On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 11:50:36AM -0500, Robert Nesius wrote:
> > The same way that you think your way of sending HTML mail from a phone
> > works best for you, I think that reading it in text mode through a SSH
> > connection works best for me.  But if you want to communicate, you
> > need to send something that we can both see...
>
> There comes a time when you (the royal you, not you specifically, florin.
> Which is to say I'm addressing the point more than the individual here. )
> are just being plain stubborn.  Clinging to your VT100 terminal emulation
> over ssh with a MUA that can't render HTML to ASCII and crying out against
> the individuals who encroach on your self-selected corner of the
> internet where others like you congregate and bemoan the masses
> that insist on using new-fangled technology and styles for
> electronic communication... yeah.  Taken to a certain degree
> that's just being stubborn - there is no moral high ground.
> It can be argued the html-incompatible-MUA user has
> self-selected out and is asking everyone else to bend over backwards
> for him.  How is that not selfish and obnoxious?

I am using whatever tool is more productive for me -- in my case,
editing with vim/fmt and being able to securely read my mail over SSH
outweigh other considerations.

I do not have the natural language processing and artificial
intelligence capability to write a program to analyze the whole corpus
of e-mails exchanged via this list to give you hard numbers, so we
have to rely on my memory and general impression on this.  With that
disclaimer aside, my impression is that people who send HTML ask more
questions and people who sent text provide more answers.  As such it
would profit them to at least ask the questions in a way we can read
them.

By the way, the young texting whipper-snappers keep using all sort of
strange new strings without vowels that I have to look up in online
dictionaries, plus they utterly strain my English parser.  I'm not
saying that Modern English is God-given and immutable, but it's still
the accepted common denominator.  Just because a big herd does it, it
doesn't mean I have to follow.  I'm not claiming any moral high
ground and indeed it might be just stubbornness.  Oh well, they will
just have to wait for us to die out...

[top vs inline analysis snipped because it's a long and thoughtful
post and it would need to much time to respond to, if a response is
warranted]

Cheers,
florin

-- 
Bruce Schneier expects the Spanish Inquisition.
      http://geekz.co.uk/schneierfacts/fact/163
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