Re: HTML: woes

Michael Lorrey (mike@lorrey.com)
Thu, 12 Mar 1998 19:36:41 -0500


Erik Moeller wrote:

> Fuck it, HTML in e-mail is a no-no.

How about this also applying to whoever it is on the list using some unix text
editor that puts "=20" characters at the end of each line. That is very
annoying, and they have the gall to complain about HTML tags.

>
>
> >> >I'd thought that the umlauts in german can be swapped for a following
> "e"??
> >>
> >> Exactly, I'd just like this to be the standard. When I write an article and
>
> >> send it via mail, I have to use either HTML or zipped 8-bit ASCII because
> >> otherwise the recipient would have to re-convert all the umlauts (cannot be
>
> >> done automatically) in order to publish it.
> >
> >When you write to someone who doesn't speak german, only english, you write
> in
> >english, right?
>
> Right, but I don't understand your point.

Neither do I. Granted, public venues like a mail list should have a standardized
language, and I notice that most non Angloriginal web pages present their
content in both english and the native language, (although the translation
services on search engines like Alta Vista are making that not so necessary) but
people who share a common language that is not english shouldn't in any way have
to use english for personal communications via email. One ding against the idea
of using special character/font tags for characters like umlauts is that this
will likely screw up the accuracy of auto translators that are available on the
web.

--
TANSTAAFL!!!
   Michael Lorrey
------------------------------------------------------------
mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive
MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering
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