On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 8:58 AM, Ben Henick <lurker...@henick.net> wrote: > >> There aren't any contemporary email applications that can't handle >> HTML. Is anyone using one? >> > > There are very few that handle it genuinely well, and the most commonly used > e-mail client implements an ancient rendering engine with all the bugs and > security holes that go along with advanced age.
There are a few mainstream clients that are more common than others. Wouldn't users of older or less common software (especially on this list) would be familiar with problems associated with their software choice? >> Use of HTML and CSS enhances readability and semantics, which can in >> turn enhance accessibility. We know this... it's what we discuss >> continually in this community. >> >> The overhead added by HTML is insignificant by any modern standards. >> > > ...Unless your access to bandwidth is restricted. Since one of the founding > values of this community, and in fact the entire Web, is that it should be > readily accessible to all comers, well... we lead by example, right? I'm living in East Malaysia (Borneo) in an apartment complex that doesn't allow fixed phone lines. My maximum bandwidth down is (theoretically) 1Mb/s and I have a 5Gb cap per month. I can't use any form of streaming video and YouTube means pause and go make a sandwich while it buffers. Is someone out there more restricted than me? With or without the ability to use HTML in our emails, we need to exercise restraint and proper judgment... just like we do with the web pages we design. I am confident that this community would do that if we had the ability to use HTML. >> So, why can't we use HTML... especially in this community. >> > > 1. We need to be able to paste in blocks of production code with confidence > that subscribers will be able to read that code as intended. Who's to say > that given the next round of Windows updates, several thousand people might > just have to twiddle their settings and/or mail management process to read > and respond to list messages well? That's exactly the question that would > hang over the list if HTML was allowed. HTML email would be an option, not a mandate. So, if any user wanted to send a plain text message with a suggested block of code, that wouldn't be any more of a problem than it is now. Wouldn't a properly formatted block of code with proper indentation in a blockquote and a different background color be easier to identify, copy, and paste in an email? Well, I'm never too surprised by problems caused by a Windows update, but most emails are HTML. So, any change needed for this list would be needed anyway. Don't forget that I'm talking about this community, not the internet in general. I think that the vast majority of us know a little bit more about web pages and HTML than the general population. > 2. Every schlub on the planet with reliable Internet access has their own > damnfool way of formatting their HTML e-mails. We don't want anybody to go > blind. Related: Comic Sans. Again... restraint, proper judgment, and more knowledgeable community. > 3. HTML email support is essentially an open invitation to anarchy. Apart > from proverbial blindness, it also poses risks (however small) including but > not limited to pr0n spam, virus delivery, and people doing > goodness-only-knows-what because they think it's cool (cf. plaintext > sigblocks). That's going a bit too far... Anarchy? Look at your inbox. How many of those emails are plain text only. How many of those emails (other than mine :)) caused anarchy? Again ... restraint and proper judgement from a community that is generally more knowledgeable. This is a community. It's potentially self-correcting. If someone posts garbage, several people will complain about it quickly. If it's bad enough, the admin will likely ban the user pretty quickly. I'm probably about to prove my point by getting banned. > 4. If you really want everybody to see really cool s**t, well, every > reasonably current mail client can turn a URL into a link without trouble. > While messages of nothing more than "O hai my site roXX0rz" accompanied > with a link are strongly discouraged, they are not banned outright. > Consider that we'd be seeing a lot more, and much worse, along those lines > of misbehavior (and subsequent censorship) if HTML e-mails were allowed. > > In short, the text-only policy greatly reduces the amount of childishness > and general noise that subscribers are forced withstand in return for the > privilege of access to good advice - enough so that it's worth enforcing > with extreme prejudice. Given Point [4] above, the downside for this group > is negligible-to-nonexistent. I have been lurking for quite a while. I have over 2700 emails in my own personal css-d archive. I've seen very little of that kind of thing. People who are malicious/mischievous *might* try something like that if they had the opportunity, but it just doesn't seem like we have too many people like that in the web development community. >> I imagine that this has been asked before. I didn't check the >> archives, but I would like it to be considered again with the >> opportunity for new feedback from current members. > > I'll suggest that old ideas often hang on for a reason, and leave it at > that. > > All that said, you might feel more welcome in site-driven forum that's more > permissive. There are also Stack Overflow and O'Reilly Answers to consider. hehe I'm a very diversified lurker. I'm very familiar with Stack Overflow and O'Reilly Answers. > > > HTH > -- > Ben Henick Sitebuilder at-large > ------------------------------------------------ > http://www.henick.net/ b...@henick.net > 785.856.1863 t:@bhenick > ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
