From:  "Jonathan Cass" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
   Date:  Fri, 14 Jan 2005 09:39:30 -0500

   I assume that the
   original post had something to do with the fact that you recently uses a
   font in a post that made me feel as if I am being yelled at/assaulted, but
   without the prior post from I can only guess.

This is a pet peeve of mine, so I'm going to rant a little.

In the early days, email was just content.  The person reading the
email decided how the message would be displayed: font, size, color,
etc.  The message could be put through a text to speech generator for
a blind person, could be displayed in two inch tall yellow letters on
a black background for a person with bad eyes, or could be displayed
in 6 pt type for someone with good eyes using a very small screen.

When the web first came out, the idea was that the web site would
provide the content, and the reader would determine the presentation.
The web site would mark certain text as "emphasized", etc, but the
reader's browser would decide what that meant.  Again, you could
configure your browser to use whatever colors, sizes, and fonts you
wanted.  "Emphasized" might mean "louder" on a voice synthesizer for a
blind person.

Then, people started using the web for advertising, and advertisers
don't care about what the reader wants - the reader doesn't want to
see the advertisement in the first place!  Advertisers wanted to put
their slogans in 2 inch tall blinking red new-ultra-bling-bling font
with dancing tigers on either side.  

Personally, I read my email with a simple text based mail reader, so
it all looks the same.  It's in the font, color, and size that I
choose.  That means that I can't put the "I" in the previous sentence
in bold for emphasis, but it also means that the presentation is
customized for each reader.  It appears in their default font and
color, which they can set to be whatever they choose.

Most email programs allow you to choose the format of your messages.
"Text only with line breaks" will send a message that can be read on
any system, by anyone, without annoying anyone.

Also, many spam filters look for flashy, attention grabbing special
effects, and mark those messages as possibly spam.  If you want your
messages to get through the filters, use "Text only with line breaks".
We had a person at work who put part of her signature in large red
letters; all of her messages got blocked by the spam filter until we
figured out the problem.

--- Chip
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