This is the mail archive of the cygwin@cygwin.com mailing list for the Cygwin project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]
Other format: [Raw text]

Re: For The Record: HTML Email on the Internet; RFC 2557


I swore to myself I wouldn't get involved here, but I've been known to
break my promises (to myself) on occasion.  Besides, I saw a comment I
felt compelled to respond to (so I might as well express my views).
Rant below... don't say you weren't warned!

On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Chalres grey wolf Banas wrote:

> On Thu, 10 Apr 2003 17:04:25 -0700, Randall R Schulz <rrschulz at cris dot com>
> wrote:
> [snip]
> or what about people using palm pilots who can't read fancy emails?  or the
> system administrators who use Pine to remotely read their email because
> they don't have the ability to use a remote client?

Pine shows HTML mail just fine (except for image placeholders).  Since the
complaint was about formatting, rather than using images, I think the pine
argument doesn't hold.  FWIW, neither does the Palm one (mine renders HTML
just fine).

> you'd be jacking them all by sending HTML.  parsing bad HTML that clients
> like Outlook output is painful.

Oh, and pine has a nice feature that lets you see HTML source...  Just
thought I'd mention that...

> > By far most of the HTML mail is UCE. Some of that is grotesque (not for
> > its message content, but for its presentation) but even the spam is
> > mostly decent HTML.

I'm more of a live-and-let-live person myself.  I don't care if there's
plenty of simple HTML mail around.  I, personally, find HTML mail
distasteful, perhaps because most of the HTML mail I receive *is* spam.
However, I have nothing against, say, the <b> or <i> tags...  Besides, I
write HTML in vim, so what do I know, right?..

What I *am* annoyed with are multipart-mixed messages...  They actually do
*double* the content for no purpose other than accomodating text-only
clients.  If you want to send HTML mail, do it, but don't send *both* text
and HTML.

If you have a client that doesn't grok HTML, either get a better client,
or install a procmail filter that parses HTML into text (easy enough)...
or bounce the mail... or even show HTML as text.  If the messages really
only contain simple tags, like <b> or <i> (or <br>), they should be
readable with the naked eye (as text), right?.

> case in point.  it's annoying.  you've said so yourself, though not in so
> many words.  you have to configure your client to use the MS parser or else
> it's a little buggy.  that'd be enough to annoy me.

Did I mention I had nothing against *simple* HTML mail?  Well, the
abovementioned ain't it.  Things that are unreadable in the source
shouldn't be sent.  If you need 50 lines of JavaScript to convey your
thoughts, I don't want to know them (except for the JavaScript code
forums).

> it's my choice and i stick by it.  you're forcing your opinion on us.

I don't think that saying "why not allow more than one format" is called
"forcing opinion"...  It's rather the other way around, IMO.

To summarize: I think *simple* HTML is not a problem, but any mailing list
moderator who defines what *simple* is will be branded a dictator, and
there will be complaints aplenty.  One solution is to grit your teeth an
bear it.  Another is to give in and allow a little more HTML, then a
little more, until finally you get 800 line messages with 2 lines of
actual content...  And yet another solution is to ban HTML altogether,
which is the simplest in the long run.

Just my 2c.
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
      |\      _,,,---,,_		pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu
ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		igor at watson dot ibm dot com
     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the
death, your right to say it.  -- Voltaire


--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Bug reporting:         http://cygwin.com/bugs.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]