Re: Color font

> It is best, when speaking to a wide audience, to take the lowest common
> denominator approach rather than confusing or insulting a part of your
> audience.  While I agree that the "d" key is best used in cases where
> someone sends something you do not wish to receive, I want to explain
> why any mail containing embedded colour or font information is offensive
> and possibly destructive to those who do not use MS Exchange to read
> their mail. MS Exchange is a proprietary format -- and if every format
> were proprietary, we would not be able to have this list today.

I agree with the concept here.  I think that to make sure that everyone
can read mail it should be sent in the simplest form possible.  I 
wasn't able to read the initial message on my mail reader (elm), so I
had to go look at the mailing list archives.

Technically, the mail message is compliant with standard
MIME multipart protocols and should be handled properly by most 
mail clients keeping up-to-date with the RFCs.  It's not proprietary
Microsoft encoding, just HTML embedded within a MIME message.

Unfortunately, most of us also don't stay abreast of emerging 
technologies that closely, so our mail readers will always be 
far behind.  I still use elm as my mail reader because I haven't
taken time to learn my new one (mutt).  Yes, I'm a UNIX freak.  :)
I still have this problem at NCSA -- they insist on sending out
mail with HTML embedded in it, so I have to save it and load
it up in my web browser.

So the question is whether or not people on this mailing list should be
forced to keep up with technology.  Although I'm all for technology and
changing the fonts is a neat trick, I think that it would be easier for
all of us if the lowest common denominator is targeted, as Amy suggested.
The purpose of this list is discussions about gardening with perennials,
not computer enhancements.  Mail should be sent in the simplest format,
devoid of text colorations and images to keep messages accessible to
the widest possible audience.

I'll add something to the subscription information about this.  If anyone
has any comments about this, feel free to send me mail (lindsey@mallorn.com).
Otherwise, let's forget about this and not hold it against all parties
involved.  We're still learning as a group...

Chris


Chris
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