Re: [gentoo-embedded] HTML vs plaintext email (Was: Correct uclibc profile to use?)

[Matthijs Kooijman]

Hi,

> I think if you really want plain text only then it's far easier to
> just setup the mailing list to convert all mails automatically than it is
> to try and badger users to change their habits...
Actually, I don't really agree with this. True, it solves problems when
dealing with mostly ignorant (Outlook) users, but isn't the right solution in
general. 

In particular, I like to know that the email I'm reading is actually
the way the author had intended it. Any automated HTML->text filter will
remove information.

Now you may argue that this removed information wasn't really useful and can
be left out without harm. This is probably the case most of the time, but in
that case the author shouldn't have been using HTML email in the first place.
So, I'd rather keep on badgering people to write plaintext emails whenever
possible, than having unsuspecting users see their carefully crafted HTML
formatting be ruined by an automated filter.

Still, it is mostly a matter of personal preference in general I think. I
prefer to email with people sending plaintext emails :-p

As pointed out however, most technical mailing lists require, or at least
stimulate, the use of plaintext email, which has been successful so far. I
don't see any problems with this in the near future, so we can probably keep
this up for quite some time :-)

> Personally I think this is a problem solvable by computer and I'm all in
> favour of stuff where teh computer does the work rather than humans having
> to press one more key just to do something
Well, when using proper mailclients, pressing that button shouldn't be
neccesary (apart from the one time marking of a (mailing list) recipient as a
plaintext receiver.

Oh, and your last email did actually turn out plaintext :-)

Gr.

Matthijs