The problem that we have in France is that most people use attached
WORD/Microsoft documents instead of using text messages. The main reason is
that the problem with accented characters (8 bits and not ASCII) has been
solved universally only recently with the MIME protocol (its spread is due
to the WEB's spread and not the Email's spread). HTML text messages is a
much better solution than attached documents which are a factor ten or even
fifty bigger than simple HTML documents. Also the need of rich, structured,
colored documents is real. Microsoft has decided to forget proprietary .DOC
files formats in Office 2000, replacing it by default with HTML. Therefore
the compromise seems to me as being promoting HTML text messages (without
sounds or images) instead of attached documents.
--
Nicolas Brouard
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Rich Kulawiec
Sent: Monday, February 15, 1999 1:24 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: HTML in email to lists
On Fri, Feb 12, 1999 at 09:36:57PM -0500, Dr. Rob Higgins wrote:
> And is it reasonable to allow messages to be blown up
> to over 3 times their original size by the inclusion of html?
No, it's not. The overwhelming majority of Internet users cannot
handle such simple tasks as subscribing/unsubscribing, removing
boilerplate text (signatures, message headers/footers), correctly
attributing quoted material, etc. I think it best to stick firmly
by the maxim that ASCII is quite sufficient for mail traffic.
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
