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List:       kde-user
Subject:    Re: OT: vcards html etc.
From:       "Ronald Prague" <ronp () fishnet ! net>
Date:       1999-02-28 18:30:48
[Download RAW message or body]

Bandwidth?

Uh... the additional 2 - 3 k for a piece of mail with a vcard, html and even
security
signatures means positively nothing as far as the great bandwidth debate
goes.
Usenet porn uses 30 - 40% of all active bandwidth out on the net.  You want
to save
bandwidth?  Get rid of every alt.binary.*.sex.porn.nude.crap group and watch
what
happens.

There are enough web sites for this crap, there's no reason to propigate the
same
picture of miss June spreading her clam to 1900 news servers around the US.

There's some bandwidth usage for you.

Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Blosser <jblosser@firinn.org>
To: KDE User List <kde-user@lists.netcentral.net>
Date: Sunday, February 28, 1999 9:10 AM
Subject: Re: OT: vcards html etc.


>Steven T. Hatton [hattons@cpkwebser5.ncr.disa.mil] wrote:
>> I received a polite mail asking me to remove my vcard for my mail.  I am
>> very mixed on this type of restriction.  I remember when I was the first
>> one on my team to use html mail.  Boy did I get flamed!  First because I
>> sent something out that not everybody could parse, and second because
>> they didn't know how to do it.
>
>There is one other reason you are apparently missing, and it's the most
>important one by far: bandwidth.
>
>There is only a limited amount of bandwidth to go around, and it is
>currently running short of the demand.  There just aren't fat/fast enough
>lines in place to carry all the mail/web/ftp/etc traffic efficiently, and
>the net gets slower and slower.
>
>This isn't a reason to stop using the net to its full potential or
>anything, but we can all help make the problem less by not doing things
>that gratuitously waste bandwidth.  Vcards and large sigs may be "slick",
>but when they get sent to something like a list, that additional stuff gets
>sent out a whole lot of times, using up a large amount of bandwidth.  If
>everyone receiving the mail cared to see it each time (like a business card
>sent to people you work with who actually want to see it) then that's one
>thing, but most people on lists like this one don't care or need to see it
>with each and every mail you send.  And I understand the desire to advocate
>Linux, but please consider if this could be better done by having a web
>page with that info and a url in your sig.  This way people only get the
>info if they ask for it.  It's just more polite to them and the net in
>general.
>
>And of course we all like to personalize our mail.... the age-old
netequitte
>convention is that a 4-5 line sig is ok, but anything larger is rude.
>
>With HTML mail you also have to ask the question of added content vs.
>bandwidth.  Yes it is cool and it is pretty, but is that enough to justify
>using it when it makes mails so much larger than they would otherwise be,
>and we are having a bandwidth problem?  Probably not.  HTML mails are
>usually at least 3 times as long as their plain-text counterparts, and they
>don't realy add any useful content, just some colors and such.
>
>Technology will continue to evolve, and someday we will either have the
>bandwidth to allow HTML mail or someone will come up with a more efficient
>way to give text mail some nice layout bells and whistles.  Until that day,
>though, please be considerate of the net and its users and be careful about
>your use of bandwidth.  It is not at all an unlimited resource, despite
>what many people think, and when those people are sending tons of spam and
>forwarded jokes around, those of us who are aware of the issue need to be
>even more careful.
>
>Now I'll stop wasting bandwidth myself and stop writing ;)  But I'll first
>mention (since some may wonder) that yes, I do think adding a PGP signature
>to each message I send is a worthwhile use of extra bandwidth.  Security is
>a fundamental issue, and PGP is so far the best way to deal with it.  Some
>argue we have a shortage of paper, yet they don't send all of their
>important snail mail without an envelope.  Also, widespread use of PGP will
>actually help bandwidth, since once most people use it we will all start
>sending encrypted mails back and forth more often, and those mails are
>actually smaller than their non-encrypted counterparts because part of the
>encryption process is compression (zipping).
>
>--
>Jeremy Blosser   |   jblosser@firinn.org   |   http://jblosser.firinn.org/
>-----------------+-------------------------+------------------------------
>"Would you fight to the death, for that which you love?
>                   In a cause surely hopeless ...for that which you love?"
>                                             -- D. McKiernan, _Dragondoom_
>

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