I think you ought to let the READER be the judge of
what the READER finds the most readable... based on
THEIR screen, THEIR vision, THEIR color preferences,
THEIR screen resolution, etc etc.
Argh... I first had this debate over 20 years ago... It is one
of the classic issues in email... I really don't want to drag through
all the detail which would involve endless quotes from Aristotle on the
subject of rhetoric, etc... However, in "classic" communication systems,
the *speaker* is responsible for constructing communications in a form
which is most likely to be understood by his audience. Electronic
communications adds a twist to things, very different from traditional
forms of communications, in that the reader is able to reformat the
"utterance" upon receipt. Nonetheless, the speaker still has
responsibility to do the best he can in forming his utterances...
And the reader or listener, if they don't like the form that the speaker has
chosen to impose, has the absolute right to walk off or to refuse to listen.
Or, in the case of E-mail, to refuse delivery of E-mail that the recipient
judges to be excessively bulky or otherwise unwanted, for any reason that makes
sense to the recipient.
A successful speaker, who presumably wishes to be heard by as many people as
possible, thus ought to accommodate as many recipients as they can.
There is a long set of arguments that would say that properly
formatted HTML would be the best form in which to construct a message
And if the recipient agrees, they'll probably set their permissions list to
allow that style of sending. :-)
In my case (at present at least) my incoming mail filtering system simply
(among
its many other functions!) eliminates all HTML-burdened alternative
attachments,
and if the main body of the message is HTML-burdened then the body is either
truncated entirely or else the great majority of the HTML tags are entirely
removed. [I'm not proposing that as a more general solution for Net-wide
adoption, but it has been working fairly well for me here.]
since the recipient of the message can alter the presentation to adjust
to his own preferences. Thus, a message should be formatted with "<em>"
tags (not "<b>" tags) and the reader will choose how he prefers to see
emphasis rendered in response to the speakers indication that emphasis
be shown. If all messages are sent in ASCII, then the reader has less
control over the message content than if messages are sent in HTML.
Again if the reader agrees with you (and finds that the extra bulk and risk of
HTML is less annoying than the utility to them) then they'll have the option of
allowing HTML to come through, from anyone they trust and/or even 'everybody'.
The choice OUGHT to belong to the person paying the bill, which in this case is
usually the RECIPIENT rather than the sender.
It should not be forgotten that the reader has the option, given
appropriate software, to take an HTML message and have it formatted as
pure ASCII... Lynx based HTML browsers have been doing that for a very
long time...
Yes, although it first must be delivered to them (including occupying space for
however long in the user's ISP-provided Inbox, and consuming bandwidth of their
perhaps-dialup connection (particularly annoying for overseas users who often
pay by the minute for their local calls to connect to their ISP... so it's not
only just TIME, it's also REAL MONEY too).
I think the real issue here is not the sending of HTML, but
rather, the fact that most reader's email systems can't be trusted to
display HTML without risks.
You're ignoring the extra cost (bulk/bandwidth) all the way along the line,
too.
Typically HTML-burdened E-mail is 3-5x larger than the same exact message
content in plain ASCII text.
Another BIG issue for some users is how long they can be away from home
(cruise/vacation/convention/business trip/camping/whatever) and letting their
E-mail accumulate in their POP3 server(s) before their Inbox overflows and mail
starts getting bounced.
We wouldn't be hearing these objections if more readers had systems that had
the flexibility of web bugs, were better protected against HTML born viruses,
etc. It isn't HTML that is the problem, it is the software that reads it.
No, in MANY cases it is INDEED the HTML. But in any case, the users simply
need
an EASY way to express their CHOICE of whether they wish to accept
HTML-burdened
E-mail (or E-mails bearing attachments) from senders from whom they have CHOSEN
not to accept (or at least NOT chosen to accept) E-mails employing those
features.
Once the option is available to them, we'd find out soon enough what
percentages
of users choose to keep their acceptance permission list 'how' open, and what
impact that actually has in real life on the spams (/viruses/worms/trojans)
arriving in their Inbox, and (eventually) on spams overall, Net-wide.
In any case, it's a cheap and quick thing to try, and is likely to take a
substantial chunk out of spams, viruses, worms, and trojans.
Gordon Peterson http://personal.terabites.com/
1977-2002 Twenty-fifth anniversary year of Local Area Networking!
Support the Anti-SPAM Amendment! Join at http://www.cauce.org/
12/19/98: Partisan Republicans scornfully ignore the voters they "represent".
12/09/00: the date the Republican Party took down democracy in America.
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