[Gllug] Problems reading Rev Rumble's posts

[David Damerell]

On Tuesday, 29 Jul 2003, Jonathan Dye wrote:
>David Damerell wrote:
>>Then the employer is not providing a suitable tool for posting to the
>>lists, so you're no further forward. 
>They are providing a tool, the fact that it is not suitable is your
>opinion

Of course it's my opinion, but it's also correct. Don't try and weasel
out of that; you know that these tools typically produce mangled
articles just as well as I do.

>(and possibly that of others).  By disallowing outlook users from
>reading/posting to this group you would impose your choice of email client
>on them.

Nonsense. I want to impose a standard - no HTML (and preferably also
rejecting top-quoted articles, but that's not so readily automatically
detected); people can use any client that meets that standard.

>How about we choose to disallow all users of mutt because I don't
>think it is a suitable tool for posting to this group

Well, what's the justification? What's the underlying property of the
messages produced by mutt?

>>If my employer let me send
>>personal paper mail but their franking machine mangled the envelope,
>>I wouldn't use that, either. 
>Others might though, you can't say that no-one will or that anyone else
>shouldn't.

I can say that anyone else shouldn't, yes. Such a franking machine is
not a suitable tool for the job of sending paper mail.

>>I've said, reading mailing lists is not a right. The onus is on us
>>to find the right tools for the job - even if it means paying for net
>>access. 
>In which case Outlook does allow you to read and post to the groups so
>fulfils that requirement.

Er, no. It has a number of problems with article display (as triggered
this discussion), and it is hard to make it produce well-formatted
mail. You _can_ put a nail in by hitting it with a pair of pliers;
that doesn't make pliers the right tool, and any competent handyman
would regard someone doing that as an inept bodger - as I regard
anyone who uses Outlook for mail.

>>I've always found the principle that people who don't bother with
>>proper formatting won't have anything useful to say to serve me in
>>good stead, especially in a technical forum.
>When you say formatting do you mean formatting of the mail content or how
>the mail is constructed by the client?  I think it is possible to usefully
>format the content of the email using clients such as Outlook.  This email
>for example is written using Outlook 2000 with the Outlook-QuoteFix
>program.

So by jumping through hoops you can get to a position where you make
only minor formatting errors, and have to contend only with the
article display bugs. Amazing.

>I don't believe that because someone uses outlook they have nothing useful
>to say.

There's a strong positive correlation.

>I agree with you that outlook is a crap client but I don't think people
>should be excluded from this list because they use it.  I would use a
>different mail system if I had access to an easy to use mail system from
>work but I don't.

So read your personal email from a personal account. That's not
exactly rocket science.

-- 
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!

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