Re: yahoo groups mangles some syntax?

Here are more pictures showing the problems I saw 
last month. I finally got back around to this.

To make it more clear, I've marked (encircled) the
problems. In the three cases showing the mangling (the
glitch), you will see "foo" drop out, or you will see 
HTML interpreted, instead of literally displayed.

1) Reading post in yahoo mail:
http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/parker-fuzzy/media/ReadPostToYahooGrps-InYahooEmail-Feb-3-13-ProblemsCircled_zps7ea55c3d.gif.html

2) Reading post on sed-users website, chrome browser:
http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/parker-fuzzy/media/ReadPostToYahooGrps-InChrome-Feb-3-13-ProblemCircled_zpsb89ce909.gif.html

3) Reading post on sed-users website, firefox browser:
http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/parker-fuzzy/media/ReadPostToYahooGrps-InFirefox-Feb-3-13-ProblemCircled_zps1445629c.gif.html

These problems are NOT currently occurring. In other 
words, yahoo groups is now displaying the literal text 
characters, instead of trying to interpret characters 
as HTML. I'm glad it's working now.

This was not some local problem with my computer or 
browser. As I mentioned before, I tested with three 
separate devices: windows xp computer, windows 7 
laptop, ipod touch. On each device, I tested with 
several browsers. In February, the mangling occurred 
on every device/browser combo. Now no problems occur.

http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?page=content&id=SLN4391&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1364167824501&locale=en_US&y=PROD_GRPS
is a cryptic yahoo "help" message which suggests the HTML 
display may somehow depend on the egroup attachment setting. 

However, the same problems were occurring in a test group 
I created, and the problems also went away on the test group. 
And I didn't change any settings. So I don't think the 
glitches were caused by any setting on sed-users group. 
Or maybe our group moderator figured something out and
fixed the problem...

Anyway, nothing to be done at this point. My best guess
is somebody at yahoo screwed something up, it got reported, 
it got fixed up. I just wanted to document this in case 
it ever comes up again, because it was so confusing and
frustrating when sed syntax was being incorrectly displayed.

--- In [email protected], "Daniel" <dagoldman@...> wrote:
>
> I started a new topic (should have done this before), 
> because this has diverged from N / N+1 topic. You can 
> see previous posts under N / N+1 topic. I know this 
> "mangling" is not directly about sed. But I think it 
> matters that everyone sees syntax as a poster intended.
> 
> Thanks for sending screenshot of your MUA. I repeated 
> the test from a test yahoo group I made. Email sent to 
> Thunderbird email client displays the syntax correctly. 
> So not a total failure. MUA works. But here's the 
> apparent score so far, for three environments:
> 
> A) yahoo groups archive mangles some syntax.
> B) yahoo email reader mangles some syntax.
> C) MUA (Thunderbird and at least one other) works.
> 
> Two out of three tested environments seem subject
> to failure. Kind of a problem... Especially because 
> A) should be the archive, the common reference.
> 
> The basic cause seems to be yahoo "knows about"
> HTML tags and entities, is not a text-only thing.
> But our discussion are really text-only (I think).
> 
> I have no idea how often this arises in practice.
> Certainly caused me confusion in viewing (on web
> site) N / N+1 replies. The replies seemed way off.
> Then I looked back at mine, saw the mangling...
> 
> A partial workaround might be "don't use LT and GT
> as word delimiters when posting", use \b instead.
> 
> Here's some tests I devised. If anyone wants, you 
> can see what gets mangled in your environment. In 
> my tests, 2, 4, 6, 7, 16, 17, 18, 19 don't display 
> properly for environments A) and B). Dan
> 
> #1 - Using \bfoo\b syntax:
> 
> s:(.*)\bfoo\b(.*)\n(.*)\bbar\b(.*):\1FOO\2\n\3BAR\4:
> 
> #2 - Using \<  \> (BackSlash-LT BackSlash-GT) syntax:
> 
> s:(.*)\<foo\>(.*)\n(.*)\<bar\>(.*):\1FOO\2\n\3BAR\4:
> 
> #3 Using HTML entities for GT and LT:
> 
> s:(.*)\&lt;foo\&gt;(.*)\n(.*)\&lt;bar\&gt;(.*):\1FOO\2\n\3BAR\4:
> 
> #4 \<foo\> is foo surrounded by BackSlash-LT and BackSlash-GT.
> #5 \&lt;foo\&gt; is same as #4, with HTML entities for LT and GT.
> 
> #6 &bull; is HTML bull entity. Displays as bullet or as literal?
> #7 &nbsp; is HTML nbsp entity. Shows space or literal?
> 
> #8 < is LT all by it's lonesome.
> #9 &lt; is also LT, but as HTML entity.
> 
> #10 > is GT all by it's lonesome.
> #11 &gt; is also GT, but as HTML entity.
> 
> #12 \< is BackSlash-LT all by it's lonesome.
> #13 \&lt; is also BackSlash-LT, but LT as HTML entity.
> 
> #14 \> is BackSlash-GT all by it's lonesome.
> #15 \&gt; is also BackSlash-GT, but GT as HTML entity.
> 
> #16 <strong>Hi</strong> is Hi surrounded by "strong" tags.
> #17 <i>Hello</i> is Hello surrounded by "italic" tags.
> 
> #18 <br> is HTML br tag. Shows as literal?
> #19 <p> is HTML p tag. Shows as literal?
> 
> > 
> > Well, I viewed it with a MUA, not using webmail.
> > 
> > Screenshot here: http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/6656/email2y.png
> > 
> > Looking at the source, I see these headers:
> > 
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> > 
> > Hope this helps.
> > 
> > -- 
> > D.
> >
>