[Gllug] [OT] Largest mailbox EVER!

[Rev Simon Rumble]

On Wed 19 Nov, Jason Clifford bloviated thus:

> Odd, I wasn't aware that almost all business communication is the work of 
> technical authors.

This is just one example.

> I am more than aware that there are specific cases where breaking 
> standards within closed communities is necessary however it's fallacious 
> to pretend that this is good in other circumstances or that the special 
> circumstances that make such a requirement valid are sufficient to 
> validate breaking standards elsewhere.

I wasn't aware that RFCs 2045-1049 were invalid and broke standards.
Or is it just that you don't like these standards?

> We don't all run identical platforms.

So use standards.

> We don't all permit potentially dangerous content to run on our systems.

HTML dangerous?  Methinks you might want to run a better browser/mail
client browser component.

> We don't all want to incur the significant additional costs resulting from 
> breaking the standards that exist for a good reason.

The standards fully support inclusion of non-ASCII body attachments.
Have a look at RFC2387 and look at Content-Disposition.

> > Go and have a look at a man page on a plain ascii terminal, then on a
> > terminal that supports vt100 and tell me there isn't more information
> > on the vt100 terminal.
> 
> Not more information - it's just easier to read.

No.  More information.  Special words are highlighted, demonstrating
that they are references elsewhere.

Your basic argument is that we should all stick to the lowest common
denominator, but you're arguing that this is somehow the standard.
I'm sorry but the standards allow for more than that.  There is
nothing non-standard about using HTML body text.

Of course it's polite to include a plain text version of the HTML body
too, and allow the MUA to choose as appropriate.  But this may end up
losing information.

-- 
Rev Simon Rumble <simon at rumble.net>
www.rumble.net

Remember, objects in the mirror are actually behind you

- On a helmet mounted mirror used by US cyclists

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