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please don't send html email

 
Ranch Hand
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I despise HTML in email. Most of it is bloated, unnecessary, waste of bandwidth. I have gotten to the point where I delete HTML email unread.
Why is this relevant here? Way back when I first joined, I turned off the "allow moderators to send you email" option because I didn't want the extra mail. Then it happened that I might have won a book giveaway, except the moderators couldn't contact me to let me know.
So I turned the option back on just in case. This was okay for awhile, because the weekly "here's this week's giveaway info" message was text-only.
For the past few weeks, the weekly giveaway message has been arriving in HTML, and thus gets deleted unread.
I'm turning the option back off to avoid wasting both my time and bandwidth on messages I'm not going to read.
I see a couple of solutions:
1) An option to select between HTML or text mail. I've seen this on other sites.
2) Separate options for "moderators can send you mail" and "I want the weekly automated message". "Moderators can send you mail" should mean that human moderators can contact you if they need to. This should be a rare occasion.
 
Trailboss
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Well, I just took a look at the last one sent. I guess that HTML stuff in it is for links. Some of our current URL's are a bit... big. This makes thinks a little cleaner.
I know what you mean about HTML e-mails getting pretty icky. But it does seem to me that it's pretty hard to hide from. So many people sent e-mail that has HTML formatting cuz they use outlook.
I know that I have my stuff configured to convert e-mails to text when I reply. And my mailbox is configured to send only text.
It does seem that most spam is HTML formatted.
Adding the feature you suggest is something that is do-able, but changing the UBB stuff is tricky. The second we upgrade, we lose our hacks.
There are alternatives we could come up with - a seperate application is one idea.
I think our e-mails are not tasteless or obnoxios as is and they would have a lower quality as text-only. I suppose we could supply just one url to the giveaway page.
UBB seems pretty intent on continuing to stuff HTML in e-mails.
I wonder how many people are currently blocking our stuff (or have it turned off) because of the HTML.
 
mister krabs
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Originally posted by Susan Hoover:
I despise HTML in email. Most of it is bloated, unnecessary, waste of bandwidth. I have gotten to the point where I delete HTML email unread.

UBB doesn't support the feature of sending HTML vs text only. If you feel that e-mail from javaRanch is bloated, unnecessary, and a waste of bandwidth then I would recommend that you turn off the feature of allowing us to send you e-mail. I think you will be missing out on a lot of great stuff including our excellent monthly newsletter but that is, of course, your option.
[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: Thomas Paul ]
 
Thomas Paul
mister krabs
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Originally posted by Susan Hoover:
I see a couple of solutions:
1) An option to select between HTML or text mail. I've seen this on other sites.
2) Separate options for "moderators can send you mail" and "I want the weekly automated message". "Moderators can send you mail" should mean that human moderators can contact you if they need to. This should be a rare occasion.


3) Learn to live with e-mail that is only 10% larger than text only e-mail.
4) Start basing how you delete e-mail only by the quality and not the form the e-mail takes.
5) Buy books instead of trying to win them.
See there are lots of solutions and I'll bet you can think of even more!
 
Susan Hoover
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I didn't mean to start a religious war; I guess I should have known better. It looks as though we will have to agree to disagree on the appropriateness of HTML in email.
A solution that will work is this: Javaranch continues to send HTML to those people who want it, and I continue to choose not to receive it. That way, we both get what we want.
Here is a commentary (not mine) on HTML mail. The author's experience with the signal-to-noise ratio mirrors mine (i.e. far more than 10% increase in size).
From the UBB manual, how to configure UBB email options to choose between HTML and plain text mail. However, it appears that this applies to everyone. Maybe I'll make a feature request to the UBB folks for UBB 7.x for per-member setting of this flag...
[ February 21, 2002: Message edited by: Susan Hoover ]
 
Thomas Paul
mister krabs
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Originally posted by Susan Hoover:
A solution that will work is this: Javaranch continues to send HTML to those people who want it, and I continue to choose not to receive it. That way, we both get what we want.


Great!

Originally posted by Susan Hoover:

Here is a commentary (not mine) on HTML mail. The author's experience with the signal-to-noise ratio mirrors mine (i.e. far more than 10% increase in size).


We actually measured it when you brought it up.
 
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