I think this question of nofill (defaults et al) is being muddled
by a lack of recognition of one issue, some UA are capable of
presenting justified text from simple inspection of an ascii
stream, others have to modify that stream in order to convince
a dumb display agent to display it for them.
When the user retains access to the original form of the
message, no harm is done by such modification, but if the
user is made to cope with the results of the interjected
spaces and reflowed lines, then one has to pause for thought.
I think the default state should be nofill, it seems cleaner to me.
I observe that Wordperfect is unique among the wordprocessors
of my acquaintance in that it presumes full justification
by default, Word, Writenow, Fullwrite Pro, Nissus, MacWrite
all use system-justified as the default (ie, if system is
arabic, right justified, for swedish, left justified).
I wonder if there is any corelation between those who are
arguing for full-justification and a preference for WP?
--
dana s emery <de19(_at_)umail(_dot_)umd(_dot_)edu>