On Sun, 9 Jan 2000, Pete Weiss wrote:

> Just an aside: it seems somehow oxymoronic that what started as an
> electronic mailing list distribution system is being asked more and more
> to NOT distribute.

Not at all.  Listserv was created to efficiently distribute text
messages to a list of subscribers.

All the requests for features to block HTML, attachments, etc., are from
listowners that want to keep to distributing text messages to
subscribers.

Features have been added to email that add nothing to what most people
use listserv for--to carry on distributed conversations--and a great a
deal of trouble (virus attachments), complication (MicroMonopoly email
programs spewing out HTML encoded messages and WINMAIL.DAT attachments),
and inconvenience (archives and digests full of partially converted
attachments that look like twenty pages of line noise).  Most of these
features are system or program dependant or raise other compatibility
issues.

Meanwhile, plain text email, the thing most of were interested in
distributing in the first place, is so universal that you can now
receive it on your cell phone.

 Jason