menu > Preferences > Viewing Pref. Tab and
choose "Show Header Detail = All" and then check the full headers
of your messages that made it through to Statalist versus the ones
that did not, that might help you diagnose the differences among
these messages. If you want to send me the output of the headers
on your unsuccessful headers, I can take a look & compare them to
your recent 'successful' postings.
Good luck.
Eric
__
Eric A. Booth
Public Policy Research Institute
Texas A&M University
[email protected]
Office: +979.845.6754
Fax: +979.845.0249
On May 2, 2009, at 7:53 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Hi Martin,
I was thinking maybe my dilemma involves copying and pasting text
(e.g., syntax). So I replied to your last message, pasted some
text from a message that I have been trying to post, and sent it.
The message did not post. So if this message gets posted, it may
be the copy and paste mechanism causing me difficulties. We will
see.
Best,
Frank
On May 2, 2009, at 7:58 AM, Martin Weiss wrote:
<>
Nick`s advice http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/lwgate/STATALIST/archives/statalist.0904/Author/article-593.html
still applies, although I am aware how frustrating it can be
sometimes. Plain text-ing from the adress subscribed on Statalist
normally guarantees success...
HTH
Martin
_______________________
----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2009 1:51 PM
Subject: st: Difficulty with posting and replying
Hi All,
I am having difficulty posting and replying to posts: "It is a
hit or miss adventure." I format my posts and replies in plain
text. I am using a mac (Leopard OS). I hope this message posts.
Does anyone have suggestions? Thank you.
Best,
Frank
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