Re: Stripping multipart/alternative messages and accepting the text/plainpart.

[Per Bothner <per at bothner dot com>]

On 02/27/2012 12:52 PM, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> Dear Overseers,
>
> I know that @sourceware.org doesn't support receiving
> HTML email to the mailing lists. I have read the reasons
> in the FAQ.

Yeah - the linked-to page [0] gives good reasons for not allowing
arbitrary HTML in email.  However. HTML has many benefits [1],
and if you restricting yourself to a safe-and-sane" subset of HTML [2]
then I don't think the reasons in [0] are valid [3].

This is similar to blog sites that allow comments in a restricted
subset of HTML.  With just a Small Matter of Programming [4], we
should allow the same.

[0] http://www.frontierfleet.net/email/

[1] Re-flow, section headers, unambiguous hyper-links, lists/tables.
optionally images, em/strong/code, math, etc etc.

[3] Is there some existing suitable standard for "safe-and-sane" HTML
for emails (or blog comments)?  I'm guessing there is.

[4] (a) The concern about bad font sizes doesn't apply to restricted
HTML - and regardless, the mail reader or user could override that.
(b) The concern about a text mode HTML reader displaying raw tags
seems pretty silly.  Haven't they heard of lynx/elinks/...?
Processing restricted HTML isn't that difficult.
"Many people still use terminals instead of computers to read email."
Name two.
(c) Digest creation is a bogus concern.  The digester can run
the HTML though lynx before creating the digest - if anyone cares.
(Are digests good for much besides having people incorrectly reply
to the digest?  People who are competent to use digests correctly
are competent to set up filters.)
(d) Message/disk size for restricted HTML is trivial.
(e) Viruses are not an issue for restricted HTML.

[4] I realize nobody has spare time, so I'm not complaining.  But this
luddite "HTML email is evil" mantra gets tiresome.  It needs to stop.
--
	--Per Bothner
per@bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/