HTML-formatted mails [was: Re: Question about Autocreate patch.]

Mon Jun 23 10:42:41 EDT 2003

I'm really not trying to help fuel a flame war here, and I'm not a big fan
of HTML e-mail myself, but that seems a bit harsh.  You're really getting
into an issue of personal preference here, despite what "netiquette" may
prescribe.  Typing e-mails in all lowercase is considered poor netiquette
as well, so ought we have a grammar parser installed on the server too?

Anyway, it would seem to me that at the end of the day, this is probably a
client issue anyway.  If a client wishes to display HTML, then great, and
if wishes not to, also great.  The latter should not be all that difficult
to implement (my usual MUA seems to handle it rather well), but if it
can't then just delete the posts on site.  If people are asking questions
with HTML e-mail and it bothers enough people that the question never gets
answered, then that person will either have to change or go without help.

But to me, this issue is rather a waste of time.  It's like arguing over
the style of brace usage in the Cyrus source code.  And now I feel a bit
silly for having wasted even more time on the matter, but I was hoping to
spare the list some trouble if CMU took your suggestion to heart.

-- 
Kevin

On Mon, 23 Jun 2003, Robert Urban wrote:

>
> is it naive of me to think that it might be possible to train users
> of this list not to send HTML-formatted mails to the list?
>
> that perhaps with constant reminders and pointers to the appropriate
> documentation on netiquette things might improve?
>
> any chance of configuring the list server to reject mails containing HTML?
>
> Rob Urban
>
> http://www.tfl.net/maillistfaq.html
> http://www.imperialclub.com/GettingStarted/MailingLists/Etiquette.html
> http://www.openz.org/list_etiquette.php
> http://www.efn.no/html-bad.html
> http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/dec99/pirillo1.htm
> http://www-zeuthen.desy.de/~friebel/mail/mail02/text10.html
>
> In PDF, but very nicely done:
> http://eesc.orst.edu/agcomwebfile/staff/Cate/Back0999.pdf
>
> other lists' policies:
> http://www.histology.to/listservers.html
> http://www.rockandwater.net/list-policies.html
> http://legalminds.lp.findlaw.com/list/food-law/msg02330.html
> http://lyrictracker.com/main.php?action=nug-rules
>
> tips for turning off HTML in various clients:
> http://email.about.com/cs/netiquettetips/a/et070103.htm
>
> Drew Weaver wrote:
> > Howdy, I got the autocreate patch working and its very nice, the only =
> > thing im trying to figure out is this. If I userdel a user, why does =
> > sendmail still deliver mail as if the user still exists? Shouldnt =
> > sendmail say, hey uh this user doesnt exist, and return the message?
> >
> > -Drew
> >
> > <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
> > <HTML><HEAD>
> > <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
> > <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1170" name=GENERATOR>
> > <STYLE></STYLE>
> > </HEAD>
> > <BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
> > <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Howdy, I got the autocreate patch working and its
> > very nice, the only thing im trying to figure out is this. If I userdel a user,
> > why does sendmail still deliver mail as if the user still exists? Shouldnt
> > sendmail say, hey uh this user doesnt exist, and return the
> > message?</FONT></DIV>
> > <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
> > <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-Drew</FONT></DIV>
> > <DIV>&nbsp;</DIV></BODY></HTML>
> >
>
>
>
>
>