[ADMIN] HTML Based Email (AOL 6.0)

[rohan.oberoi at CORNELL.EDU]

I completely agree with Dominik.  I would add that:

1.  HTML mail is a security threat to security-conscious mail users,
    not just to listserv managers.

2.  Many email readers and clients for the disabled (Braille and sound
    based) do not handle HTML-formatted mail.

3.  Some people have old computers and CRT terminals because they
    can't afford better.  Perhaps they live in India, which is not
    entirely inconceivable for this list.  Techno-cheerleaders like
    David haven't volunteered to buy all of them brand new computers.

4.  HTML seriously interferes with the archiving of lists for
    posterity, not just because it increases the size, but because
    nobody knows what the "standard" enriched text format will be ten
    or twenty years from now.

All that apart, a solution does need to be found to allow AOL users to
access the list.  The best would be for everyone to complain to AOL
and get them to add the same "Turn off HTML mail" button that all
other modern mail clients have.

Failing that, perhaps AOL sends out multipart plain text and HTML
versions, as many clients do?  If so, perhaps everything but the text
part could be stripped out either at the mail server level, or through
Procmail?

Regards,
Rohan.

Dominik Wujastyk wrote:
>On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, David Salmon wrote:
>
>[...]
>> Users who can't handle HTML email need to catch up; times have changed.
>
>That's not it.  This issue isn't the handling of HTML, which is, I agree,
>pretty easy.  (Though one should never underestimate the extent to which
>simple dumb or DOS terminals are still in wide use.) [...]