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I think this opinion is strongly worded and might get some heat, but I think you touch on something important. Plaintext email often serves as an in group shib

I think this opinion is strongly worded and might get some heat, but I think you touch on something important. Plaintext email often serves as an in group shibboleth to distinguish “us” from “the other lusers”. Does it have merit beyond that, or do these articles just reinforce that?

mbreese 7y ago
I think the main issue at play here is quoting. In particular, how bad rich text/html mail programs are at dealing with inline quoting. In my opinion, that’s the main “feature” of email communication that has been lost over the years. On the top replies make it difficult to follow a nested thread of emails. If html email clients handled this better, I don’t think there would be as much of a problem. I think you’re right though that plain text acts as a bit of a shibboleth to differentiate “advanced” users vs luddites. But the main thing that I’ve heard people complain about with respect to html email is the loss of inline quoting. Plaintext has its issues too— in particular long line soft wrapping. Which some would argue would be better supported if html email hadn’t become so popular.
- tln 7y ago
  I absolutely agree -- the aspect of email I miss from the good ol' days was well-trimmed replies and doing so inline. Threaded inboxes and smart trimming helps, but not completely. However I think that HTML clients handle this well enough but the etiquette has been completely lost. Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. > Why is top-posting such a bad thing? >> Top-posting. >>> What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
snowwrestler 7y ago
The cultural aspect of this web page is pretty clear in that the author even formats his HTML to look like plaintext, which is completely unnecessary from a technical perspective. In fact it took extra effort to do that, as opposed to just allowing each browser to supply its default font.

mbreese 7y ago

I think the main issue at play here is quoting. In particular, how bad rich text/html mail programs are at dealing with inline quoting. In my opinion, that’s the main “feature” of email communication that has been lost over the years. On the top replies make it difficult to follow a nested thread of emails. If html email clients handled this better, I don’t think there would be as much of a problem. I think you’re right though that plain text acts as a bit of a shibboleth to differentiate “advanced” users vs luddites. But the main thing that I’ve heard people complain about with respect to html email is the loss of inline quoting. Plaintext has its issues too— in particular long line soft wrapping. Which some would argue would be better supported if html email hadn’t become so popular.

tln 7y ago
I absolutely agree -- the aspect of email I miss from the good ol' days was well-trimmed replies and doing so inline. Threaded inboxes and smart trimming helps, but not completely. However I think that HTML clients handle this well enough but the etiquette has been completely lost. Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. > Why is top-posting such a bad thing? >> Top-posting. >>> What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

snowwrestler 7y ago

The cultural aspect of this web page is pretty clear in that the author even formats his HTML to look like plaintext, which is completely unnecessary from a technical perspective. In fact it took extra effort to do that, as opposed to just allowing each browser to supply its default font.