Re: HTML formatted email

From: "Boling, David E." <bolingde@co.rowan.nc.us>
To: <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2001 7:22 AM
Subject: RE: HTML formatted email


> Chris, I get the HTML mail, it's the others that don't.

Yeah, I was mostly just issuing a reply to the whole thread and so I wanted
to cover all the stuff in one post instead of making several replies. I
was't picking on you. I just pick on John Taylor. When we drew names,
someone else got yours. ;-)

> I guess my first point is, that if you can't receive HTML mail you already
> have a work around (stripper, reformat program, whatever) or otherwise
your
> not able to read a great deal (most?) of the email being sent in the world
> already.  I can easily strip HTML out of an email, but the reverse
wouldn't
> accomplish anything.

That is not a valid assumption, especially on this list. People receiving
mail on this list are interested in learning more about the operations of an
IBM midrange machine, they are not out here emailing to the world. We are
not discussing the issues around the use of HTML email in the world in
general. We are discussing it as a means of addressing this audience here.
The majority of Internet servers are Unix variants. That doesn't mean we
should be discussing all about Unix here. Everyone needs to deal with
sunlight, but we don't need to discuss sunblock here.

If you were writing an email to a specific person, Bob Q.
Gottalousyemailpackage, and you knew that his emailer could not deal with
HTML well and that your message would show up looking like the bottom of a
birdcage and you sent it anyway, who's the idiot? You or Bob?

And when Bob told you, "Please don't send me emails in HTML since you can
just click the "no HTML" setting." and you kept sending in HTML, who's the
idiot? You or Bob?

Well, on this list, you are not sending to the world at large or the
Internet community at large. You are specifically sending to the users who
have come here, some with lousy email packages, to send and receive messages
about the Midrange marketplace. While it surely might be the place to
discuss whether or not HTML is the future of computing, that doesn't make it
any smarter to keep sending HTML email to Bob.

> We do broadcast TV programs to radio all the time, with is then stripped
of
> the images.  Much like  HTML being stripped of formatting for a text user.
> Which leads to my second point...We didn't stop T.V. from being used
because
> some people only had a radio.

Again, it seems like the confusion here is that you are confusing "the
industry at large" or "the world at large" with the real issue. The issue
here is one of a specific user (the one sending the message. That is who I
meant by "you" not you in particular in my example) sending a message to a
target audience.

If I have a message to deliver to 100 people, and I know that some of them
only have radios, I am doing the wrong thing if I format my message for TV
just because I like that media better or I think it is the better media. I
will fail in my attempt to deliver my message to the 100 people. I will
deliver my message to only those who can receive it. In doing so, I will
probably insult the guys with radios to whom I broadcasted what they could
not interpret, soaking up their bandwidth with a message not intended for
them.

If you already know before you send your email that A: Some of the
recipients will find it difficult or impossible to read. B: You could send
it in a format that all of the recipients could read easily, then why not
fix it?

The reason doesn't have to do with the computing world at large. You can
send HTML emails to all kinds of people around the world.

I am not saying this next part is true of you, I am saying it is the
perception that can be created. See, when you (global "you" not specific)
send that HTML email anyway, knowing it is causing problems for the
recipients, to them it might seem that you are lazy and rude. They knew the
email didn't have to be junked up, but it was sent that way anyway.

>  >:)
>
> David Boling (bolingde@co.rowan.nc.us)
> Information Systems Director
> Rowan County Information Systems Department
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Rehm [mailto:javadisciple@earthlink.net]
> Sent: Friday, July 20, 2001 12:57 AM
> To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject: Re: HTML formatted email
>
>
> I had to comment re. NS 6.1.
>
> It's a beta, of course, but the reason I dumped it was it mangled my email
> files. I discovered that sometimes when I went to read old emails because
I
> needed to clip a quote or grab a url, the email stored didn't match the
> header displayed. This bothered me when I discovered junk emails that I
> thought had been deleted were stored under the headers of emails I had
> wanted to keep.
>
> I mention this because it can be a danger to people who (like me) keep
their
> emails sorted by the information they contain for future reference.
>
> About the HTML formatted email, there are lots of very good reasons for
> using HTML emails. The foolishness of calling HTML emails "fluff" or
"pretty
> pictures" ignore the world of graphic information delivery and
> interpretation. Even if all that could be achieved was a more pleasant
> format, that alone would be good reason to use it, as it surely is a
benefit
> to have emails that are more pleasant to read.
>
> What is annoying is that some people who use HTML based email do it just
to
> be using it. Their "special" emails show up with poor formatting,lousy
font
> selection, light colored text on light colored background, and many other
> problems. There are some of these people emailing here on this list who
> apparently have no clue as to what their emails look like when received or
> they are perhaps _trying_ to look annoying or incompetent.
>
> HTML is a great tool for providing well formatted text that is easier and
> more pleasant to read. But only if the user has some clue of how to do
that.
>
> The more important issue is that here in this group there are readers who
> cannot wade through the html or find it difficult to do so. If a person
> writing a message really intends to make it easier to read and to more
> clearly deliver his/her message, then they would take into account the
fact
> that using HTML in this setting just makes them seem more obtuse.
Otherwise,
> it would appear the sender is just trying to look like someone who has
fancy
> HTML more than they are trying to deliver a message.
>
> You don't keep broadcasting TV images to people with radio receivers just
> because TV is a better format.
>
> David might be able to solve this by getting a mail handling program that
> checks mime types and strips the HTML ones. Most emailers which support
HTML
> will allow the user to send in BOTH HTML and text format in the same
> message. Usually, the receiving emailer would select which to view,
ignoring
> the format it cannot handle. Since this is obviously not happening it
could
> be that David could implement a package that strips the HTML type from the
> message before forwarding and before archiving.
>
> Then maybe we could all quit whining about what our messages look like and
> get back to complaining about the drivel they contain.
>


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