Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 01:16:17 -0700 (MST)
Subject: New Bulletin E-mail Format 

Sent to the Northwest and Utah lists (differences noted below)

This is to explain the recent html format which is in a trial phase and 
the possibility of duplicate bulletins.

Today we began a new approach to our e-mail advisory service. We are 
trying the e-mailing of our webpage in html, with an effort at including a 
text version for non-html e-mail readers. Your feedback is important in 
determining whether to move to this approach or not.

I read all csac mail in a non-html reader (pine) right on our server in a 
non-public directory, for security among other reasons. So this new 
approach is not driven by an affinity for html mail on our part. But the 
internet has moved forward with html mail and we feel it has the potential 
to better serve the many people who do use it.

The format used at the moment is to send the html version but to include a
text version which is commented out from the html at the top. Ideally,
text readers will ignore the html codes and display the text first
followed by the raw html. That is what happens on my reader here.
Hopefully this allows for either type of mail reader.

We have a few options, depending on what most people prefer:

1) Go to the new format

2) Temporarily return to the text format and tweak the new format to be 
sent as a multi-part mime message. (This was tried in some tests but still 
presents difficulties.)

3) Go back to the former text format entirely

4) Maintain two separate lists. However, this introduces more work for us 
and given the size of the current lists it is unlikely that running more 
lists which are all smaller will be feasible. Especially with financial 
support diminishing at the moment.

Please let us know what you think over the next few days. I think we will
run this list in the new mode into or through the weekend and then decide
what to do based on feedback.

In the course of implementing the new format there were a few bugs. Our 
webpage used a javascript to open a custom window for one link, and one of 
the first versions sent out included this. Since javascript in an e-mail 
is often flagged as a possible security problem we have changed the page 
and eliminated the script. You should not receive anything more which 
contains any scripts. We also had to resend todays bulletin a few times to 
get it right, so I apologize for the duplicates.

[The following paragraph went to csac-caic (Colorado) only]

We did receive one comment that somebody has been getting duplicate 
bulletins. This can happen once in a while but has so far been uncommon. 
If it has been happening regularly you may be subscribed more than once 
somehow. On this Colorado list it can happen if our script picks up a 
changed bulletin before the state avalanche center has completely updated 
all three zones. In this case when our script runs again in another hour 
the final changes are picked up and the bulletin is sent again. If this 
proves to be common we will invest time in improving the script, but if it 
only happens infrequently we may leave it alone.

[The following paragraph went to csac-utah (Utah) only]

There have also been problems in the past, including earlier this season, 
with duplicate bulletins being sent out. In the case of Utah this results 
from the Forest Service avalanche center issueing the bulletin early in a 
rush and then modifying the wording after releasing it. The copies often 
seem the same in a brief reading, but when we've done a file comparison we 
have found, in every case, that the wording has been changed. We have a 
script which checks every hour for a changed bulletin, and if it has 
changed it is mailed. Due to the pervasive problems with rewording on the 
Utah bulletin one of our goals this season is to modify the script to send 
only one bulletin a day. Any updates or changes will be reflected on the 
web version within one hour of being made by the Forest Service. At the 
moment I don't know when we will get to this, but improvements to the 
bulletins in general are currently high on the task list. From the html 
e-mail to improved glossing to eliminating duplicates.

[The following paragraph went to both lists again]

I hope this explains the recent changes and the duplicates which may be
sent out some days. Thanks for hanging in there during our efforts at
improving our services and please let us know whether you like or dislike
the html mail, or are indifferent as long as you can read a text version
at the top (which would actually be my response).

Thanks,

Jim

-- 
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      Cyberspace Snow and Avalanche Center (CSAC)
      131 NW 4th St Suite 397, Corvallis OR 97330

       http://www.csac.org        snow@csac.org

              Jim Frankenfield; Director
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