[FFML] Re: A thought on the future of the FFML

[Michael Foerster]

On Sun, 30 Jun 2013 13:29, The Wanderer <wanderer at ...> wrote:

> On 06/30/2013 06:47 AM, Paul Henkel wrote:
>
> [that on 06/30/2013 02:24 AM, Dennis Carr wrote:]
>
>>> On the surface, it may be an issue with Mailman.  (Besides, there
>>> is already an archive of this incarnation of the list, with other
>>> archives visible elsewhere.)
>>> 
>>> Bu-ut, I believe there are other archival services that are
>>> currently being fed, if I'm not mistaken.
>> 
>> Yes, I found it:
>> http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/
>> So this whole discussion was about having formating and html?
>
> It's rather more about being able to *post* via the Web interface, which
> a plain archive of course can't do. There are a number of technical
> considerations about doing that which would have to be - ah -
> considered, as well as some matters of taste and/or religion which would
> have to be decided, in which latter category formatting / HTML falls.
>
> Other aspects of the discussion included the possibility of better
> outside visibility and discoverability, and (I think, if only by a brief
> mention?) the possibility of revising the rules about what is allowed as
> on-topic, in hopes of broader appeal. But the "dual posting interface"
> and the issues involved with implementing that largely took over the
> thread, and the subsidiary discussion about formatting / HTML largely
> took over from that in turn.

Let me make some comments on web-posting interfaces:

Make sure that the whole interface is utf8 only.
That includes setting the default webserver encoding to utf8,
storing all scripts, stylesheets, page-templates, and interface
code in utf8, no exeptions, NONE.

That whole mixed encoding sh.t can be seen in Yahell-Groups.

That would imply that all via mail incomming messages that are
NOT utf8 will have to be recoded.

All outgoing mail will be utf8 encoded, by virtue of the recoding
done on the non unicode mails before.

All web-page content will be utf8, posting and viewing.

The database / storage backend is also utf8 only.

These few rules save the maintainers / users more than
90% of the usual encoding hell such a dual interface
brings.

Do it right from the start, save the later headaches.

  - Michael Foerster, on FFML since early 1996.