The Right Way to Email - was Re: C & undefined behaviour - was Re: tumble under BSD

[Mike Stein]

> Could we not just have a little respect for each other and check our
> facts before conjuring up conflicts and difficulties which don't
> actually exist?

Yes, Peter, that would indeed be nice, but the only one I see 
"conjuring up conflicts" is you...

No one "demanded their inherent right to continue to generate 
improperly formatted emails". As you yourself note, although it's 
an inconvenience both Chuck and I do indeed usually respect 
the wishes of a small minority and use short lines.

I don't think that asking why flowed text is a problem for some
people and/or expressing a different perspective is necessarily
"complaining"; saying that the issues mentioned "don't actually 
exist" or calling them "completely baseless" doesn't seem to 
show much respect for the folks expressing those perspectives.

Flowed text and top-posting have become the norm in mainstream
email with its quick back-and-forth nature and the myriad of font
and screen sizes out there. I don't think it's inappropriate to 
periodically explore whether perhaps we're ready to move with 
the times here (as is the case on most other lists I'm on), especially
when Mouse and Liam bring them up as they do quite regularly.

Yes, let's indeed respect each other and our various different 
opinions and perspectives, and maybe even explore them with an
open mind without denigrating them and the folks expressing them.

'Nuff said.

mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Coghlan" <cctalk at beyondthepale.ie>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2016 5:36 AM
Subject: Re: The Right Way to Email - was Re: C & undefined behaviour - was Re: tumble under BSD


> Mouse made a perfectly reasonable request that we make a small effort
> to ensure our emails are formatted appropriately.
> 
> The response was that people demanded their inherent right to
> continue to generate improperly formatted emails, complained about
> grudgingly having to having to make configuration changes to their
> email setup that might have consequences for other email they send
> and made other tangential complaints which as far as I can see are
> either completely baseless or are an attempt at humour that has gone
> over my head (not the one about the card deck though - I got that
> one, even though they were before my time).
> 
> If anyone who complained had cared to check, they were all (as far as
> I can see) already generating appropriately formatted emails and have
> no need to jump to the defense of the way they do things or to make
> any changes to it.
> 
> The email which prompted the mildly phrased request in response to it
> appears to have been generated by "Apple Mail (2.3124)".  It looks to
> me that this MUA is generating "flowed" emails but failing to mark
> them as such in the headers it generates.  (I agree that these emails
> are difficult to reply to and I would like to add that they are also
> very difficult to read when viewed in the web based list archive.)
> 
> Could we not just have a little respect for each other and check our
> facts before conjuring up conflicts and difficulties which don't
> actually exist?
> 
> Regards,
> Peter Coghlan