[said Peter]
>
> On Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:22:08AM -0400, Colin Paul Gloster wrote:
> > to return all emails to their senders if they have attachments. Exceptions
> > may be made for HTML (since many people send a HTML version of their
> > emails ... and for its superior formating abilities) and PDF files should
> > people wish to send on PDF files open to the public.
>
> I vote for banning html, pdf, doc, and the like.
> Communicating in plain ascii text saves space and time - all of us.
> If there is a need for extras there is always
> the way of pointing to a web-link.
>
> Peter Hermann Tel+49-711-685-3611 Fax3758 [log in to unmask]

I agree strongly with Peter.

(1) Don't send attachments to this list (I don't think I've ever
    seen any here, but let's just emphasize it)

(2) No HTML. Like others in this community, I read my e-mail using a
    pure-ASCII e-mail program under Unix (elm), and if HTML is sent,
    the message is cluttered with extra headers and copies of the
    message in _both_ pure text and HTML. That's only one of the
    irritations.

    That said, almost every time I've mentioned this to an individual
    correspondent, the answer has been "Oh, I had no idea my mailer
    was sending HTML. How do I turn it off?" The answer is "find it in
    your preferences dialog".

    I have NEVER (not once!) gotten the answer "hey, I really like to
    read my mail in HTML form." This suggests that HTML-formatted e-mail
    is a feature in search of a user community.:-)

    This seems to be a particular characteristic of Windoze-based
    mailers, especially Microsoft Outlook. Like so many other irritating
    M$ features, this one is (apparently) turned _on_ by default.

    (I've never used Outlook, but judging from the message headers,
    the HTML junk seems to come mostly from that program.)

Mike Feldman