From abfa6e21dce5b2fe64edd219e99281cd190b2c3b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Drew DeVault
There are two main types of emails on the internet: plaintext and HTML.
- The former is strongly preferred, but often isn't set up by default.
- We'll get you set up right.
+ Many people, particularly in technical communities, strongly prefer or
+ even require the use of plain text email from participants. However, your
+ mail client may not have it set up by default. We'll help you get it
+ configured, and introduce you to the norms and conventions of plain text
+ email.
- In addition to training you that HTML emails are the norm, many harmful
- mail clients may have trained you with other bad habits. Here are some
- tips to unlearn them:
+ A few notes on the subject of plain text email ettiquite:
When you reply to an email, many email clients will include a quoted
- version of the message you're replying to beneath the text of your reply.
- This leads to long email threads containing the entire history of the
- discussion in an increasingly long and nested footer on every email. This
- is called "top posting" and is strongly discouraged.
+ version of the entire message that you are responding to beneath your
+ reply. This leads to long email threads which contain the entire history
+ of the discussion in an increasingly long trailer on every email. This is
+ called "top posting", and it's strongly frowned upon by many users of
+ plain text email.
- Though some clients would have you believe otherwise, you can edit the
- quoted version of the message you're replying to, and you're encouraged
- to. Feel free to trim it down, cutting out any extra text which isn't
- directly relevant to your reply - or removing it entirely. Write anything
- you have to say underneath the quote it pertains to.
+ Plain text email makes it easier to incorporate the original text into
+ your reply much more meaningfully. Consider these two examples:
+ This email uses top-posting, and this approach is discouraged. A better
+ approach might look more like this:
+
+ You can also edit the original email more, quoting it several times to
+ make it clear what points you are responding to, like so:
+ As the old joke goes...
- Email writers are encouraged to wrap their text at 72 columns by inserting
- a newline and resuming your writing on the following line. The
- recommended clients will do this for
- you, as well as any client shown above with "Wraps text or uses
- format=flowed" checked. Don't worry about re-wrapping the quoted parts of
- message you're replying to unless you want to. If your client doesn't do
- this for you, it can easily be the most frustrating part of being a good
- email netizen, but it's very much appreciated by recipients.
+ Plain text emails are generally encouraged to be wrapped at 72 columns,
+ by inserting a newline and resuming the content on the next line. This is
+ encouraged to make email more comfortable to read and quote in many of
+ the contexts where technical users may encounter it, such as terminal
+ emulators. Of course, it's far too annoying to do this manually as you
+ write — the recommended clients
+ will do this for you, as well as any client shown above with "Wraps text
+ or uses format=flowed".
Use plaintext email
Table of Contents
@@ -506,39 +509,76 @@
Etiquette recommendations for plaintext emails
Top posting
+
Yes, that sounds good.
+
+Jim said on 2019-03-23 at 11:02 PM:
+> Are you okay with maroon?
+>
+> Tim said on 2019-03-23 at 10:43 PM:
+>> Do we know what color we should use for the background?
+>>
+>>> Jim said on 2019-03-23 at 10:30 PM:
+>>> Is there anything left to do on the site?
+ Jim said on 2019-03-23 at 11:02 PM:
+> Are you okay with maroon?
+
+Yes, that sounds good.
+ Hey Drew,
+
+Can you look into the bug which is causing 2.34 clients to disconnect
+immediately? I think this is related to the timeouts change last week.
+
+Also, your fix to the queueing bug is confirmed for the next release,
+thanks!
+Hey Sarah, I can look into that for sure.
+
+> I think this is related to the timeouts change last week.
+
+I'm not so sure. I think reducing the timeouts would *improve* this issue,
+if anything. I'll look into it.
+
+> Also, your fix to the queueing bug is confirmed for the next release,
+> thanks!
+
+Sweet! Happy to help.
+
Wrapping your text
Why is plaintext better than HTML?
@@ -559,6 +599,12 @@
entering your account password. In plaintext emails, the URL is always
visible, and you can more easily make an informed choice to click it.
+ Many phishing emails have also taken the step of carefully replicating + the visual style of an email you might trust, such as the appearance of a + PayPal email. With plain text, it's much more difficult to trick you like + this. +
Virtually all HTML emails sent by marketers include identifiers in links @@ -569,6 +615,14 @@ more likely to influence your buying habits. HTML emails are good for marketers and bad for you.
++ HTML emails open up a lot of possibilities which are exploited by + spammers to circumvent spam filters, such as making large amounts of text + invisible, using hidden elements, and so on. Many people discard HTML + emails (particularly mailing lists) on the simple basis that it + dramatically reduces the amount of spam emails they receive. +
HTML is an extremely large and complicated set of specifications designed @@ -624,12 +678,6 @@ emphasis. You can still communicate your point effectively without bringing along all of the bad things HTML emails come with.
-- In short, HTML emails are a security nightmare, are mostly used for - advertising to you and tracking you, are less accessible for many users, - and don't offer anything especially great for it. -
"But if plaintext is so good, why is this page written in HTML?"
- This is a reference document, not an email, you twit.
+ This is a reference document, not an email!
- This site is under a MIT license. "Plaintext Certified" graphic by Jens,