Post Clipping

Ed Price · Mar 31, 2006

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My recent reply on the Hermes transmission subject was clipped. Since others added as much as I had said, I won't repost that info. However, others have been hit by this clipping problem as well, so here's what I think causes the problem with Yahoo groups.

All posts have a footer that includes the Amphi group information, a section for sponsored links and Yahoo group links. When you decide to reply to a post, your email program typically puts up a copy of the entire original post. If you then hit SEND, without adding anything, Yahoo accepts this input email and re-posts it to the group. But oddly, the re-posted message doesn't have TWO footers now; it still has onlyONE footer.

I think the Yahoo footer starts out with some invisible control character that tells the Yahoo server, for an incoming email,to clip off everything after that character. Then, before the email is posted to the group, a new footer is appended.

This invisible control character must be located somewhere between the last character the poster typed and the beginning of the footer. If you start typing your reply text, and that text is after the control character, then all of your reply gets clipped as it goes into the Yahoo server. To be sure that you are ahead of this control character, you need to start typing your reply inside the body of the original text. This usually means typing before the original poster's name or signature. It's hard to remember that Yahoo needs you to be slightly rude to post properly, as you need to "step on" the originator's name.

You could also avoid this clipping by top-posting, that is, putting your reply BEFORE the start of the original post. Some people like this, some loath the practice. I guess that depends on whether you like to read top-down or bottom-up.

<div align="left">
<div align="left">Ed Price
<div align="left">El Cajon, CA USA
<div align="left">67 Rust Guppy
<div align="left">
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amphi_sc · Apr 1, 2006

--- In amphicar-lovers@yahoogroups.com, "Ed Price" <wb6wsn@...> wrote:
>
> My recent reply on the Hermes transmission subject was clipped.
Since others
> added as much as I had said, I won't repost that info. However,
others have
> been hit by this clipping problem as well, so here's what I think
causes the
> problem with Yahoo groups.
>
> All posts have a footer that includes the Amphi group information, a
section
> for sponsored links and Yahoo group links. When you decide to reply to a
> post, your email program typically puts up a copy of the entire original
> post. If you then hit SEND, without adding anything, Yahoo accepts this
> input email and re-posts it to the group. But oddly, the re-posted
message
> doesn't have TWO footers now; it still has only ONE footer.
>
> I think the Yahoo footer starts out with some invisible control
character
> that tells the Yahoo server, for an incoming email, to clip off
everything
> after that character. Then, before the email is posted to the group,
a new
> footer is appended.
>
> This invisible control character must be located .....
>
> Ed Price
> El Cajon, CA USA
> 67 Rust Guppy

FWIW, I believe the convention in many programs use is to stop at the
first line that contains a double dash as the first two characters.
i.e. "--" at the start of the line. So if one put the important text
before all the yahooy ads, you will be okay. Typically, invisible
control characters aren't used in cross platform applications, but
rather use an agreed upon convention with standard characters.

Also, if you are trying to put in a long web url for a link, you can
use tinyurl for an alias, or put the link inside < > (less than,
greater than symbols) and it is not supposed to be split or line
wrapped so simple click thrus will still work and not be broken up.

Al H

Post Clipping

Ed Price

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amphi_sc

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