Cohousing-L Mailing List: URLs in email / Archive long line problem fixed

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

I'm pleased that the Cohousing-L archives have been modified so that the
"long line problem" has been fixed.  Before this some modest percentage of
messages arrived in a format that got archived as very long lines (several
screens wide which required awkward horizontal scrolling to be read).
This problem ahs been solved by the ISP that hosts the list
( http://tigertech.net ) and the entire archive rebuilt.

This makes it even easier to read messages via the archives rather than
getting them by email if one desires.

Some people have subscribed to the C-L-sum WEEKLY SUMMARY list which also
facilitates reading the discussion via the archives.  But it is still to
early to tell how useful it is.  See

"NEW LOW VOLUME EMAIL way to follow Cohousing-L"
http://lists.cohousing.org/pipermail/cohousing-l/msg23552.html

I'd also like to urge people to take more care in including URL's in
their messages:

Suggestions related to putting URLs (web addresses) in email.

1) Be sure to include the "http://"; part on URL's you cite in
email.  Without this archane string, some email programs and
most listserv archives do not make them into clickable links. One
can still cut and paste to view them but that makes them much
less likely to be followed.

Examples of archived messages which contain non clickable URLs
at end of message:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cohousing-L/message/16569
http://lists.cohousing.org/archives/cohousing-l/msg21047.html
http://www.mnforum.org/pipermail/mpls/2004-December/036935.html


2) If the URL is too long to fit on one line of an email message,
(which can cause it to be broken between two lines which complicates
going to it) you can easily make a short URL that goes to the
document by copying the long url from your browser when you are
viewing the document online and pasting it into the form at:
http://makeashorterlink.com

Then put the short URL that is provided into your email message.

3) BTW the "www." portion of URLs is not usually needed (and should
not be needed if the server is set up right (IMHO :) so if you use
"http://"; you can drop the "www." and still be clear that you are
listing a URL.  Thus
http://cohousing.org        instead of
http://www.cohousing.org

Fred, listserv manager

-- 
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
Communications for Justice - My new listserv org.       UU, Linux
My Link Page: http://fholson.cohousing.org       Ham radio:WB0YQM
fholson at cohousing.org   612-588-9532   (7am-10pm Central time)