[Mailman-Users] The "right" way to reply to a mailing list

[Lindsay Haisley]

On Sun, 2015-03-22 at 14:08 +1100, Peter Shute wrote:
> > On 22 Mar 2015, at 1:28 pm, Larry Kuenning <larry at qhpress.org> wrote:
> > 
> > It seems to me correct editing of quotation sequences requires human 
> > thought, not just mechanical text manipulation.  Even though some people 
> > expect their computers to think for them.
> 
> I'd be happier if more clients at least allowed the option of using >
> to indicate quoting level, so it would be possible to edit them into a
> suitable format.

For Linux users, Evolution has very intelligent handling of quotes.  Not
only are quotes indicated with ">" characters but reformatting a quoted
paragraph preserves these in the right places.  Copy and paste has a
"Paste as quote" option which is very handy for consolidating quotes
from several emails.

> And if html wasn't the default for so many clients.

Don't get me started!  To the best of my knowledge, there is no unified
standard for HTML-ized email.  Microsoft has "Rich Text", Apple has
another standard.  Digests can get mucked up beyond usability if people
use HTML email and it's included in digests.  Hopefully all HTMLized
posts to a digested list are multipart/mixed with both a text/plain and
a text/html part so the HTML can be nuked before its digested and/or
sent out to subscribers.  If not, all bets are off, but such emails are
usually spam.

Nonetheless, IMHO HTMLized email the way of the future so we'd better
get used to dealing with it.

> When I try to manipulate an email full of quotes that are indicated by
> various methods including vertical lines down the left side and
> different coloured text, in an html editor that doesn't work properly,
> and which turns it all to mush if I convert to plain text because of
> line wrapping problems, it's easy to become discouraged.
> 
Amen!
> 
-- 
Lindsay Haisley       | "The only unchanging certainty
FMP Computer Services |    is the certainty of change"
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http://www.fmp.com    | - Ancient wisdom, all cultures