LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: David Lloyd <lloy0076@rebel.net.au>
  To  : David Newall <davidn@rebel.net.au>
  Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 14:52:05 +0930

Re: HTML Mail

Heh!

> Perhaps we should view Andrew's comments as something that was triggered
> by a long running sequence of events that merely happened to culiminate
> in David's satirical flambe.

Long running sequence of events? Besides, what is a "flambe"? ispell
suggests you may mean flame but one can never be sure.

> He's right, without any real argument, that abusing an absolute newbie
> for breach of etiquette is not useful, excepting perhaps when the newbie
> has been an obvious dweeb, or willfully lazy, or some other such flaying
> offense.

Hang on a moment. I did not abuse the newbie. I pointed out that I
wouldn't read any further HTML e-mail from him unless he could make my
computer levitate and fly all the way to Africa. Personally I don't
think that's too much to ask. The choices are stark:

1) Cause my computer to levitate (using some means) and send it to
Africa
 - very difficult
 - probably impossible
 - not really a wonderful choice

2) Determine how to send e-mail in plain text
 - extremely easy

Incidentally, that's exactly what happened. It appears that the new user
also appreciated the comments beginning with seriously. I will continue
to argue that a marked up <bitch mode="on"></bitch> block, followed by a
paragraph starting with "seriously" made it so obvious that I wasn't
flaming anyone at all that you'd have to be blind to fail to understand
it with one or two re-reads at most.

> Making a maiden post in HTML certainly shows a total lack
> of understanding of our culture, but is it deserving of harsh words?

Do I ever use harsh words...unfortunately it's been all of our
experiences that politely saying "no" doesn't work (trust me, they keep
on reoffending). Also, throwing them into the effective life
imprisonment (i.e. automatically ignoring them or dumping html email)
doesn't, in my opinion work either.

Let's put it this way. If you were to run into a bank in Australia, push
into the queue and hold up the teller (because that's what you do in the
culture that you came from), noone is going to treat you with kid
gloves.

Might I remind people that JavaScript and other idiotic things bundled
in Microsoft Outlooks crappy TFNET MIME encoded tripe has generally been
responsible for a significant amount of Exchange servers simply falling
over.

> Of course there is an argument that goes: Unix is not a cuddly
> environment, a fact which goes to the core of our culture.  Anybody who
> can't handle this harsh, reality of the world has no business using Unix,
> and a quick roasting is the best way to quickly separate the wheat from
> the boys.  Hmmm.  Nah.

In ancient Egyptian mythology there were generally two types of
Gods/Goddesses. One type would say, "You did that wrong. I suggest you
do it this way the next time. I forgive you." The other type would say,
after hitting you over the head with a great stick, "You stuffed up. I
expected better. This is what I expect. Do it right next time. Oh, and I
forgive you.".

I prefer the latter approach.

Others prefer the former.

Both get there in the end; the latter tends to be more spectacular.

:-)

DSL

-- 
"And the winner is
   InUnifiedCanadianAboriginalSyllabics"
- Larry Wall et al in Programming Perl

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