RE: Can I send attachments to the list?

Date sent:  20-SEP-1996 09:36:40 

>>>>So no, I'm not too keen on file attachments to the list.

>>>Adam, I'd go one step further and say NO attachments on the list.
It's
>>>against "netiquette" to post binary attachments to non-binary
newsgroups; I
>>>think the same courtesy should apply here.

>>>Allan

>>OK. For those of you who didn't understand my previous message, if
anyone
>>sends binaries to the list, I'll kick you off it.

>     So--he said, realizing he wouldn't make himself look any
>smarter--what's a binary? And what do they do that's so bad?

>     James

What is a Binary?

E-mail works on 7 bit transmission, which is quite sufficient for ASCII
transmission, however to send additional information, you have to go up
to 8 bits. You have to encode the 8 bit as 7 bit to send this through
E-mail. Some E-mail systems do this automatically. Others simply can't
do it at all. Most are somewhere inbetween. 7-bit can only be plain
ASCII
text. 8 bit (AKA binary) can be anything. Word Processor documents, 
Spreadsheets, Pictures, Sound, Anything. Lost you yet?

What do they do that's so bad.

They are BIG. In the world of E-mail, big is bad. It takes longer to
process, longer to send (and I have to send it nearly 200 times) and
longer to download from a mail server. Even an ASCII file sent in binary
format is one eighth longer than the ASCII equivilant, and pictures,
sound
etc are big enough as it is, without making them any bigger.

They are non standard. There is no garuntee that the person you send to
will be able to convert it back to the original format, and then there
is
no garuntee that they can read the original format anyway (Try sending a
WordPerfect 6.0 file to a WordPerfect 5.2 user.).

They bounce a lot. Because of their larger size, they 'time out' more
often
than standard ASCII text. Some Mail Servers throw a wobbler at some of
the
characters used for encoding. End result is I get 15 to 20 bounced
errors
for every binary sent. I don't like that.

So in short, 1.) People don't like spending a long time downloading
		 something they won't be able to read anyway.
	     2.) I don't like bounced errors.
	     3.) It slows basils mail que down.

SO DON'T DO IT.

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| Adam Delafield, I.T. Officer	      | Bolton Institute,  |
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