From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Feb 20 17:00:42 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA15018 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Fri, 20 Feb 1998 17:00:42 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id QAA14703 for ; Fri, 20 Feb 1998 16:58:31 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA04771; Sat, 21 Feb 1998 11:28:23 +1030 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) id LAA22419; Sat, 21 Feb 1998 11:28:22 +1030 (CST) (envelope-from grog) Message-ID: <19980221112822.28459@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 11:28:22 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Steve Hovey , Dennis Tenn Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: HTML mail (was: Email to the lists) References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.89i In-Reply-To: ; from Steve Hovey on Fri, Feb 20, 1998 at 12:56:34PM -0500 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 20 February 1998 at 12:56:34 -0500, Steve Hovey wrote: > On Fri, 20 Feb 1998, Dennis Tenn wrote: >> Why do some people send email as HTML to the lists? It's beginning to >> infuriate me. I'm sorry if this is off topic but I don't think I'm the >> only one that feels this way. I'm now ignoring any messages that come in >> as HTML instead of plain text. > > because microsoft though it was cute to set as a default in 1 or more of > their emailers. FWIW, I'm gradually getting *really* *fed* *up* with badly formulated, illegible mail messages. I send out a frequent posting once a week telling people how to send messages to this list. I point to http://www.lemis.com/email.html, explaining how to configure a mail user agent and how to avoid common pitfalls (the worst, IMO, being single line paragraphs and alternate long/short lines, followed by replies that precede the text to which they're replying). It's of only limited help. The problem isn't so much that people disagree (though some do) with how we like to send mail, it's that a whole lot of the people who send these messages are new to the list, and many of them are new to Email as well. Most of them either adapt or go away again. This is really just part of the bigger problem: Internet usage is increasing rapidly. You're bound to have a whole lot of people who don't know how to use the tools. It's not helped by Microsoft, who tries to reinvent the wheel, badly. Reformatting mail messages and sending them out in HTML by default are only two examples. Greg To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message