Ken wrote:

>   You know Gilles I agree with you almost completely. A very vocal minority
> have have asserted that html posts are an -inconvenience- for them and that
> in order to read posts that are in html format they have to use a separate
> program that will read them. This implies they have the resources at their
> disposal to handle html posts but stick with software that does not support
> it out of preference. In this case the minority are controlling the majority.
> Personally I use Netscape that can and does handle html posts without problem
> - even in the French NG's with their tacky backgrounds :)
>
>   One last point though is that html posts do take up more space on the
> server and if more people posted in html is would chew up server resources
> at an alarming rate. Unfortunately the server resources are not unlimited
> nor are the funds that provide them. I personally will shed a tear or two
> the day that this servers resources become so strained that automatic
> expirations on messages has to be applied to provide new resource for future
> posts. There are some great messages here and some of them I refer back to
> often for my own edification as well as the edification of others.
>
>  These facts aside this news server admin. has made it policy on this server
> to ban html posts. As one of the people on this server who often greets new
> visitors for the first time I try to help enforce this policy. I do however
> try to do so as politely as possible when pointing this out to new visitors
> and never attempt to "flame" them in the process. I also take the time to
> explain why this policy is such as it is in the hopes that they understand
> that it is not a flame as much as it is a necessity for all people involved.
>
>   I would like to encourage everyone on this server that if they do take it
> upon themselves to "correct" someone for posting in html, rather than in plain
> text, that they do so politely and take the time to explain it to the person
> why plain text is necessary. Otherwise it does come off as a flame and some
> people may take it personally and never come back. That might be as much our
> loss as it is theirs for you will never know what their future contributions
> to the POV-Ray community might have been nor what they might have received
> in return from us.
>
> --
> Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
> http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.htmlhttp://www.povray.org/links/

Well, I just wanted to point out that there is another factor here at play. Ken and
Gilles had some very good points, but I do have a HTML capable news reader and I do
use that for reading, so I have no problems on that end. Where I do have problems is
with the HTML itself.

Often the color scheme looks poor for me (black on a full white background looks nice
on paper, but from a CRT it can increase eye-strain and fatigue). And then there's the
problems with the font specifications themselves. Often the fonts will be specified in
absolute sizes instead of in relative sizes (e.g. "SIZE=3"). This often makes things
almost unreadable for me, since I'm running a hi-res display. I mean, really, why are
you (the abstract HTML poster) forcing me to read 10-pixel fonts??? Why do you know
better than me what is comfortable to read with my setup on my computer? Additionally,
I am one of the average people who are more comfortable reading information that's not
splayed completely across the screen, but is instead kept in nicer columns. Plain text
posting is usually wrapped to 80 columns or less, and is more legible. HTML postings
usually don't as well. Take a peek at your average newspaper or magazine to get and
idea of what I mean about columns.

And then there's the bloat factor. I luckily live in the USA, and have DSL so I
personally don't have to worry much about this, but much of the world actually pays
per-minute for connections. Yes, there are binary posts here, but duplicating text in
HTML posts bloats those by not just x 2, but more. Just take a peek at this before and
after:

before:
        // sphere { <0.6725250, 0, 0>, 1.0, strength 1.0 }
after:
<br>        // sphere { <0.6725125,
0, 0>, 1.0, strength 1.0 }

before:
           diffuse 0.8
after:
<br>           diffuse
0.8

So that second copy in HTML is not only a duplicate, but much larger (for text, that
is). Plus the fact that the HTML version went and threw in extra line breaks where
it's just getting in the way. Bleah.



Anyway, I'm just trying to point out some other possible reasons to stick with
plain-text over HTML. I don't think the "my software doesn't handle it" is a very good
reason. I do think that how it might make things hard on others is more of a good
reason. However, I think it's mainly a point of being aware of different factors and
making an informed choice. Especially if your posting agent does nice HTML that works
well for most readers, then that's not as big of an issue.



And then there are the newsreaders that post in plain text and mark their posts as
such, but don't bother inserting the proper line breaks (guess which one is the worst
offender), which is directly against the actual Internet standards for mail and news
postings. Those realllllly bug me. Especially since I don't have my reader set to
'correct' for that broken behavior (since doing so can cause other problems).



--
"My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box" - W.A.Y.

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