[gmx-developers] Mails rejected with "The message's content type was not explicitly allowed"

[Berk Hess]

On 07/20/2012 01:55 PM, Justin Lemkul wrote:
>
>
> On 7/19/12 6:56 PM, Mark Abraham wrote:
>> On 5/07/2012 11:24 PM, Rossen Apostolov wrote:
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> Recently the Gromacs mailing lists have been used for sending spam and
>>> viruses, and thus now only plain text messages are accepted.
>>>
>>> If you have received rejected mails saying "The message's content 
>>> type was not
>>> explicitly allowed" it means that you have used in your mail special 
>>> styles or
>>> formatting (e.g. bold typeface, colors etc.).
>>>
>>> Check your email client settings about how to send messages as plain 
>>> text,
>>> e.g. in GMail make sure to click on "Compose -> Plain Text". Check also
>>> whether a formatted signature is added.
>>>
>>> Attachments are also not allowed but you could include links for 
>>> downloads.
>>>
>>> Rossen
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Bump.
>>
>> I'm happy banning attachments (there's lots of free upload space out 
>> there), but
>> think that explicitly requiring plain text email is a significant 
>> barrier to
>> participation. Some web mail clients don't permit a non-HTML mime 
>> type - that's
>> not our fault but we have to live in that jungle. Some people will 
>> walk away
>> without bothering to find out if they can configure plain text email. 
>> Others
>> will judge the technical competence of the team on their ability to 
>> run the
>> mailing list. If we need to outsource it somewhere, we should do that.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>
> I agree with Mark here.  It seems to me that traffic to the list has 
> been down for a couple of weeks relative to normal, but there may be 
> other factors for that.  What I do know is that I'm getting increasing 
> amounts of emails to my personal inbox starting with "I can't post to 
> the Gromacs list, so I'm sending this to you..." That's an increased 
> burden I'm not willing to bear.  I'm all for community contributions 
> (you all know that ;) but as soon as it becomes my responsibility to 
> handle Gromacs issues, I'm less inclined.
>
> -Justin
>
I think everyone agrees that we need to accept html mails.

The question is if we need some filter and when Rossen, or someone else, 
has time to fix this.

Cheers,

Berk