[Mimedefang] Rewarding plaintext

[Graham Dunn]

On Thu, Oct 16, 2003 at 09:16:19AM -0400, David F. Skoll wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, Cormack, Ken wrote:
> 
> > On a busy server, it is possible your "nice pool" could remain full for
> > several days.  How many times would you plan on tempfailing an HTML-based
> > message?  If you keep tempfailing the same message every time, the sending
> > server would eventually expire the message, undelivered after x-number of
> > days, etc.
> 
> Another option would be to record a hash of all the messages received,
> and allow plaintext ones through immediately, but tempfail HTML ones
> "n" times, where n is a small number that depends on how much penalty you
> wish to apply.  (The hash lets you key the counter to the message.)
> 
> Of course, this means that you server will consume n times the usual bandwidth
> to process HTML messages, so you hurt yourself as much as (or more than)
> senders of HTML messages.
> 
> Yet another option would be to shunt HTML messages into a queue where they
> sit (consuming disk space, but not CPU time) for a specified time, after
> which they are delivered.  This would add a constant delay for all HTML
> messages.

And perhaps there's a MIME type that would signal outlook to deliver
a mild electric shock through the keyboard when it opened an HTML
message.

Given the near-religious fervour that some of the users around here
have for HTML mail, I think aversion therapy via electrocution has a
higher probability of success.

Alternatively, material rewards for good behaviour:
"Good user, sent the memo in plain text. You get a pellet."

Graham