RE: [ba-ohs-talk] New backlink metadata; mhpurple v0.2 released
There's another pragmatic barrier, as desirable as this practice is, and as
valuable it becomes. (01)
There is presently resistance to HTML-formatted e-mail, and there are not
consistent implementations for it. (02)
For example, I don't accept HTML e-mail wherever I have the choice, and I
generally do not intentionally originate HTML-formatted e-mail. (This
message, including the clipping from Gary's mail is in plain text. (03)
The practice, for me, stems from having gotten gun shy about e-mail carried
scripts and also about having to be on-line in order for HTML-formatted
e-mails to be complete and readable. (That my reading can be tracked and
that I am subjected to unwanted advertising are further complications.)
Also, the HTML-carrying e-mails don't always arrive at the desks of others
in the intended form, and some people are annoyed by the fact that it may
appear to be both a plain-text and an HTML message packaged together. (04)
I don't think that this is a fatal problem, just a current socio-technical
obstruction. It's a demonstration of coherence issues in how SMTP e-mail is
overloaded as a carrier of specialized texts that don't work end-to-end, but
the barriers are about more than that right now. (05)
If there were a consistent way to establish trustworthiness / authenticity
of non-simple e-mails, that might help. But then there is the need for even
more special-purpose, out-of-band agreements, unless there is a global
solution at hand. I don't see a global approach being bothered with at the
moment. (06)
And I like purple numbers a lot. But not so much that I will risk opening
up my in-box to arbitrary HTML-formatted mail. (07)
-- Dennis (08)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org
[mailto:owner-ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org]On Behalf Of Garold (Gary) L.
Johnson
Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2002 02:43
To: Ba-Ohs-Talk
Subject: RE: [ba-ohs-talk] New backlink metadata; mhpurple v0.2 released (09)
[ ... ] (010)
Why then isn't this done more often, as Doug called out on 001017....
[snip] (011)
Rod
The problem currently is that purple numbers can’t be added at the best
place in the process.
Ideally, all the editors in the email clients would produce purple numbered
emails.
Next best would be to have the mail server generate message IDs and purple
numbers before sending the email to the list so that all emails would link
to the archives.
As it is, purple numbers have to be added after the mail is received from
the list server, and a new archive created. These links are not part of the
email that is sent out since they are added too late.
Purple numbers provide a paragraph addressable granularity. They are easy to
refer to from online documents by right clicking and copying the link
address. When a document is printed, it usually contains the base URL for
the document. The purple numbers in the printed document make it possible to
construct correct links manually even when an electronic copy is not readily
available
[ ... ] (012)
Garold (Gary) L. Johnson (013)