4 ms·

While elaborate spam email is annoying, you don't really believe we should all be using plain text, do you?

by TwoBit 17y ago

rjurney 17y ago
I believe that we should all be using plaintext for email. Plaintext and simple attachments. So MIME. But not HTML.
- buro9 17y ago
  Basic HTML is nice, and that is what should have been supported in email. Just for things like headings and bullet points. I can very happily live without tables (attach a spreadsheet if it is important), css (let the text of my email be dictated by my client) and images (again, attach). But the need for headings and lists means that I do use HTML or Rich-Text (depending on the client) when it's available even though I seldom use anything beyond simple formatting. Oh, and we use RT as a help desk/support software, and that uses plain text. And I speak from experience that when you get a lengthy description of an issue turned into plain text it's very difficult to read. Headings and bullet points are pretty important.
  - rw 17y ago
    Then use Markdown. HTML is overkill.
    - wizard_2 17y ago
      It's a little late for that no? HTML is already supported on almost every email client. And while I'm annoyed at every one liner email that's using html for text colors and backgrounds, there are very nice looking things you can do with html (duh) and I'm all for not limiting email communication to be plain text. Our email system is outdated and kludgey, people try to use it for file transfers, document management, instant messaging, photo sharing, etc. Spam is constantly an annoyance that despite wonderful filtering, probably can't be designed out of smtp. There's no easy way to have verifications of sender identity, or even have control over who's allowed to send mail for your domain. (domain keys, and spf records work, but most mail server will accept your mail anyway - We had a dns/ip change forced upon us and the tech forgot to update our spf records and we didn't notice a problem for a week. Some mail servers just tagged us as "possible" spam. The sad situation seems to be that a lot of spf records are wrong.) What I would really like to see is a way to federate Facebook messaging. I'm picking them for no reason other then a large user base, real names (mostly), built in spam protection and controls, video messaging, the ability to share content and have it highlighted in special ways. (It would then need file transfer support and maybe voice chat.) Oh and it shouldn't be Facebook it should be an open protocol. I guess what I'm describing isn't email, I just want it to replace email. Also ever since I saw the google tech demo, every message lately is looking like a "wave". That kind of rich messaging is what users look for. The reason something hasn't taken over email yet (I'm willing to guess) is that we don't all want one company being in charge of it. Jabber (the core tech behind wave) is free and open source and a known protocol that solves a lot if not all my gripes. And most importantly anyone can run it.
  - jongraehl 17y ago
    I sometimes send tabular data as html email. While I can render it as fixed-width ascii, I wouldn't remove tables just because they can be abused for layout (if you want to impose visible cell boundaries, fine). I wouldn't have any desire to limit the richness of messages displayable on common readers, if it weren't for unwanted email (quasi-spam from companies I did business with once, to say nothing of random malicious spam, which automatically justifies extreme simplification of accepted mail markup for security's sake). Even when the visually rich email is safe, it makes unwanted email even more annoying for the brief second it flashes on screen before I delete it.
furyg3 17y ago
Preface: I've only switched away from pine as my personal email client relatively recently... The vast majority of messages from actual humans in my inbox are composed in plain-text. That doesn't mean it's sent to me in plain text, of course, but as far as the user is concerned they're typing in plain text without marking it up. The major culprit of fancy HTML shenanigans in this type of email is business-card like signatures (totally unnecessary). Messages which are intentionally formatted in HTML in order to display elaborate things come almost entirely (I'd say 99%) from websites (travelocity, evite), corporate newsletters, spammers, credit-card companies, etc. If those senders were restricted to plain text, those emails would most likely have less crap and more content which is pertinent to me. You don't need complex formatting to let me know my flight information, the my statement is available, or that my password has been successfully reset. Standardized formatting is important... I'm not saying that we should be restricted to a plan-text only world of email. But formatting restrictions aren't necessarily a bad thing (for extreme example, see Twitter). Just as email doesn't function well as a medium for sending large attachments, it similarly shouldn't be conceived of as a medium for displaying complex, elaborately formatted documents. That's what web browsers, word processors, and spreadsheet programs are for. Markdown, Basic HTML (1.0), or similar concepts are more than enough to convey your message clearly and directly, while allowing composers to organize their thoughts and link/include non-text information.
zimbabwe 17y ago
When you email me I don't need your entire fucking website. I don't need your navigation bar and I don't need your multipaneled displays. If you have something that complex, either you're too lazy to edit your copy or you have something big enough that you should make it its own separate web site.
gnaritas 17y ago
>you don't really believe we should all be using plain text, do you? Yes, mail clients should support plain text only, the world would be a much better place.

While elaborate spam email is annoying, you don't really believe we should all be using plain text, do you?

by TwoBit 17y ago

While elaborate spam email is annoying, you don't really believe we should all be using plain text, do you?

rjurney 17y ago

I believe that we should all be using plaintext for email. Plaintext and simple attachments. So MIME. But not HTML.

buro9 17y ago
Basic HTML is nice, and that is what should have been supported in email. Just for things like headings and bullet points. I can very happily live without tables (attach a spreadsheet if it is important), css (let the text of my email be dictated by my client) and images (again, attach). But the need for headings and lists means that I do use HTML or Rich-Text (depending on the client) when it's available even though I seldom use anything beyond simple formatting. Oh, and we use RT as a help desk/support software, and that uses plain text. And I speak from experience that when you get a lengthy description of an issue turned into plain text it's very difficult to read. Headings and bullet points are pretty important.
- rw 17y ago
  Then use Markdown. HTML is overkill.
  - wizard_2 17y ago
    It's a little late for that no? HTML is already supported on almost every email client. And while I'm annoyed at every one liner email that's using html for text colors and backgrounds, there are very nice looking things you can do with html (duh) and I'm all for not limiting email communication to be plain text. Our email system is outdated and kludgey, people try to use it for file transfers, document management, instant messaging, photo sharing, etc. Spam is constantly an annoyance that despite wonderful filtering, probably can't be designed out of smtp. There's no easy way to have verifications of sender identity, or even have control over who's allowed to send mail for your domain. (domain keys, and spf records work, but most mail server will accept your mail anyway - We had a dns/ip change forced upon us and the tech forgot to update our spf records and we didn't notice a problem for a week. Some mail servers just tagged us as "possible" spam. The sad situation seems to be that a lot of spf records are wrong.) What I would really like to see is a way to federate Facebook messaging. I'm picking them for no reason other then a large user base, real names (mostly), built in spam protection and controls, video messaging, the ability to share content and have it highlighted in special ways. (It would then need file transfer support and maybe voice chat.) Oh and it shouldn't be Facebook it should be an open protocol. I guess what I'm describing isn't email, I just want it to replace email. Also ever since I saw the google tech demo, every message lately is looking like a "wave". That kind of rich messaging is what users look for. The reason something hasn't taken over email yet (I'm willing to guess) is that we don't all want one company being in charge of it. Jabber (the core tech behind wave) is free and open source and a known protocol that solves a lot if not all my gripes. And most importantly anyone can run it.
- jongraehl 17y ago
  I sometimes send tabular data as html email. While I can render it as fixed-width ascii, I wouldn't remove tables just because they can be abused for layout (if you want to impose visible cell boundaries, fine). I wouldn't have any desire to limit the richness of messages displayable on common readers, if it weren't for unwanted email (quasi-spam from companies I did business with once, to say nothing of random malicious spam, which automatically justifies extreme simplification of accepted mail markup for security's sake). Even when the visually rich email is safe, it makes unwanted email even more annoying for the brief second it flashes on screen before I delete it.

furyg3 17y ago

Preface: I've only switched away from pine as my personal email client relatively recently... The vast majority of messages from actual humans in my inbox are composed in plain-text. That doesn't mean it's sent to me in plain text, of course, but as far as the user is concerned they're typing in plain text without marking it up. The major culprit of fancy HTML shenanigans in this type of email is business-card like signatures (totally unnecessary). Messages which are intentionally formatted in HTML in order to display elaborate things come almost entirely (I'd say 99%) from websites (travelocity, evite), corporate newsletters, spammers, credit-card companies, etc. If those senders were restricted to plain text, those emails would most likely have less crap and more content which is pertinent to me. You don't need complex formatting to let me know my flight information, the my statement is available, or that my password has been successfully reset. Standardized formatting is important... I'm not saying that we should be restricted to a plan-text only world of email. But formatting restrictions aren't necessarily a bad thing (for extreme example, see Twitter). Just as email doesn't function well as a medium for sending large attachments, it similarly shouldn't be conceived of as a medium for displaying complex, elaborately formatted documents. That's what web browsers, word processors, and spreadsheet programs are for. Markdown, Basic HTML (1.0), or similar concepts are more than enough to convey your message clearly and directly, while allowing composers to organize their thoughts and link/include non-text information.

zimbabwe 17y ago

When you email me I don't need your entire fucking website. I don't need your navigation bar and I don't need your multipaneled displays. If you have something that complex, either you're too lazy to edit your copy or you have something big enough that you should make it its own separate web site.

gnaritas 17y ago

>you don't really believe we should all be using plain text, do you? Yes, mail clients should support plain text only, the world would be a much better place.