Colored Backgrounds

[David Gaskill]

On Sat, 11 Dec 1999 13:40:55 -0500 (EST), Ralph Cohen wrote:

>(Interestingly, I've found that most
>people are unaware that they are sending HTML encoded email which may
>not be universally readable and that once they're informed they turn
>the option off.)  

Ralph, 

I strongly suspect that quite a few people that e-mail me using HTML are not 
aware that there *is* any other version of a e-mail. I don't know this for sure 
because I don't comment. I simply reply in HTML, (to which PMmail 
conveniently defaults still under these circumstances).To invert the famous 
quotation, "it's the message not the medium". 

>For the same reason I would never send an HTML email
>to anyone else regardless of the type of email they send to me since I
>think it would be discourteous to presume that they would be able to
>read it without problems.

I would never send and HTML e-mail to anybody who had not previously e-
mail may in this format because, as you say, I cannot know that they are able 
to read it. However if they have, knowingly or unknowingly, sent me and 
HTML e-mail it is reasonable to assume that their client can read the format 
so I reply using it. I really don't regard the format as significant; the only thing 
that really matters is that the person to whom it is addressed can read it.  

David