On Wed, Mar 06, 2013 at 08:17:21AM -0700, s. keeling wrote: > Incoming from Florian Lohoff: > > > > On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 01:24:44PM -0600, Will Fiveash wrote: > > > I have a couple of comments about this: > > > > > > - Why sign most messages? Unless the information is important for > > > others to verify that it came from a particular person why add the > > > bloat of a signature. Beyond this I find it ironic that people sign > > The "bloat" that a signed message carries is hardly bloat nowadays. > HTML mail is bloat; a text version followed by an HTML version, likely > followed with a legalese disclaimer .sig demanding you delete it if > it's not intended for you, plus multiple jpeg thumbnail attachments > ... Now that's bloat! email should be text, full stop.
I agree (really!), BUT... > We used to think emacs was bloated, and compared to vi then, it was. > Now, we have Tb sized drives and GHz processors in pocket sized > supercomputers. Welcome to the 21st Century. ...the same argument applies for HTML mail, even mixed/alternative mail with plain text and html. I'm repeating myself, but... HTML provides much nicer means of formatting your mail for things like emphasis, etc. than plain text--typesetting has been used as a way to convey additional meaning (e.g. tone, emphasis, etc.) for CENTURIES, and the fact that plain text can not adequately render such formatting is, in my mind, unquestionably a flaw. It's true that many (if not most) HTML-capable clients also add a bunch of unnecessary junk to the message, but that is not the fault of HTML mail per se. And it's certainly the case that what I want does not require a full HTML engine to render it, but HTML is the mechanism by which the masses (or the vendors who sell software to them) have agreed to provide that functionality. We, the console-using mail readers of today, should get over this prejudice, IMNSHO, and treat HTML mail as the first class citizen of electronic communications that it IN FACT IS. > Signing an email with PGP/gnupg doesn't begin to reach the level of > "bloat" with what we have to work with now. Agreed, and I also would prefer that everyone would encrypt their mail all the time. That probably doesn't make much sense for a public mailing list though. Still, I agree with your reasons for signing your messages, and I have an additional one of my own: Since I post from an e-mail address which does not deliver mail to me, it provides motivated senders a way to get mail to me using an address which will. -- Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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