[FFML] A thought on the future of the FFML

[Dennis Carr]

On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 23:11:29 -0500
David Smith <dsmith at datasync.com> wrote:

> I'm wondering why the formatting question seems to be such a
> difficult issue.  On Fanfiction.net (and various other sites),
> there's a little black/white icon that you can click to change from a
> black text on a light background to light text on a dark background
> (and various other user interface options).  Why not have a similar
> toggle for pure text vs basic HTML markup?

In the simplest terms, email (the transport method) doesn't work that
way - email clients, however, do, and these reformatted forms are
included as attachments in an email so that the transport can
accomodate.  Because Mailman does not accomodate for formatting (being
a mailing list service first with an added-on archival mechanism), the
facilities simply don't exist, accordingly.

Caveat: it is not easy to simply change to a different platform when
you're running a server.  There's no real conspiracy, it's just the
nature of the beast.  (Look at all those MFing configurations and data
files!)

-Dennis