Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
On Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at 3:07 PM Steven Champeon via mailop wrote: > > on Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at 01:18:23PM -0500, Rich Kulawiec via mailop wrote: > > If you (generic you) can't communicate in plain text, then you can't > > communicate. Nothing you have to say is worthy of an audience. > > https://giphy.com/media/5hHOBKJ8lw9OM/200.webp Or perhaps https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1044247-old-man-yells-at-cloud Al -- al iverson // wombatmail // chicago http://www.aliverson.com http://www.spamresource.com ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
on Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at 01:18:23PM -0500, Rich Kulawiec via mailop wrote: > If you (generic you) can't communicate in plain text, then you can't > communicate. Nothing you have to say is worthy of an audience. https://giphy.com/media/5hHOBKJ8lw9OM/200.webp -- hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2553 w: http://hesketh.com/ Internet security and antispam hostname intelligence: http://enemieslist.com/ ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
I've said this many times and many places, so I'm going to apologize to everyone who's already read it and knows where this is about to go. HTML markup in email is used by three groups of people: 1. Ignorant newbies who don't know any better 2. Ineducable morons who refuse to learn 3. Spammers There are no exceptions. HTML markup is almost always horribly broken, bloats messages tremendously, introduces security and privacy issues, makes messages less searchable, and adds nothing to the process of communication. (It is notable that quite often the extracted bodies of messages marked up with HTML are riddled with spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors in addition to being poorly composed. Adding HTML markup to these messages like sprinkling fresh mint on a steaming pile of manure and pretending it's now an acceptable menu item.) If you (generic you) can't communicate in plain text, then you can't communicate. Nothing you have to say is worthy of an audience. And as an aside, anyone who who functions in a professional capacity, e.g., a system administrator or network engineer or similar role, and thus shares responsibility for the security of the operation(s) they manage, should always use a text-only email client. If it's not clear why, then recall the lesson accidentally taught by RSA. ---rsk ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email? {dkim-fail}
On Tue, Dec 10, 2019, 5:48 AM Ned Freed via mailop wrote: > > I want to thank all contributors to this discussion for their feedback. > > > What I learned from this: > > - There are still people that prefer plain text. > > - Text alternative may be used by accessibility tools. > > - Text alternative should be complete and readable. > > - For bulk mail html only should work just fine. > > And perhaps most important of all, plain text may be used for indexing, > And proper indexing is essential in the mobile space. > I mean, obviously you can index html. The bigger issue I see with esp mail is using text images instead of actual text. Still indexable, but obviously harder and less accurate. Brandon > > Ned > > > Thanks, > > Maarten Oelering > > Postmastery > > > > ___ > > mailop mailing list > > mailop@mailop.org > > https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop > > ___ > mailop mailing list > mailop@mailop.org > https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop > ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email? {dkim-fail}
> I want to thank all contributors to this discussion for their feedback. > What I learned from this: > - There are still people that prefer plain text. > - Text alternative may be used by accessibility tools. > - Text alternative should be complete and readable. > - For bulk mail html only should work just fine. And perhaps most important of all, plain text may be used for indexing, And proper indexing is essential in the mobile space. Ned > Thanks, > Maarten Oelering > Postmastery > ___ > mailop mailing list > mailop@mailop.org > https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
I want to thank all contributors to this discussion for their feedback. What I learned from this: - There are still people that prefer plain text. - Text alternative may be used by accessibility tools. - Text alternative should be complete and readable. - For bulk mail html only should work just fine. Thanks, Maarten Oelering Postmastery ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
On Mon, 9 Dec 2019 at 16:26, Andrew C Aitchison via mailop < mailop@mailop.org> wrote: > As a colour-blind techie I would love to say that you can't drop plain > text for security reasons, but if Bruce Schneier can do it >https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/2018/0715.html#cg1 > then I'm not going to argue. > FWIW Crypto-Gram is sent as multipart/alternative with proper text/plain and text/html parts. Maybe something changed at Mailchimp. Cheers, Dave (Gmail at home, mutt at work) ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
That really sounds like "I use grep to search my archives" instead of something that actually understands email messages. Those numbers are tiny even if you just write a simple program that understands mime and html, much less something that generated an index.You could probably write that in python in less than an hour. Just about any thick client would do that just fine. And obviously online ones as well (my work account is nearly 1M threads at this point and search is nearly instantaneous...) Brandon On Mon, Dec 9, 2019 at 9:03 AM Allen Kitchen via mailop wrote: > If I had a dog in this fight, it would probably be a teacup-sized > Chihuahua. > > Having said that, if I had my way, emails would be entirely plain text; > that would make my folders of searchable archived emails (at last count, > about 35,000 for business purposes and another 15K for personal missives) > much skinnier and more easily searchable. > > I have considered writing something to munge the HTML portions out of my > saved emails, but considering the effort it would take and also considering > that doing this would render them less defensible as true copies should the > need ever arise, that’s a deferred project. > > And yet here I am sending this message via my iPad mail app. Oh, well... > > ..Allen > > > On Dec 9, 2019, at 05:06, Patrick Ben Koetter via mailop < > mailop@mailop.org> wrote: > > > > * Maarten Oelering via mailop : > >> Multipart messages with html and text alternatives are generally > considered best practice. Senders with html templates should add a text > version is the common believe. > >> > >> But it's almost 2020, and we were wondering if there's still a good > reason for adding plain text to a html message. Is there a significant > audience reading in plain text? Is plain text important for accessibility? > Because SpamAssassin says so? > > > > I'd say significant *and/or* important. Given the dominance of webmail > clients > > and the ongoing decline of desktop MUAs I'd say there's no significant > > audience out there anymore. OTOH there's an important audience you > probably > > don't want to miss. Most of the (email) security foccussed people don't > read > > HTML only mail for all the known and well-discussed reasons. > > > > Our customers ask us to filter out marketing mail. Given the fact most > > marketing mail comes HTML only this is an easy trigger to increase the > > "classify as marketing mail" count. > > > > p@rick > > > > > > -- > > [*] sys4 AG > > > > https://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 <+49%2089%2030904664> > > Schleißheimer Straße 26/MG,80333 München > > > > Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 > > Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Marc Schiffbauer, Wolfgang Stief > > Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Florian Kirstein > > > > > > ___ > > mailop mailing list > > mailop@mailop.org > > https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop > > > > -- > > This email was Virus checked by DSSC Solutions Company Security Gateway. > > -- > This email was Virus checked by DSSC Solutions Company Security Gateway. > ___ > mailop mailing list > mailop@mailop.org > https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop > ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
on Mon, Dec 09, 2019 at 06:23:41AM -0800, Ned Freed via mailop wrote: > (c) Plain text parts that are just a copy of the HTML. And, lo, just now from sharefile (copy/paste directly from mutt in 'v'): ---Attachment: text/plain (21%) http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd;> http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml;> [...] -- hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2553 w: http://hesketh.com/ Internet security and antispam hostname intelligence: http://enemieslist.com/ ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
On 9 Dec 2019, at 7:58, Al Iverson via mailop wrote: Whenever these threads come up, a dozen or so people say "I still read email on my stone tablet and so do all my friends." But count how many friends do you have, and then divide that by the 1.5 billion active Gmail users (as of October 2018), the resulting percentage is how much it matters if random sender X creates a text version or not in 2019. It really doesn't. Nobody except those 12 guys see the email in plain text. Those 12 people may be unhappy, but they probably aren't subscribed to a company's marketing messages anyway. I suspect that not all cheap and easy to replace accessibility devices[1] are able to cope with the HTML content that some senders pump out. So sure, there might be 12 old timers who don't care anyway. But by dismissing text/plain entirely, people restricted by those devices are also left behind. I'm all in for pragmatic approaches, but I suspect that as proposed, this is over-generalizing. [1] bad attempt of a joke. In many cases, those devices are neither cheap nor easy to replace. Best regards -lem ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
On 9 Dec 2019, at 6:23, Ned Freed via mailop wrote: Generate the plain text alternative if you can. Absolutely. But please, try hard. But if you can't, or aren't sure you can, just send the HTML and don't generate the multipart/alternative structure. +1 Best regards -lem ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
on Mon, Dec 09, 2019 at 12:00:17PM -0500, Allen Kitchen via mailop wrote: > > I have considered writing something to munge the HTML portions out of > my saved emails, but considering the effort it would take and also > considering that doing this would render them less defensible as true > copies should the need ever arise, that’s a deferred project. It's too bad disk space is so expensive these days, or you could keep both copies :-) cf. perl: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/371153/how-can-i-strip-html-and-attachments-from-emails or just use MimeDefang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIMEDefang HTH, Steve -- hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2553 w: http://hesketh.com/ Internet security and antispam hostname intelligence: http://enemieslist.com/ ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
I personally write email messages in plain text, and don't include html in my messages unless absolutely necessary. I read messages in plain text when possible (98% of all email I get is composed of pure text with some minor aesthetic html imrovement). Considering the text part of a message is so small in size (some provider's headers are larger than the text part!!!), and being so important for automated analysis, not to mention convenience and politeness to those who can't/won't open their emails in html format, I don't see the point in not including both html and txt parts. Just my 0.02€ Ignacio El 09/12/2019 a las 18:00, Allen Kitchen via mailop escribió: If I had a dog in this fight, it would probably be a teacup-sized Chihuahua. Having said that, if I had my way, emails would be entirely plain text; that would make my folders of searchable archived emails (at last count, about 35,000 for business purposes and another 15K for personal missives) much skinnier and more easily searchable. I have considered writing something to munge the HTML portions out of my saved emails, but considering the effort it would take and also considering that doing this would render them less defensible as true copies should the need ever arise, that’s a deferred project. And yet here I am sending this message via my iPad mail app. Oh, well... ..Allen On Dec 9, 2019, at 05:06, Patrick Ben Koetter via mailop wrote: * Maarten Oelering via mailop : Multipart messages with html and text alternatives are generally considered best practice. Senders with html templates should add a text version is the common believe. But it's almost 2020, and we were wondering if there's still a good reason for adding plain text to a html message. Is there a significant audience reading in plain text? Is plain text important for accessibility? Because SpamAssassin says so? I'd say significant *and/or* important. Given the dominance of webmail clients and the ongoing decline of desktop MUAs I'd say there's no significant audience out there anymore. OTOH there's an important audience you probably don't want to miss. Most of the (email) security foccussed people don't read HTML only mail for all the known and well-discussed reasons. Our customers ask us to filter out marketing mail. Given the fact most marketing mail comes HTML only this is an easy trigger to increase the "classify as marketing mail" count. p@rick -- [*] sys4 AG https://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 Schleißheimer Straße 26/MG,80333 München Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Marc Schiffbauer, Wolfgang Stief Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Florian Kirstein ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop -- This email was Virus checked by DSSC Solutions Company Security Gateway. ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
If I had a dog in this fight, it would probably be a teacup-sized Chihuahua. Having said that, if I had my way, emails would be entirely plain text; that would make my folders of searchable archived emails (at last count, about 35,000 for business purposes and another 15K for personal missives) much skinnier and more easily searchable. I have considered writing something to munge the HTML portions out of my saved emails, but considering the effort it would take and also considering that doing this would render them less defensible as true copies should the need ever arise, that’s a deferred project. And yet here I am sending this message via my iPad mail app. Oh, well... ..Allen > On Dec 9, 2019, at 05:06, Patrick Ben Koetter via mailop > wrote: > > * Maarten Oelering via mailop : >> Multipart messages with html and text alternatives are generally considered >> best practice. Senders with html templates should add a text version is the >> common believe. >> >> But it's almost 2020, and we were wondering if there's still a good reason >> for adding plain text to a html message. Is there a significant audience >> reading in plain text? Is plain text important for accessibility? Because >> SpamAssassin says so? > > I'd say significant *and/or* important. Given the dominance of webmail clients > and the ongoing decline of desktop MUAs I'd say there's no significant > audience out there anymore. OTOH there's an important audience you probably > don't want to miss. Most of the (email) security foccussed people don't read > HTML only mail for all the known and well-discussed reasons. > > Our customers ask us to filter out marketing mail. Given the fact most > marketing mail comes HTML only this is an easy trigger to increase the > "classify as marketing mail" count. > > p@rick > > > -- > [*] sys4 AG > > https://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 > Schleißheimer Straße 26/MG,80333 München > > Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 > Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Marc Schiffbauer, Wolfgang Stief > Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Florian Kirstein > > > ___ > mailop mailing list > mailop@mailop.org > https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop > > -- > This email was Virus checked by DSSC Solutions Company Security Gateway. -- This email was Virus checked by DSSC Solutions Company Security Gateway. ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
On Mon, Dec 9, 2019 at 10:21 AM Jaroslaw Rafa wrote: > > Dnia 9.12.2019 o godz. 09:58:03 Al Iverson via mailop pisze: > > Nobody except those 12 guys see the email in plain text. Those 12 > > people may be unhappy, but they probably aren't subscribed to a company's > > marketing messages anyway. > > Actually, as one of those 12 guys I don't care about marketing messages. Actually, we agree. That is why I said that you probably aren't subscribed to those marketing messages. From someone else: > Is there a good reason to *stop* including plain text? Yes, as it's another non-zero amount of content that must be created. For some it is easy. For some it is not as easy. It may not be a good reason for all. But it is not a bad reason for all. Regards, Al Iverson -- al iverson // wombatmail // chicago http://www.aliverson.com http://www.spamresource.com ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
Dnia 9.12.2019 o godz. 09:58:03 Al Iverson via mailop pisze: > Nobody except those 12 guys see the email in plain text. Those 12 > people may be unhappy, but they probably aren't subscribed to a company's > marketing messages anyway. Actually, as one of those 12 guys I don't care about marketing messages. Probably nobody who is reasonable cares about the garbage from people who want to sell you more and more useless shit (because that's what most marketing messages are). These messages can be not only HTML but even in some completely unreadable format; makes no difference, they go straight to trash anyway. But transactional email, like order confirmations, password reminders, etc. are a different thing. I *do* care about them and they also very often come in HTML only or with a text part that contains no or unreadable information. Stupid webmail interfaces, that reformat the plain text part to an unreadable one-liner, as someone here already mentioned, are also a pain in the a**. I don't understand what's actually the point of people who suggest dropping the plain text part. Are their CPU cycles so precious that they don't even want to waste a little bit to convert their fancy-glancy HTML to something readable? The existence of plain text part doesn't harm anybody and doesn't waste a lot of resources (if we are talking about resources, the HTML part with all it's markup and graphics would be the one to drop in first place). So why waste time and energy on discussions about dropiing it? It's there and let it stay. Remember the first engineering rule - "if something ain't broke, don't fix it". -- Regards, Jaroslaw Rafa r...@rafa.eu.org -- "In a million years, when kids go to school, they're gonna know: once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub." ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
> On Dec 9, 2019, at 4:32 AM, Andreas Schamanek via mailop > wrote: > >> we were wondering if there's still a good reason for adding plain text to a >> html message. Is there a significant audience reading in plain text? Is >> plain text important for accessibility? > Let me turn this question around: Is there a good reason to *stop* including plain text? (I fully agree with all of the various reasons put forward for continuing to do it, but am wondering why one, once already doing it, would stop?) FWIW, we *require* all of our certification customers to email us *only* in plain text (and there has never been any pushback, again, FWIW). Anne Anne P. Mitchell, Esq., Dean of Cyberlaw, Lincoln Law School CEO/President, SuretyMail Email Reputation Certification Author: Section 6 of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (the Federal anti-spam law) Legislative Consultant, GDPR, CCPA (CA) & CCDPA (CO) Compliance Consultant Former Counsel: Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
Whenever these threads come up, a dozen or so people say "I still read email on my stone tablet and so do all my friends." But count how many friends do you have, and then divide that by the 1.5 billion active Gmail users (as of October 2018), the resulting percentage is how much it matters if random sender X creates a text version or not in 2019. It really doesn't. Nobody except those 12 guys see the email in plain text. Those 12 people may be unhappy, but they probably aren't subscribed to a company's marketing messages anyway. The only reason I suggest including a text version is that it makes email messages score lower (better) in SpamAssassin. But even that has diminishing returns at this point. Cheers, Al Iverson On Mon, Dec 9, 2019 at 7:58 AM Steven Champeon via mailop wrote: > on Mon, Dec 09, 2019 at 02:26:08PM +0100, Jaroslaw Rafa via mailop wrote: > > Dnia 9.12.2019 o godz. 12:52:31 Steven Champeon via mailop pisze: > > > That's all I can see in mutt. Not even a "your mail client sucks" or > > > "click on the URL to view this message in a web browser" disclaimer. > > > > As you are using mutt, you definitely know how to use the "v" key on the > > message :). Then you can press Enter on the HTML part and your locally > > installed text-mode browser like w3m, lynx or links kicks in and displays > > the HTML for you. However, it still sucks to have to do this :) > > Yeah, of course, I know that, but it's an even more idiotic sign on > behalf of the sender that they don't care enough to make it so I don't > have to do that. Also, I suspect whenever I'm going to have to do that > I am just going to get a lynx -dump that consists of a blurb followed > by forty-leven ~1K hash redirect "Visible link" lines and perhaps a > clicktracker "Hidden link" line. Respect! > > And I also note that there is no account preference for either special > notice mail^W^W^Wmarketing like this or for their newsletter to let > them know I'd rather get plain text. Shrug. I don't make good cheap > eyeglasses, they don't know how to properly manage their broadcast mail. > > -- > hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2553 w: > http://hesketh.com/ > Internet security and antispam hostname intelligence: > http://enemieslist.com/ > > ___ > mailop mailing list > mailop@mailop.org > https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop > -- al iverson // wombatmail // chicago http://www.aliverson.com http://www.spamresource.com ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
Generate the plain text alternative if you can. But if you can't, or aren't sure you can, just send the HTML and don't generate the multipart/alternative structure. Far too many multipart/alternative messages are arriving these days with: (a) Blank plain text parts. (b) Plain text parts that say, "see the HTML part", "get a better client", and similar crap. (c) Plain text parts that are just a copy of the HTML. (d) Plain text parts that are a "processed" version of the HTML, where "processing" doesn't involve actualy removing the markup. These practices cause problems even for clients that show the HTML part unconditionally because some indexers will always use the plain text if it is present, on the theory that the whatever generate the message is in a better position to generate proper text. Ned ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
on Mon, Dec 09, 2019 at 02:26:08PM +0100, Jaroslaw Rafa via mailop wrote: > Dnia 9.12.2019 o godz. 12:52:31 Steven Champeon via mailop pisze: > > That's all I can see in mutt. Not even a "your mail client sucks" or > > "click on the URL to view this message in a web browser" disclaimer. > > As you are using mutt, you definitely know how to use the "v" key on the > message :). Then you can press Enter on the HTML part and your locally > installed text-mode browser like w3m, lynx or links kicks in and displays > the HTML for you. However, it still sucks to have to do this :) Yeah, of course, I know that, but it's an even more idiotic sign on behalf of the sender that they don't care enough to make it so I don't have to do that. Also, I suspect whenever I'm going to have to do that I am just going to get a lynx -dump that consists of a blurb followed by forty-leven ~1K hash redirect "Visible link" lines and perhaps a clicktracker "Hidden link" line. Respect! And I also note that there is no account preference for either special notice mail^W^W^Wmarketing like this or for their newsletter to let them know I'd rather get plain text. Shrug. I don't make good cheap eyeglasses, they don't know how to properly manage their broadcast mail. -- hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2553 w: http://hesketh.com/ Internet security and antispam hostname intelligence: http://enemieslist.com/ ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
Dnia 9.12.2019 o godz. 12:52:31 Steven Champeon via mailop pisze: > > Actual example from this month, and I'm a past customer and in the > market for a fresh prescription update: > >Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2019 04:27:15 + (UTC) >From: "Eyeglasses.com" >To: scham...@hesketh.com >Subject: It's Black Friday, FREE LENSES > > That's all I can see in mutt. Not even a "your mail client sucks" or > "click on the URL to view this message in a web browser" disclaimer. As you are using mutt, you definitely know how to use the "v" key on the message :). Then you can press Enter on the HTML part and your locally installed text-mode browser like w3m, lynx or links kicks in and displays the HTML for you. However, it still sucks to have to do this :) I sometimes have to do this because one of the participants of a mailing list I'm subscribed to uses one of those stupid reformat-everything-to-one-line web mailers you mentioned, so to properly read his messages I have to use "v", press Enter on the HTML (not plain text) part and read it in w3m. But this still sucks, as I said. -- Regards, Jaroslaw Rafa r...@rafa.eu.org -- "In a million years, when kids go to school, they're gonna know: once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub." ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
on Mon, Dec 09, 2019 at 09:50:14AM +0100, Maarten Oelering via mailop wrote: > Multipart messages with html and text alternatives are generally > considered best practice. Senders with html templates should add a > text version is the common believe. Well, the common belief is more like "what's multipart"? :-) > But it's almost 2020, and we were wondering if there's still a good > reason for adding plain text to a html message. Is there a significant > audience reading in plain text? I'm reading this in mutt, but I'm probably not a significant audience unless your audience is defined as people who still like plain text, such as, oh, hey, maybe mailop or nanog or anywhere else filled with grizzled old hangers-on to decades-old technology biases. Caveat: back in the Day I helped argue for the foundation of what is now known as "responsive design" in Web design, so I have a standpoint. > Is plain text important for accessibility? Again, that's a whole 'nother can of worms. I started out in SGML and taught myself the HTML of the day in a few minutes, and so believe that it is certainly /possible/ to write HTML that it readable by the tools that make such accessible, but as to whether anyone (or any tools) know how or care to know how to do that anymore? Shrug. So, provide a plain text alternative, preferably one you've actually tried to read in a client like mutt. A significant number of those clients and tools I've seen people using to send multipart mail don't understand why stripping ALL of the newlines and mashing down spaces makesithardertoread.YMMV. An example of this (created by yahoo mail, IIUIC) from a post to a local neighborhood mailing list, sent by someone describing a house on our upcoming historic district tour, cut and pasted from mutt and reformatted only to indent for legibility and wrap to ~76c: 703N. East St. Nowell-Forbes house 1923Naudain MachenThisNeoclassical Revival house was built for developer Virginia Nowell. From 1941to 1989 it was the home of Harry Forbes, an engineer with the Seaboard Air LineRailway, and his family. The house was restored and expanded for the currentowner in 2005. The interior is beautifully lit by large windows, surrounded bystained-wood trim. The retaining wall at the front of the property is built ofBelgian block stones. Behind the house is a 5,000-gallon pool wherein reside 21koi. Each item it also jammed together so the next line starts immediately: 609 Polk St. Forrest-Crew House 1897Lyric Thompson& Lee LilleyThisand five other houses on this block were originally identical four-room QueenAnne-style I dunno, seems like we'd have figured the basics out by now. > Because SpamAssassin says so? Doesn't hurt. How about "because the following makes you look really stupid": Actual example from this month, and I'm a past customer and in the market for a fresh prescription update: Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2019 04:27:15 + (UTC) From: "Eyeglasses.com" To: scham...@hesketh.com Subject: It's Black Friday, FREE LENSES That's all I can see in mutt. Not even a "your mail client sucks" or "click on the URL to view this message in a web browser" disclaimer. I know, I should get a different account for all the vendors who send me stuff with ~1K char click-tracker redirects and just read and manage them in an HTML-capable client, but I'd rather know what I'm actually looking at, not just what the rendering engine decided to show me. JADP, Steve -- hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2553 w: http://hesketh.com/ Internet security and antispam hostname intelligence: http://enemieslist.com/ ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
Yes, keep the plain text alternative -- I need it to be accessible and plain text is better that way. If you need to have a link or two, just paste them in there, but the html mail is usually totally unnecessary anyway, this is Email after all and it was not designed for html. It seems much safer to me as well, no beacons or anything like that in a plain text email. On Mon, 09 Dec 2019 03:50:14 -0500, Maarten Oelering via mailop wrote: > > Multipart messages with html and text alternatives are generally considered > best practice. Senders with html templates should add a text version is the > common believe. > > But it's almost 2020, and we were wondering if there's still a good reason > for adding plain text to a html message. Is there a significant audience > reading in plain text? Is plain text important for accessibility? Because > SpamAssassin says so? > > Would be great to get feedback from this diverse and knowledgable community. > > Thanks, > Maarten Oelering > Postmastery > > > ___ > mailop mailing list > mailop@mailop.org > https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop > -- Your life is like a penny. You're going to lose it. The question is: How do you spend it? John Covici wb2una cov...@ccs.covici.com ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
On Mon, 9 Dec 2019, at 09:50, Maarten Oelering via mailop wrote: we were wondering if there's still a good reason for adding plain text to a html message. Is there a significant audience reading in plain text? Is plain text important for accessibility? As others have said "significant" is significantly hard to define. The percentage of human recipients reading plain text is probably declining. Still, IMHO, a plain text alternative part has the advantage that the sender has control over it. Without a plain text alternative it is up to the recipients to convert the HTML to something readable. This is known to lead to unwanted and certainly less than optimal results. For a list of pros and cons of HTML in general see e.g. my list https://fam.tuwien.ac.at/~schamane/_/html-mail-vs-plain-text -- -- Andreas :-) ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
Dnia 9.12.2019 o godz. 09:50:14 Maarten Oelering via mailop pisze: > > But it's almost 2020, and we were wondering if there's still a good reason > for adding plain text to a html message. Is there a significant audience > reading in plain text? Is plain text important for accessibility? > Because SpamAssassin says so? I still read my mail the old fashioned way, by logging in via ssh to the server and using console-based mail client (Mutt in particular). I know quite a lot of people from the admin community who do the same. My webmail interface, which I sometimes have to use when I don't have access to ssh (for example when checking mail from phone), also displays plain text part only. -- Regards, Jaroslaw Rafa r...@rafa.eu.org -- "In a million years, when kids go to school, they're gonna know: once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub." ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
Am 09.12.19 um 09:50 schrieb Maarten Oelering via mailop: > Multipart messages with html and text alternatives are generally considered > best practice. Senders with html templates should add a text version is the > common believe. > > But it's almost 2020, and we were wondering if there's still a good reason > for adding plain text to a html message. Is there a significant audience > reading in plain text? Is plain text important for accessibility? Because > SpamAssassin says so? > > Would be great to get feedback from this diverse and knowledgable community. > For security and anti tracking reasons text emails are a necessity. Even on our Webmailsystem here at University of Konstanz we have Plain Text as default. There are less than 1% of all emails between people which use HTML. Only Marketing uses it heavily. Kind regards, Christian Mack -- Christian Mack Universität Konstanz Kommunikations-, Informations-, Medienzentrum (KIM) Abteilung Basisdienste 78457 Konstanz +49 7531 88-4416 smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
* Maarten Oelering via mailop : > Multipart messages with html and text alternatives are generally considered > best practice. Senders with html templates should add a text version is the > common believe. > > But it's almost 2020, and we were wondering if there's still a good reason > for adding plain text to a html message. Is there a significant audience > reading in plain text? Is plain text important for accessibility? Because > SpamAssassin says so? I'd say significant *and/or* important. Given the dominance of webmail clients and the ongoing decline of desktop MUAs I'd say there's no significant audience out there anymore. OTOH there's an important audience you probably don't want to miss. Most of the (email) security foccussed people don't read HTML only mail for all the known and well-discussed reasons. Our customers ask us to filter out marketing mail. Given the fact most marketing mail comes HTML only this is an easy trigger to increase the "classify as marketing mail" count. p@rick -- [*] sys4 AG https://sys4.de, +49 (89) 30 90 46 64 Schleißheimer Straße 26/MG,80333 München Sitz der Gesellschaft: München, Amtsgericht München: HRB 199263 Vorstand: Patrick Ben Koetter, Marc Schiffbauer, Wolfgang Stief Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: Florian Kirstein ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
On 09/12/2019 08:50, Maarten Oelering via mailop wrote: Multipart messages with html and text alternatives are generally considered best practice. Senders with html templates should add a text version is the common believe. But it's almost 2020, and we were wondering if there's still a good reason for adding plain text to a html message. Is there a significant audience reading in plain text? Is plain text important for accessibility? Because SpamAssassin says so? Automated software/filters will find it a lot easier to read plain text than HTML. This will include things like screen-readers. Many people DO read in plain text because of the perceived risk of HTML (tracking images etc) Many 'techies' read in plain text because it's better & cleaner than HTML Why wouldn't you add a plain text alternative? Software can automatically generate a reasonable plain text version quite easily and it'll probably be a small fraction of the size of the HTML version, so why not do it? (But test it! A lot of automated generation is rubbish - I've seen ones where the plain text version is identical to the HTML version - tags and all) -- Paul Smith Computer Services Tel: 01484 855800 Vat No: GB 685 6987 53 Sign up for news & updates at http://www.pscs.co.uk/go/subscribe ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
Re: [mailop] Reasons to add plain text alternative to email?
I don't read HTML mail unless absolutely necessary (i.e., I "need" the information that the mail contains); I don't want to trigger all the tracking stuff in the HTML part. ___ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
