[SI-LIST] : si-list policy on HTML postings

Ray Anderson ([email protected])
Tue, 23 Mar 1999 15:19:08 -0800 (PST)

>
> I've seen a lot of HTML posts in the si-list lately.
> Is there any official position on posting format?
> As you can see, they are kind of hard to read on Sun
> (Unix) workstations, or any other text based mail reader.
> I've seen this controversy grow on Usenet as well.
> The problem is that not everyone uses full featured
> Netscape or other HTML capable E-mail.
>
> Jerry Johnson
> Teradyne, Inc.
>
>

Good comments. As Jerry stated there has been a lot of
conversation lately both in newsgroups and mailing lists regarding
postings made in HTML format.

I think that a lot of people use the mail facility of their
browser as their primary mailtool. A lot of browsers (in particular
microSoft's versions) default to HTML format for mail if you don't
go in and adjust the options. (As I understand it, the grand plan
sometime in the future is for all e-mail to be HTML formatted)(don't
hold your breath).....

While a nicely formated HTML piece of mail may look nice in
a web browser, it is just plain hard to read in a text based mailtool
such as many people using Unix and other non-windows systems have. The
HTML annotated mail is also much larger than the equivalent ASCII version
and uses up much more net bandwidth.

Since, to date, there hasn't been an official si-list position
on posting formats, I guess I'll make a command decision since the list
resides on one of our lab machines and state a policy.

POLICY:
-------

HTML formatted e-mail is to be avoided on si-list if at all
possible in the interests of legibility for the masses and good
netiquite. However, for those who haven't quite figured out how to
turn off the HTML feature, don't fret, you won't be banned or flogged :)

Ray Anderson
si-list administrator
Sun Microsystems Inc.

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