David: There are a number of free email clients -- e.g., Eudora Lite (which I am using now) -- that can be downloaded and installed in a matter of minutes. If you only ever _send_ mail, but don't receive it, then it is trivial to set up -- you only need to put in an SMTP server. You don't even have to use the one you use with Outlook -- there are some public ones available. In fact, you can dispense with the SMTP server entirely for about $20 by using Mail Express Lite, which turns your _own_ machine into an SMTP server. (This message sent via Mail Express.) Regarding Outlook: you can save yourself an enormous amount of pain and suffering by avoiding Outlook, because most of the viruses/worms today target your Outlook file and forward the virus to everyone in your address book. No Outlook, no problem. Re MS Outlook taking over the world -- this is actually not true. More and more govt agencies, schools, etc., are throwing out MS in favor of Linux, OpenOffice, etc. So your arguments are not persuasive. If you use any kind of wireless device, the cost and hassle of dealing with anything but text messages becomes prohibitive. I would vote strongly for keeping ASCII text and barring html/rtf messages. MIME still works fine with text, and attachments still work fine. At 10:54 AM 2/27/03 -0500, David Wilson wrote:
I understand the tribulations of picking through MIME and HTML in a nonsupportive mail reader. But., my current version of MS Outlook includes HTML and MIME in outgoing messages by default, these features are preferable for most of my mail; I have to explicitly switch to plaintext mode for math-fun and seqfan postings, and sometimes I forget. I can't select HTML or plaintext per recipient, consequently slips will happen, and I can't be eternally apologetic. If people can't overlook the occasional slip on this account, I can easily go away.
At some point, I think math-fun and seqfan will have to acknowledge that technology is moving on. Despite my personal distaste for Microsoft and its applications, the reality is that MS Outlook is now the most commonly-used email application, that it supports HTML and MIME, and that users rely heavily on the associated benefits, such as formatted and colored text, images, backgrounds, links, attachments, etc. I appreciate that math-fun and seqfan like to be accomodating, however, accomodating HTML-disabled users will increasingly disaffect a growing majority of HTML-enabled users, and will deprive math-fun and seqfan of some very useful technologies (when MathML browsers become common, will you not take advantage?).
I understand wanting to accomodate HTML-disabled users, and the desire to save on server space; and undercurrents of nostalgia, UNIXphilia, and MSphobia all warm my heart. It may also be that math-fun and seqfan want to discourage a floodgate of membership, considering some recent incidents of inconsiderate new users disrupting our coffeehouse atmosphere. Notwithstanding, my considered opinion is that catering to the technologically lowest common denominator will become increasingly costly to math-fun and seqfan as technology advances.