- From: Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net>
- Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:44:29 -0500
- To: www-style@w3.org
On 2012/01/07 10:51 (GMT-0800) Andrew Fedoniuok composed: > It appears that the list is tend to use fixed font formatted > messages. Far not all mail clients are good with that. Non-plain text email message proponents seem to forget that the graphical web we know today did not always exist, and that email predates it by much more than a decade. To expect the type of users for whom email was originally developed to change those environments for which email was originally created and remains equally functional (e.g. fixed font text terminals, speech generators, fixed font printers) in order to accommodate non-text and proportional font extensions would be an untenable and unwarranted hijacking of an established system that lacks an appropriate alternative. Therefore those who use the SMTP system to transmit what are in effect web pages must expect that some people will be unable to make sense of such transmissions, and that if maximum likelihood of intelligible reception is desired, anything more than plain (fixed font) text in the message is best avoided. IOW, if you don't know the recipient both can and cares to accept web pages via SMTP, the right thing to do until such time as you know otherwise is to send only plain text. With mailing lists, it's usually the case that plain text is explicitly either preferred or mandatory, not just a tendency. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
Received on Monday, 9 January 2012 11:46:19 UTC