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List:       majordomo-users
Subject:    Re: HTML-enabled mailing lists
From:       "Otis Gospodnetic" <otis () POPULUS ! net>
Date:       1999-03-30 0:09:12
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Hello,

>I'd hoped that perhaps participating in this could open the
>eyes of some to the fact that not EVERYONE -- despite what you
>may think in your little high-tech, high-budget ivory tower --
>can access HTML email.  Apparently, though, just pointing that


I'm not sure, but aren't isn't there a number of web sites that will give
you an email address and an email reader that can handle HTML, because they
are web-based?

>To my mind, an advance in technology that isn't usable by every-
>one is at best premature, and at worst an example of shoddily
>done tech by short-sighted, self-focused individuals with a
>tenuous grasp on reality.


uh, if companies would wait for everyone to catch up before introducing new
technology we wouldn't be here now.
You may not have an email reader that handles HTML, but some people don't
even have a phone, how dare you have a phone, a modem, and an ISP?

>Back to my main point:  Whether or not you can download the
>latest HTML-enabled browser "for free" or otherwise, there are
>still a huge number of people who use email regularly who will
>not be able to use it.  As HTML mail does _not_ "degrade
>gracefully" (a text-only email client gets a bunch of HTML crap
>spewed on their screen)

only if the sender sends HTML as text (i.e. Content-type: text/plain
header).
I'll send you an HTML message and you read it with something like Pine
(plain text only email reader) and you'll see that you won't get garbage on
the screen.
Those who send HTML as plain-text and expect receivers to see HTML should be
shot, I hate that, too.

>sending HTML-based email will exclude a
>number of people, many of whom are unable to upgrade because of
>their particular economic conditions or physical disabilities.


many people still have lynx, but you do have images on your web pages, no?
some have 9.600 bps modem, and lynx, and you have web pages with 10K+
images, no?

>I, personally, am not interested in ignoring such people as
>useless "left-behinds" whose participation won't be missed.


me neither, that's why you offer backwards compatibility - plain text also,
not just HTML.
See http://www.dominis.com/Zines/ByCategoryComputers/ for an example.

Otis
--
The eZines Database -- http://www.dominis.com/Zines/

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