Re: [DEB-USER] OT: Flamebait: Text vs HTML email
On Wed, Jul 24, 2002 at 03:18:23PM -0500, Kent West wrote:
<snip>
> There are indeed good reasons for using plain text. However, email is
> for conveying information, and it seems to me that more info can be
> conveyed with HTML than with text. Bandwidth issues and filesize issues
> are less of an issue today than five years ago (realizing that some
> parts of the world still live in 1200baud-and-pay-by-the-minute Land).
> Text-manipulation may be a bit more difficult with HTML, but surely
> that's solvable.
You've pegged one reason for avoiding HTML email. You're on a list along
with people all over the world, many of whom pay by minute/bandwidth for
their access. Swelling email to possibly three times its normal size
puts an additional burden on these people, one they did not ask for.
> To me, the most significant compelling reason to stick to plain text for
> email is for those text-only email readers.
>
> Can text-only mail readers (ie mutt) be designed to read HTML messages?
> After all, lynx is a "text-only" app that can deal with HTML; why can't
> mutt, etc? If so, then why not use HTML? If not, does the "cost" of
> abandoning text-only readers outweigh the cost of reduced information
> flow, or is the opposite true (or perhaps it's a tie)?
As you can discern, I use mutt for my MTA. Yes, mutt can deal with HTML
email-- it strips out the HTML and shows you the text. And of course,
that defeats the purpose of sending HTML email.
Here's another problem with HTML email. My wife runs Netscape under
Windows for her email. When she gets porn (HTML) spam, it automatically
paints those images on her screen-- something she would rather avoid.
Moreover, many times HTML email contains links to images and such which
necessitate your (graphical) email client fetching the images from the
net. More bandwidth usage. And don't forget that even here in the U.S.,
many many people still have dialup access, as opposed to broadband.
Paul
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