[sf-lug] Lists: plain text only please :-) [ugh: ("An HTML attachment was scrubbed...")]

[Rick Moen]

As an afterthought:

> Guides to configuring various e-mail clients:
> http://www.expita.com/nomime.html#programs
> http://www.birdhouse.org/etc/evilmail.html#thefix

Part of the reason I put my primary effort into making my mailcap file
compensate for the prevalence of badly composed e-mails, attached
MS-Word documents, etc., is the fruits of experience.  That is,
participants in Internet culture have been fighting a losing war for
decades to maintain minimal standards, and one of their main weapons has
been writing really clear, easy to follow instructions telling people
how to do better and why they should bother.

The result?  Almost nobody ever even looks at the default settings of
their software.  All of that explanation, all of that advocacy, doesn't 
even get heard, let alone acted upon, by the overwhelming majority of
Internet users.  Most people use their preloaded OS and their default
applications in whatever default way they start in.  The notion of
taking charge, taking responsibility, for software is utterly alien to
them.  They not only don't do it; they also don't even hear the reasons.
If you somehow force them to listen, they wait until you're done and
then ignore you.

Because they can, because life has conditioned them to think that "If I
am permitted to do it, it must be OK", and because they figure that
maintaining standards is somebody else's problem.

So, I'm always glad to make references like the above available and
promote them to anyone who's receptive to the message.  However, I
expect that the message _will_ be widely ignored.