rantlet, and a question for y'all

[jennlk]

I just got an email from somebody (with a yahoo.com address) who said that she had a hard time finding my responses, and that I should "highlight my responses or put them in a different color". WTF? She very helpfully enclosed an example, which I couldn't see because I don't have HTML enabled in my mailreader -- when I looked at it in Gmail I could see the colors. (I had interleaved paragraphs, with a ">" at the beginning of each quoted line and extra lines between paragraphs, something that I've been doing for well over a decade. While not as obvious as changing colors or font, I would think that this is sufficient indication. Then again, I have been doing email for quite a while.)

How do I politely say "it's not my fault you're using a mailreader that doesn't understand standard email protocol"? Or has standard email protocol changed that much? Is there even one any more? Am I an email dodo, doomed to irrelevance because I don't use a web-based email reader?

Comments

[drsulak.livejournal.com]

"Thank you for the feedback. I did some checking and others report it looks fine. I'm not sure why your mail reader is not displaying the quoted text properly."

[mrs-sweetpeach.livejournal.com]

That's such a perfect response I'm saving a copy just in case.

[jennlk]

Oh, that's lovely. I'm not sure it's appropriate in this situation, though.

[rono-60103.livejournal.com]

I'll admit I do this quite often on work email which is, by the necessity of everyone else on the email chain expecting it to be so, almost always in HTML.

As it turns out, I have a bit of a list-based criteria on how I reply to emails on mailing lists, but, for better or for worse, have fallen into the habit of top-posting on most private emails. This latter, alas, is also becoming the norm as we enter the second (third?) decade of the "eternal fall."

[jennlk]

I don't mind top posting in replies. I'm not going to do it, but if the person I'm corresponding with does, I won't complain.

I think what annoyed me most was her attitude of "gosh, dearie. Do you know that your replies aren't showing up? Here, let me show you how."

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

I think anyone using yahoo mail is the dodo, personally...!

(It is particularly horrible at displaying things, if the Groups web interface is anything to go by, but that's not your problem, it's hers.)

[jennlk]

well, yes. That was my first reaction.

(and I agree that that the Groups interface is horrid. It's slightly better if you tell it to leave off the bells&whistles and 'just show me the messages, dammital', but it's still stuck in eternal september.)

[mrs-sweetpeach.livejournal.com]

I don't use a web based email program nor do I have any intention of changing. As far as I'm concerned, you are quoting the correct way and anyone who doesn't do it the way we do is wrong.

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

First of all, has the perfect reply.

I should mention that, on Debian, the "Icedove" email reader that replaces the Mozilla reader requires a separate plugin in order to colorize.

[bwittig.livejournal.com]

Claim that you are color blind and ask why they are so insensitive and inconsiderate to use color? }:)

[jennlk]

I told her that I was using a non-HTML enabled mailreader, and all of the paragraphs were the same color and font so it didn't matter what features were added to them, but that the quoted lines were indented and it was thus quite easy for me to see which were the quoted lines and which were the replies.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

A lot of html mail readers lose the indentation, sadly! Which makes it really hard to see what's what.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Most modern mail programs/web mail don't work well with interleaving responses and it can be very difficult to tell who wrote what. And whether we old school emailers like it our not, top-posting is the de facto email standard these days. Many people won't even look for interleaved responses because they don't realize they can exist.

[jennlk]

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. So, I guess my next question is 'how *do* I make my responses clear without top posting?' Because my old-school mail reader defaults to bottom posted replies, and it's at least as much work for me to change to top posting as it is for her to change to bottom posting.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

No easy answer to that, because my experience is that what works on one platform might not work on another, so a message that's clear online might not be on a smartphone, for instance.

I would suggest fully bottom posting rather than interleaving. Or responding as if you are interleaving underneath her top post and then delete the rest of the quoted text.

[tlunquist.livejournal.com]

The wonderful thing about standards is that we have so many to choose from.

I got an interleaved response to a recent long email, and almost replied back to say "did you mean to send an empty reply?" because his inline responses were in the same font, same color, same line weight, and started on the same line as my original text. No way whatsoever of telling that replies had been added, other than to somehow notice that my original paragraphs had gotten one or two sentences longer.

I'm as much a fan of inline replies as the next wizened old geek, but for the love of ghu, could you give me a HINT that they're there?