[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk-Users List Etiquette

[Walt Reed]

On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 07:35:31AM -0600, Rich Adamson said:
> Isn't it odd as hell the same people that complain about html are also
> some of the same people that use "special" mail readers to emulate news
> readers? Both seem to want to influence the 8,000 list members their
> tools are the only one's in existence and we better all format our
> list postings to make their tool happy. NOT!

There are several good reasons HTML is bad on mailing lists, and font
issues are among the least important IMO.

First, text is the lowest common denominator. Every mail client supports
it. Second, HTML takes more disk / bandwidth. Remember: this IS exploded
to over 8000 members - HTML is usually  twice as large, and generally
more like 3 or 4 times due to the fact that most MUA's attach both an HTML
and plain text version. Horrible. This increases delays in delivering
each message which increases the chance of multiple people responding to
the same message with the same answer which makes the traffic problem
even worse (of course using a braid-dead email client that can't handle
threading is a greater contributer to this problem.) Third, it messes up
archives and digests. I could go on, but this issue has been rehashed
many times elsewhere. Google.

Some lists are taking proactive measures to handle this. They configure
the software to reject all attachments and HTML, which is a good thing
IMNSHO.
 
> > Steven Critchfield [critch at basesys.com] wrote:
> > > You forgot to add in how awful it is when people  post using HTML and
> > > then override font sizes or assume blue is an appropriate font color for
> > > their message. 
> > > 
> > He also forgot to mention how awful it is when people lazily top-post
> > instead of taking the time to format their followups correctly.
> > This is especially true when trying to follow a thread found in the
> > archives.
> > 
> > I fully agree with your anti-HTML comments, by the way.