Re: [tlug] [Was: Why Hollywood does break foreign films ?] Changing subject in thread.

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Benjamin Tayehanpour writes:

 > I will of course bend to the wishes of the group. However, for
 > peace of mind on my part, would you, just to indulge me, give me a
 > rational reason not to?

Aside from the reasons in my earlier post, which can be summarized
"Webmail propaganda notwithstanding, 'rich-text' email implementations
still suck", from your point of view "your text/html parts get thrown
away by the mailing list" might be more convincing.  (I don't know if
TLUG does this, but the capability is present in Mailman, and widely
used on technical lists, where the practice can save 60-80% of the
space used by individual messages.  Total saving is less, because most
messages are text/plain.)

 > "(...) whether it can be handled or not" suggests that the fact
 > that the MUA will present the text correctly regardless has no
 > bearing on what people prefer.  It makes no sense:

Of course it does.  The HTML part (and GIF background, but I digress)
bloat my spools and archives dramatically.

 > If a person who prefers plain text (with a client thus instructed)
 > is presented with plain text, and a person who prefers enriched
 > text (again, with a client thus instructed) receives enriched text,
 > surely that leaves just one type of user unhappy, namely the one
 > who couldn't be bothered to bend his or her client to his or her
 > will?

True, *presuming* high-quality implementation and appropriate user
configuration (including automatic disposal of redundant text/* parts,
which nothing does by default AFAIK).  But how about one whose MUA
expects text/plain and gets *only* text/html?  An implementation or
configuration failure, but frequent in my experience.

 > Yet, also almost universally, the concept of adapting to the
 > possibility of rich-text content, strangely, averts this. I don't
 > understand this. I don't like not understanding things. Please
 > explain this anomaly.

It's not rational, but HTML smells like spam to me.  (I'm the proud
(?) recipient of both an actual paper 419 scam letter and the original
Green Card spam post to Usenet; that smell disgusts me.)  The first
filter I imposed on a message body was for no-see-um HTML iframes,
used by worms like Frethem.  95% of the (text parts of the) crap in my
spambucket is HTML.

Adapting to HTML, while theoretically possible, has no really high-
quality implementations that I've seen.

 > So far, the only useful purpose I've seen with a plain-text-only
 > policy is that it invariably gives tenured members a tangible pretext
 > for grousing at those pesky newcomers with their wicked ways :)

It's not that the ways that are wicked, but that there's a whole set
of customs that have evolved.  Use of text/plain mail is one of them.
Relying on precise words rather than emotive formatting is another.
Using regexp-based filters rather than complex applications (like
OpenOffice or Mozilla) to process our mail is another.

 > On 15 August 2013 23:06, Daniel A. Ramaley <daniel.ramaley@example.com> wrote:

 > > For what little it is worth, i agree 100%. If something cannot be
 > > expressed in plain text, then it is my personal belief that the
 > > idea has not been thought through well enough to be expressed
 > > properly.

 > I fail to agree. Typography is just as important when conveying a
 > message. Imagine getting fired in Comic Sans.

I can't, as Comic Sans lacks Japanese glyphs.  My employer would be
unable to express the concept. :-)

 > The only situation in which that would be appropriate would be if
 > you were a professional clown, living in a Bizarro comic strip.

Sure, but in a text/plain world, that's because *you* chose to display
mail in Comic Sans.  You would be living in a Bizarro comic strip!