On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 03:49:46PM +0100, Sam Kuper wrote: > On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 06:08:37PM -0500, Derek Martin wrote: > > On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 01:09:12PM +0100, Sam Kuper wrote: > >> On Thu, Apr 09, 2020 at 09:32:01AM -0500, Derek Martin wrote: > >>> On Wed, Apr 08, 2020 at 01:17:12PM +0100, Sam Kuper wrote: > >>>> On Tue, Apr 07, 2020 at 09:23:34PM -0500, Derek Martin wrote: > >>>>> Sorry, but this is an archaic way of looking at the problem. > >>>>> People have been doing this for decades now, has become the norm, > >>>>> common practice, and really it is therefore WE who are being > >>>>> inconsiderate by not accepting de facto standards that have been > >>>>> widely adopted for a very long time. > >>>> > >>>> I disagree. You have made a "roads were built for cars" argument*: > >>>> it assumes that today's "de facto standard" trumps historical > >>>> precedent and considerate behaviour. > > > > And by the way, I ignored this point originally, but doesn't it? > > No, it doesn't. > > Inconsiderate behaviour is by definition inconsiderate.
When you're talking about a population of people, who is being inconsiderate, those who do what the majority prefer, or the minority who have made up their own mind that their way is better despite what everyone else does? > Likewise, the fact that something is currently popular does not make it > good. It does make it *preferred* though, which is how you have to define what is considerate. Inconsiderate is doing something that is not preferred. That which is least preferred is most inconsiderate. If you can't agree with that, we may as well stop discussing it. And if you do agree with that, then I'm clearly correct, and we may as well stop discussing it. =8^) > > Even in the case of cars, which you can argue have had deleterious > > effects on society (but I think there's plenty of support for the > > counter-argument), we got to where we got to because it was what most > > people wanted. Technological evolution is about as democratic as it > > gets... > > I disagree. Consumption is ultimately constrained by the choices > available to consumers. No, it isn't. If you are skilled, you can obtain resources to make what you want. And if there are enough people who want it, you can make it for them to feed their demand. And you can make a very good living doing it. > If a region's developers and government planners, etc, space houses far > apart and provide negligible public transport or cycling infrastructure > but plentiful cars and car-oriented infrastructure, cars will > predominate there because the region's consumers are hampered in > pursuing other choices. You've just made the case that the roads WERE built for cars. The ones we have today, anyway. =8^) > Technological evolution is no more democratic than is a gerrymandered > district rife with vote suppression and dubious publicity. Of course it is. I have dollars. I can spend them on new technology or not. Just because it exists, doesn't mean I must buy it. In that regard, I directly influence what gets made. If no one buys it, that company will cease to exist, and stop making their thing--and another will sprout with a different thing. Rinse and repeat. The things that are the most popular win (get made and sold). That's basically the definition of democracy. I have no direct influence over what gerrymanderers do. The most I can do is vote for whomever is not a member of the currently in-power party and hope that enough people do that the new electees will effect legislation to gerrymander to keep their own party in power, rather than the current one. It's largely not worth even considering. > > Just ask BetaMax. > > That's a quagmire of a topic! But it's a well-known example that, details aside, succinctly captures the essence of both sides of a particular debate. > It's also not relevant here. But it very much is! > Betamax machines couldn't generally play or record VHS tapes and > vice versa: "Customers had to choose between the two as tapes and > machines were not compatible between the two Exactly. e-mail users have to chose between the two email formats and clients are not (fully) compatible between the two... Every decision has tradeoffs. One choice may be better for YOU, but not necessarily for the majority. The majority clearly prefer HTML mail. Opinion polls show that, and my epxerience outside of technical mailing lists overwhelmingly supports it. That's exactly what the BetaMax example is (always) meant to point out--succinctly, that consumer choice wins, regardless of what YOU happen to think the technical merits are. > By contrast, non-GUI MUAs *can* often render at least some parts of HTML > emails And by not being able to render them whole, they are deficient compared to those which can. > >>>> I've nothing against people sending emails with multiple > >>>> attachments. But expecting the recipient's MUA to parse multiple > >>>> attachments into some kind of combined document is presumptuous, > >>>> because clearly not everyone's MUA does this. > >>> > >>> There's a HUUUUUGE difference. Roads existed for millenia before > >>> cars. > >> > >> The timescale isn't the point. My analogy refers only to your > >> argument that today's "de facto standard" trumps historical precedent > >> and considerate behaviour. In this respect, the analogy is accurate. > > > > If you're talking about historical precedence then time scale very > > much is the point. If your historical precedent was 5 minutes old > > that doesn't make for a compelling argument. If your time scale > > includes a period when something was not in widespread use, and then > > suddently it was, that too seems pretty uncompelling. > > I feel you are engaging with a sideshow, in an attempt to distract from > the force of the analogy. It was your sideshow... I'm not distracting from the force of the analogy. It's a bad analogy. Or, it's a good analogy, but one which supports your point badly. Depending on how you look at it. > > But even so, you're basically saying, "It was this way, and so it must > > always be; no evolution of technology should be permitted." > > No. That is not my position, and I have made no such assertion. You have by inference. Your position on HTML mail roughly equates to it. First there was text-only e-mail. Then things got better, and made graphical e-mail possible. Then things got cheaper, and graphical e-mail became widely available, and became the norm. You're saying that's inconsiderate. I'm saying it's just natural evolution, and you are being inconsiderate by demanding that the majority cater to you. It's a Harrison Bergeron argument. Let's all dumb down to the least common denominator. > >> I *disagree* that by the mid 90s, most GUI MUAs could handle this. > > > > I may be off by a few years, and it's fairly difficult to collect data > > about what e-mail clients supported what features when, but I > > certainly recall getting tons of complaints about it by the time I was > > in my first sysadmin job where I also had to do desktop support, which > > was in 1997. > > > > It doesn't really matter. > > This seems inconsistent on at least two separate fronts. But it is actually inconsistent on neither. > > 1. You claim that GUI MUAs could handle such email by some point in > time. But then you note that you received "tons of [desktop support] > complaints" about such email shortly after that time! By techies like you (and me!) who opposed it. Not by norms. Do you suppose it was ever any other way? The business/staff types were always more than happy to use whatever Microsoft gave them. In fact they LOVED it. If they saw me running Mutt they invariably wanted to know how I could deal with it... > Clearly, then, you were mistaken to imply that such email was > unproblematic during that period. I didn't mean to imply that; it's always been a problem for some segment of the e-mail using population. it is no different now than it was then, except that the size of the group of people who is complaining about it has gotten drastically smaller over time, pretty rapidly, to a mostly negligible fraction of the whole. > 2. You said earlier that "If you're talking about historical precedence > then time scale very much is the point." But then you said, "I may > be off by a few years ... It doesn't really matter." 2-3 years is a much smaller discrepancy than several millenia. There was vastly more precedence for roads being used by non-car things than there was widespread e-mail use not involving GUI clients, discounting the previously mentioned small fraction of the population who are technically-oriented humans, whether it happened in 3 years or 6. Of course now, even most of those prefer HTML mail. The ascii ribbon campaign was entirely abandoned by the early 2010's or so. > > The point is by now, the feature has been available in the vast > > majority of major e-mail clients for a very long time, and is in > > widespread use. You can rail against technological evolution if you > > like, but that doesn't help people get work done. All I'm after is to > > not have to fight with my tools to get them to show me what everyone > > else around me can see effortlessly. > > By "effortlessly", you seem to mean, "at substantial risk to their > privacy and security". I mean no such thing. > We've been over this already in this thread. Yes, indeed I refuted that point by pointing out you can disable it in virtually all existing HTML-mail-capable clients, and in ones that don't exist yet that you're designing, you can do whatever you want. Gmail lets me disable it by default and enable it on a per-message or per-sender basis. That's perfect. And I use it, for those things I'm willing to use gmail for... > > At that particular thing, Mutt sucks quite a lot. > > I'm glad that Mutt helps to minimise its users' exposure to malicious > content. But as I've said repeatedly now, most other clients allow for that. So I'm much more NOT glad that I have to jump through hoops to read some mail on account of Mutt sucking at it. > > I used to be one of the people who argued vehemently against > > non-plaintext e-mail. But over time, the arguments against it have > > largely become moot for most people, and the fact is it IS better, > > because of its ability to more efficiently (in terms of what is > > visually rendered, not necessarily in how it is encoded) present other > > kinds of information besides simple unformatted plain text. > > Non-plain text email is *not* objectively better. It has numerous > significant problems (privacy, security, compatibility, complexit), as > already indicated in this thread. Except we've already established that NONE of those are required elements in order to render HTML mail, except for the complexity, "as already indicated in this thread." Things that are more powerful are almost inherently more complex. Just ask Mutt. :) Complexity is only a problem when people aren't willing to make the effort to make it work, and as a result it causes actual problems in fact. And compatibility is a non-issue for the overwhelming majority of e-mail users. Their clients are capable. So yes, its greater flexibility at formatting, and rendering images, absolutely does make it objectively better. You get more, without giving up anything. > > And to be able to read what my boss sent me... whatever it might be. > > Even if it contains tracking beacons or other forms of spyware/malware? > If so, that sounds like being unhealthily in thrall to your boss :( I'm quite sure (quite literally) it does not. And if he wants to send me such things at work, for work, that's his prerogative. I don't have to like it, but I DO need to read it. Let me put it this way: I MUST read those messages. Currently my only real option is to fire up Microsoft Outlook. Wouldn't it be vastly better if I could read them in a GUI client that had Mutt's philosophy, that actually does care about its users' security and privacy? I think the answer is clearly yes, and I think it should be so for everyone else on this list. And by the way, here's another news flash: Most people just don't care about privacy anymore, and that prevents YOUR privacy. I happen to care about privacy... but I consider it completely futile. Worried about using gmail? They already have most of your mail, because of their massive user base and their web search engine. Worried about being tagged on a facebook post? Your friends are probably doing it, even if you don't have a facebook account. Worried about spam? About the best you can do is filter it, once your e-mail is out there, everyone has it. Privacy on the Internet is just about nonexistent. Get over it. Or get off of it. -- Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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