On Wed, 15 May 2002, Wayne T. Smith wrote:
> I'm sorry if this is rude and arrogant, but plain text e-mail is like a
> black and white television signal ... you can send it, but people are going
> to pay more attention a color television signal.   Sending a plain text
> version with the enhanced text is an acknowledgment that it may be read by
> out-of-date technology.

A black & white signal is easier to receive and can often be received when
a color signal cannot.  I don't have cable and my b&w TV often has a clear
picture when my color TV has indecipherable visual noise.  It's like the
difference between Morse code and voice via radio; the simpler code signal
may get through when the voice cannot.

All of my lists are for discussion within a profession, a field.  They are
all heavily international lists, with people using who knows what system.
The only thing which can be relied upon to get the signal through to *all*
subscribers is text/plain .  That is therefore the standard for all of my
lists (US ASCII preferred, but not insisteded upon).  The information is
carried in the text itself, *not* in color enhancements (you want to gush
like a letter from a a giggly pre- or early-teen girl, underlining every
other word?
"You just *can't* )believe( it, he is *so* _super_ >neat<! I **mean**!!"
(each of those emphasized words requiring a different color, or more or
less underlining if a physical letter).

Excuse me, but I don't want that for my lists; if one can't adequately
express oneself without constant, undue, emphasis, which may be become no
emphasis due to constant mis/overuse, one is presenting a poor example
which I don't care to perpetuate (why do educators complain these days that
their students have no idea how to write? could what we speak of here have
something to do with it?).

Anyway, all of my lists have, in the list header:
* Language= NOHTML
* Attachments= No

and I have no intention of changing either.  Text/plain forever!

Douglas [log in to unmask]