[FFML] A thought on the future of the FFML

[The Wanderer]

On 06/26/2013 11:38 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 8:30 AM, The Wanderer <wanderer at fastmail.fm>
> wrote:
> 
>> The quoting styles which are appropriate in a context where more
>> than one post is visible at once (such as is done on probably the
>> vast majority of Web forums) are not appropriate in a context where
>> only one post is visible at once (such as happens in E-mail), and
>> vice versa.
> 
> I'm seeing this entire thread in one page.  It does not change the
> appropriate quoting style.

Are you using the Gmail Web interface?

I think that may be the only client that does that. It's one of the
several interface decisions made about Gmail that I disagree with.

>> Since we can't make E-mail be a "more than one post visible at a
>> time" context, because the way E-mail is presented depends entirely
>> on the user's mail-reader and its configuration, the only way to
>> keep them compatible that I see is to make the hypothetical Web
>> forum be an "only one post visible at a time" context.
> 
> If the email presentation style depends on the user's client, that
> would be an argument for making the Web forum have a user account
> setting to display one post per page or to display all the posts in
> one page - again, so that the presentation can be just like in email.

The trouble with that is that it would lead to different people using
different quoting styles, based on what they see. (This might happen
anyway if the interface that you're seeing is relatively common, but
it's still what I'm trying to avoid.)

>> While I would certainly prefer for the chosen requirements to be
>> either plain text or something easily convertible to/from plain
>> text (and that can be discussed separately, though I'm not going to
>> do it right this moment), that's not essential for the type of
>> dual-interface compatibility that was being proposed; having the
>> requirements be the same in both interfaces *is* essential.
> 
> The standard for email continues to be plain text in many cases, does
> it not?  Sure, there are an increasing number of HTML-friendly email
> clients, but is it a large enough percent that we can safely abandon
> the text-only (and
> HTML-badly-enough-implemented-that-it-might-as-well-be text-only)
> readers?

Unfortunately from my perspective, I'm relatively certain that it is. As
far as I know, the only non-HTML-supporting mail clients left are the
legacy *nix ones and their ports for other OSes; furthermore, a sizable
proportion (possibly even a majority) of the general public now get
their E-mail through Web interfaces, which of course support HTML
because the browser does.

It is my personal opinion that HTML E-mail should never have been
invented, and should never be used. That doesn't change the fact that
it's widely supported and is the de-facto standard in most places.

-- 
    The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Every time you let somebody set a limit they start moving it.
   - LiveJournal user antonia_tiger