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

[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.)