[olug] ASCII Ribbon Campaign

[Brian Wiese]

Let the flames begin!!!!

Honestly though, there are many "text" based email viewers out there, and
email is an ascii/text based medium.  There is no real need for all the
formating features of html/doc in an email.  Then we would need all email
clients to parse all these different kinds of "open" standards, but now we
have a word processor rather than an email.  HTML and such just looks
butt-ugly on many text/other email clients.  Also, for archiving emails
then... to read then/decrypt them you'd need an html parser again.

I was just noticing this today as I was purusing the website of the man
that invented "ping", the late Mike Muus.  http://ftp.arl.army.mil/~mike/

I noticed his email archive of the TCP-IP Digest:
http://ftp.arl.army.mil/ftp/tcp-ip-digest/

And thought it was very nice to go back into history and look at all of
these archives of emails... and they are all readable!  They are all in
standard ASCII text... 50, 100, 1,000 years from now they will still be
readable (if the bits can still be transfered to a medium by then) and one
will not need a special parser/document viewer/web browser from the last
decade to view them.

So for several reasons and on several fronts, use ASCII text for emails
(and ascii art if your artistic abilities incline you so) because it looks
good for everyone, it can be archived, and it doesnt require special
parsing (by computer or human) to read it.

Just because you have no problems reading it... doesn't mean others don't.
think handicap accessibility, the minority, etc... 'de jure' not 'de
facto'.

thanks for the reminder Tim!

peace
Brian

On Tue, 24 Sep 2002 00:27:55 -0500
"Nick Walter" <waltern at iivip.com> wrote:

|I'll risk being flamed till I'm crisp . . .
|
|I completely understand and agree with "Respect for open standards" and
also
|"No M$ Word docs in e-mail".  I can't, however, quite agree with "No
|HTML/RTF in e-mail".  Both HTML and (theoretically) RTF are open formats
|that are well supported in a variety of O/Ss.  Using these formats is not
|contributing to anyone's evil monopoly or excluding a Linux/*BSD user
from
|reading the document properly.  I myself send and receive quite a bit of
|HTML e-mail from the linux desktop I sit in front of for 8 hours a day at
|work, and have absolutely no problems reading it or sending it . . .
|
|Nick Walter
|
|----- Original Message -----
|From: "Timothy G. O'Brien" <IrishMASMS at netscape.net>
|To: <olug at olug.org>
|Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 9:48 PM
|Subject: [olug] ASCII Ribbon Campaign
|
|
|> /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign
|> \ / Respect for open standards
|>  X  No HTML/RTF in e-mail
|> / \ No M$ Word docs in e-mail
|>
|>
|> HINT HINT = No HTML/RTF in e-mail
|> (what a mess if you are on the OLUG digest version...)
|>
|> --
|>   Timothy "Irish" O'Brien
|>
|>
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  Brian Wiese | bwiese at cotse.com | aim: unolinuxguru
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