[cobalt-users] Netiquette: HTML email

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've just gotten an email from someone who read me on this list.  He shall 
remain nameless; I'm sure his mistake is honest.

I can't easily read it.

Many of who use Linux as our operating systems do NOT read HTML mail.

HTML is NOT a standard Internet email protocol.

Microsoft decided arbitrarily to add it.  A lot of other vendors 
followed.  That doesn't make it right.  There are still an awful lot of 
mail clients out there that don't read HTML mail.  And most HTML mail is 
about three times larger than regular email with exactly the same content.

While my current email client CAN read HTML email, I don't enable the 
capability; I don't consider it a feature, but in fact, a bug.

I do read HTML email from my clients; after all, I'm being paid to do so, 
so I don't mind going through the extra steps.  But I do try to educate 
them to not use HTML email, especially on professional forums, and to 
mailing lists in general.

I also try to read HTML email on this (and a few other lists); it's a lot 
easier when your client sends both HTML and plaintext copies, though that 
is exactly what makes the message three times the size, wasting data 
transfer and bandwidth (which a lot of people outside of the US pay for; in 
the United Kingdom (England) people actually pay to download their email, 
for example.

Please turn off HTML email if you're going to operate in the unix/linux world.

Thanks <smile>!

Jeff

--
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>