Speaking of mail etc

[kclark at CetaceanNetworks.com (Kevin D. Clark)]

"Rich Braun" <richb at pioneer.ci.net> writes:

> Some purists say text-only email is the only "right" way.  I vehemently
> disagree with that, based on an experience dating back to 1990.  The company
> where I worked at the time adopted cc:Mail and gradually distributed it across
> the branch offices.  At first hardly anyone used it, but once it took off, the
> company-culture was transformed in a way that consolidated its #1 industry
> position (it's still a high-flyer in the top-10 list of Massachusetts stocks).
>  One aspect that I saw used *constantly* was use of highlighting (colors and
> bold) to keep track of quotations or to help make a point.  Internet email
> doesn't generally have that, but a lot of message-boards do.  I think html is
> the standard way to implement rich-text format messages, and I think few users
> will be able to resist the trend.  Five years from now, plain-text email will
> probably be a fading thing.  One implication of that is that mailing list
> software such as what we're using to correspond here will have to have smarter
> html parsing.

I must politely (but vehemently) disagree with this.

My experience goes like this:

One day the company I used to work for rolled out Outlook/Exchange.  I
was quickly able to get my mail via POP3, so I continued to use my
HTML/MIME capable mailer.

But a lot of other people went whole-hog and started using Outlook.
In the beginning, aside from the whole Microsoft "application/ms-tnef"
mess, I was still able to participate in email discussions.

But then the insanity started....

Instead of quoting text in the generally accepted way (like I am doing
in this email message), people started using different fonts,
emphasis, and *especially* colors to distinguish their quoted 
replies.  In many cases, these methods were the only method people
were using to distinguish original text from quoted text.

So, there I was, participating in technical discussions regarding our
company's next product, encountering the following:

  o  Two people in succession quoting a precceeding message, entering
     their comments in bold.  Then they moved to "bold italic".  I
     found trying to distinguish between "bold" and "bold italic" to
     be difficult. 

  o  Admittedly, the usage of different fonts to quote text was rare,
     but it happened.  I found trying to distinguish between "a small
     font" and "a slightly bigger font" to be really difficult.

  o  And then people started using colors.  Some of my co-workers
     started using red, green, and blue for quoted text.  But then
     came more esoteric colors like cyan, sienna, and the one that I
     really remember was chartreuse.  I found trying to distinguish
     between "green" and "chartreuse" to be close to impossible, since
     I don't even know what in the hell "chartreuse" is, and I don't
     distinguish between colors very well.

So, again, there we were, trying to plan out our next product, and the
email discussion consisted of a chaotic thread of multiple fonts,
emphasis, and ANGRY FRUIT SALAD.  I thought that this was pretty
crazy, and this was one of the reasons why I left for another project.

Finally, I think that one of my sane coworkers managed to stop the
entire practice by claiming that he was color-blind, and that he
simply couldn't participate in the technical discussion anymore.


Now, you are claiming that this sort of practice leads to enhanced
productivity.  My experience causes me to disagree with you.

If you're going to seriously claim that these sorts of practices
enhance productivity, can you tell me how somebody who is visually
impared would be able to participate in such an environment?  To me,
it is unacceptable if they can't.

 (note:  I am not visually impared; I *do* have a hard time
 distinguishing between colors though)

I suppose that you could solve this problem using some sort of XML
DTD, but then we'd have to get all of the mailers to support it, but I
think that'd be overkill.  

I still prefer plain text.  I wish that people would put more effort
into learning how standard email quoting works too.


That's my two cents,

--kevin
-- 
Kevin D. Clark / Cetacean Networks / Portsmouth, N.H. (USA)
cetaceannetworks.com!kclark (GnuPG ID: B280F24E)
alumni.unh.edu!kdc