8 ms·

This sounds great until you realize that, in the real world, people want to have some options to format the text they write (italics, bold, hyperlinks and the l

by mrzool 4y ago

This sounds great until you realize that, in the real world, people want to have some options to format the text they write (italics, bold, hyperlinks and the like), and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

deltarholamda 4y ago
In the real world, people want to have their company logo, nine image links to their social media accounts, and a special font for their signature. Then they top post their entire email to a 257 email chain, so you have to do a kind of inverted scavenger hunt in order to figure out what they're talking about, none of which is improved or aided by the company logo, special font, or image links to nine different social media accounts. And I haven't even gotten to grandma's love of emojis to convey her appreciation of your ribald joke about cookies. Email is a tool, and like all tools, it can be grossly misused and abused.
- temp_account_32 4y ago
  Yeah but we wouldn't want to cripple it for everyone because there exist some people who abuse it.
- lbriner 4y ago
  This is a strawman. How does plain text stop people abusing a medium?
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    Their argument is that by not having HTML, people can no longer annoy with their use of HTML. This is a client-side issue, IMO. If someone doesn't like HTML, simply don't enable parsing of it and view the source.
    - jevgeni 4y ago
      People can annoy with plain words just as well.
- mrzool 4y ago
  1. Emojis are perfectly supported in plain text as long as you’re using Unicode. 2. The bloat/ugliness argument could also be applied to websites, but no one is out there advocating for plain text websites.
  - deltarholamda 4y ago
    People who use screen readers would probably be very supportive of plain text Web sites. Web devs usually do a lot of work to make a Web site accessible. In any event, email and Web sites are completely different things. Different communication mediums require different communication styles. Advocating for a certain style on one does not mean you have to also advocate for the same on another. The question would be "does rich-formatted text substantially add to the medium of email," and I think the clear answer to that is "not really." An example of a good use of rich-formatted text contributing to an email would be coloring responses to questions. I see this one a lot, e.g. "my responses are in RED." We had the > quote style for this already, which was pretty good until an email thread started to get really, really deeply nested. In plain-text, at some point, somebody would have to edit the quotes down. There was a marginal advantage to having styled text to clear this up. Was this advantage enough to have to suffer through the majority of emails where this was not required and the formatted text was rife with extraneous or useless widgets?
    - couchand 4y ago
      "my responses in red" assumes a lot about the visual abilities of the reader. I'm sure there's a better way to express this idea.
    - mrzool 4y ago
      > People who use screen readers would probably be very supportive of plain text Web sites. I beg to disagree. Plain text doesn't offer any support for embedded metadata, which are vital for screen readers. With just plain text you have no way to tell apart a header, footer or aside from the main content. > Web devs usually do a lot of work to make a Web site accessible. Yes, they do a lot of work. Mostly using semantic HTML and embedding text descriptions in data attributes. This should go without saying: Plain text is less accessible than well written, semantic HTML, not more.
hesk 4y ago
Including, apparently, the people who created the web site, and who use bold text and different font sizes to format the headlines, colors to indicate features which are supported and not supported, and an image of a "plaintext certified" stamp.
- emasirik 4y ago
  It's a bit rude for HN, but from the bottom of the article, > "But if plaintext is so good, why is this page written in HTML?" > This is a reference document, not an email, you twit.
  - adolph 4y ago
    Well, this reference document seems to work reasonably as plain text. What’s that person’s excuse for html just because it moves via HTTP? https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5322.txt https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5322.txt
    - tadfisher 4y ago
      Plain text with 80-column line breaks suuuuucks on mobile. Give me HTML any day of the week.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    It seems their main point is using HTML is trading accessibility and security concerns for prettification. Why is a reference document an acceptable trade off of accessibility and security concerns for prettier formatting but a personal email isn't? They could have made this site plain text and followed all of their own guidelines, but they didn't. Instead, they wanted to make the site look prettier to get their message across with additional formatting plain text can't handle. They're reducing accessibility and increasing security issues just for their own superfluous desires.
Eric_WVGG 4y ago
I blame HTML email on the old UNIX neckbeards who hated on this kind of thing. If they had just given us the reasonable stuff, the industry wouldn't have had to resort to awful hacks.
- JdeBP 4y ago
  The foolishness of that comment is revealed when one learns that Nathaniel Borenstein of Bellcore gave you the text/enriched content type in 1993.

by mrzool 4y ago

deltarholamda 4y ago

In the real world, people want to have their company logo, nine image links to their social media accounts, and a special font for their signature. Then they top post their entire email to a 257 email chain, so you have to do a kind of inverted scavenger hunt in order to figure out what they're talking about, none of which is improved or aided by the company logo, special font, or image links to nine different social media accounts. And I haven't even gotten to grandma's love of emojis to convey her appreciation of your ribald joke about cookies. Email is a tool, and like all tools, it can be grossly misused and abused.

temp_account_32 4y ago
Yeah but we wouldn't want to cripple it for everyone because there exist some people who abuse it.
lbriner 4y ago
This is a strawman. How does plain text stop people abusing a medium?
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  Their argument is that by not having HTML, people can no longer annoy with their use of HTML. This is a client-side issue, IMO. If someone doesn't like HTML, simply don't enable parsing of it and view the source.
  - jevgeni 4y ago
    People can annoy with plain words just as well.
mrzool 4y ago
1. Emojis are perfectly supported in plain text as long as you’re using Unicode. 2. The bloat/ugliness argument could also be applied to websites, but no one is out there advocating for plain text websites.
- deltarholamda 4y ago
  People who use screen readers would probably be very supportive of plain text Web sites. Web devs usually do a lot of work to make a Web site accessible. In any event, email and Web sites are completely different things. Different communication mediums require different communication styles. Advocating for a certain style on one does not mean you have to also advocate for the same on another. The question would be "does rich-formatted text substantially add to the medium of email," and I think the clear answer to that is "not really." An example of a good use of rich-formatted text contributing to an email would be coloring responses to questions. I see this one a lot, e.g. "my responses are in RED." We had the > quote style for this already, which was pretty good until an email thread started to get really, really deeply nested. In plain-text, at some point, somebody would have to edit the quotes down. There was a marginal advantage to having styled text to clear this up. Was this advantage enough to have to suffer through the majority of emails where this was not required and the formatted text was rife with extraneous or useless widgets?
  - couchand 4y ago
    "my responses in red" assumes a lot about the visual abilities of the reader. I'm sure there's a better way to express this idea.
  - mrzool 4y ago
    > People who use screen readers would probably be very supportive of plain text Web sites. I beg to disagree. Plain text doesn't offer any support for embedded metadata, which are vital for screen readers. With just plain text you have no way to tell apart a header, footer or aside from the main content. > Web devs usually do a lot of work to make a Web site accessible. Yes, they do a lot of work. Mostly using semantic HTML and embedding text descriptions in data attributes. This should go without saying: Plain text is less accessible than well written, semantic HTML, not more.

hesk 4y ago

Including, apparently, the people who created the web site, and who use bold text and different font sizes to format the headlines, colors to indicate features which are supported and not supported, and an image of a "plaintext certified" stamp.

emasirik 4y ago
It's a bit rude for HN, but from the bottom of the article, > "But if plaintext is so good, why is this page written in HTML?" > This is a reference document, not an email, you twit.
- adolph 4y ago
  Well, this reference document seems to work reasonably as plain text. What’s that person’s excuse for html just because it moves via HTTP? https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5322.txt https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5322.txt
  - tadfisher 4y ago
    Plain text with 80-column line breaks suuuuucks on mobile. Give me HTML any day of the week.
- vel0city 4y ago
  It seems their main point is using HTML is trading accessibility and security concerns for prettification. Why is a reference document an acceptable trade off of accessibility and security concerns for prettier formatting but a personal email isn't? They could have made this site plain text and followed all of their own guidelines, but they didn't. Instead, they wanted to make the site look prettier to get their message across with additional formatting plain text can't handle. They're reducing accessibility and increasing security issues just for their own superfluous desires.

Eric_WVGG 4y ago

I blame HTML email on the old UNIX neckbeards who hated on this kind of thing. If they had just given us the reasonable stuff, the industry wouldn't have had to resort to awful hacks.

JdeBP 4y ago
The foolishness of that comment is revealed when one learns that Nathaniel Borenstein of Bellcore gave you the text/enriched content type in 1993.