[tz] Charset for Digest Emails

[Paul Eggert]

On 2023-01-30 18:30, Owen Leibman via tz wrote:
> Is there a setting that could/should be changed so that the digest is sent with the same header?

I hope so, though I don't manage the mailing list so I don't know the 
details.

While we're on the subject, I see problems even with non-digests, as the 
old Pipermail 0.09 (Mailman edition) software used to create the TZDB 
mailing archive has problems with not just charsets, but also with 
format=flowed and with multipart emails. The Gzip'd Text downloads are 
munged too.

I don't know how to file a trouble ticket for this sort of thing. 
Perhaps it's time for icann.org to upgrade to Mailman 3?

Here are examples of the problems:


* Wrong charset in archive:

https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/attachments/20230124/95019648/0001-Remove-UNUSUAL_OK_IPA.patch

This was sent with the following header in the attachment:

Content-Type: text/x-patch; charset=UTF-8;
  name="0001-Remove-UNUSUAL_OK_IPA.patch"
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="0001-Remove-UNUSUAL_OK_IPA.patch"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

Unfortunately, mm.icann.org loses the "x-patch" and "charset=UTF-8", as 
it replaces the Content-Type with "text/plain":

$ wget -S 
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/attachments/20230124/95019648/0001-Remove-UNUSUAL_OK_IPA.patch 
2>&1 | grep -i Content-Type:
   Content-Type: text/plain

This causes most browsers to misdisplay the text: for example, Firefox 
displays "UNUSUAL_OK_LATIN_1 = 
¡¢£¤¥¦§¨©«¬®¯°±²³´¶·¸¹»¼½¾¿×÷" instead of 
the correct "UNUSUAL_OK_LATIN_1 = ¡¢£¤¥¦§¨©«¬®¯°±²³´¶·¸¹»¼½¾¿×÷". This 
problem seems limited to attachments, as I do not see similar problems 
with <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2019-June/028158.html> where the 
patch was sent directly not as an attachment, and where non-ASCII 
strings like "Phù Liễn" are correctly translated into HTML ASCII 
equivalents like "Phù Liễn".


* format=flowed misdisplay:

https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2023-January/032565.html

This was sent with "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; 
format=flowed" but the HTML web page is rendered with fixed columns 
which means the display looks ragged on cell phones. On my cell phone it 
looks like the following, which is hard to read (it's not free verse!):

> theory.html says, "If boundaries between
> regions are fluid, such as
> during a war or insurrection, do not bother to
> create a new timezone
> merely because of yet another boundary change."
> That seems to be the
> case here.

* Multipart email issues:

https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2023-January/032575.html

This shows up on my browser as:

> Hello:
>     Maybe it's wrong to calculate local time by using the latest version tzdada2022g when zoneid is "America/Ojinaga".
> 
> Thanks
> 
> 
> 
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/attachments/20230131/a0d8ac2a/attachment.html>

and although I prefer plain text it'd be nice if there were a 
more-intuitive way to switch back and forth between text and html 
alternatives.