Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2002 00:38:19 -0500 (EST) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at keithlynch.net> To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net Subject: [WSFA] Re: Email & HTML & 1st Friday Meeting Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net> wrote: > Good idea. If you're going to be posting from a different address > than your mail is being sent to, you might want to let Keith know so > he can do his filter magic. It can't hurt, but it's not really necessary. If it's an address I've heard of, or if your name appears on the From line, it will go to the list. Otherwise it will be held for my approval. If it looks to me like it was sent by a WSFA members, I will release it to the list, and add both the name and the email address to the approved list, so that future messages from that source will go directly to the list without my intervention. Whose names are already in that approved list? Anyone who is on this list, anyone who has ever posted to this list, anyone who has attended at least three WSFA meetings in the past six years, anyone who has been a WSFA officer in the past 24 years, and anyone who has ever been a Disclave chairbeing ever. And my brother. > A hint. The so-called "editors" on Web-based e-mail are pretty bad. > It's perfectly easy to use your favorite text editor or word > processor to compose your mail, with all the text you're replying > to, and then do a copy- and- paste into the Webmail. Right. This also allows you to post one reply which quotes snippets from several messages. I've noticed that nobody but me has done this on this list. I do it when there are several related messages I want to reply to, rather than composing a separate reply to each. Is HTML even still an issue? As far as I know, the only person who was apparently unable to turn off HTML was Sally, and that only from her work account. And she no longer works there anyway. As for *why* I disallow HTML: * To stop spam. The majority of spam is in HTML, and the vast majority of HTML messages sent to me are spam. * To stop viruses. Pure HTML can convey viruses, and I will not run a list unless I can *guarantee* it cannot be used to spread viruses. Nobody need ever fear looking at a message from this list, no matter what mail reader they're using. * To stop bloat. With the high list volume we've had lately, several people's mailboxes overflowed and rejected messages. Since HTML messages are typically three to five times the size of a plain text message for the same content, people would only be able to receive 1/5 to 1/3 as much before their mailboxes overflowed. * I turn messages into HTML when I archive them (at http://www.wsfa.org/list/, mirrored at http://keithlynch.net/wsfa/list/). If they're already HTML, I'm faced with the choice of either doubly-HTMLing them, in which case people will see the ugly unreadable angle-bracket-ridden HTML source code, or leaving the HTML intact even when it conflicts with the structure of the archive, which would make the archive difficult and confusing to navigate. And risk spreading viruses to people who view the archive. * Many people either have email programs which don't understand HTML, or leave the HTML-interpreting function turned off for safety. To them, HTML email is extremely ugly, filled with angle brackets and ampersands, almost completely unreadable. * Many people -- more every day -- automatically discard all HTML email. And most of them either don't know it or don't tell you. For that reason among others, it's a good idea to turn it off for everyone, not just for this list. Besides, in order to maintain the sense of community on this list, I'd prefer that everyone be able to assume that almost everyone on the list has read almost all the messages recently posted to the list. Similarly to the announcements made at WSFA meetings, and the articles in the WSFA Journal. (Everyone here does listen to them all, and read it cover to cover, right?) For discussions in which such a sense of community isn't important, I recommend the high volume rec.arts.sf.fandom newsgroup, which nobody can read all of. (And which you can post in HTML to, though dozens of people will probably flame you if you do.) Attachments are also disallowed, for similar reasons. Please see http://www.expita.com/nomime.html for instructions on how to turn off HTML in your email program. And for more reasons why this is a good idea. If there is anyone who is unable to do so, perhaps someone could volunteer to automatically accept HTML email, automatically de-HTML it, and automatically forward it to the list. Thanks. -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.