Mark Williamson a écrit:
I use Windows almost always, use M$ Office, and actually don't even have Linux installed on my system.
I am by no measure a "Linux geek", and whatever geek I have in me is certainly not the type that effects my preferences on these sort of things, though I will admit that I tend to prefer notepad to wysiwyg editors for html.
I don't know any programming languages save what QBasic I learned from my grandpa when I was 4 or 5, and HTML if that can be considered a programming language.
Yet I still prefer plain text e-mails to HTML e-mails for most of the reasons that have already been stated.
Anthere said that subscription is not mandatory, and that if you don't want an e-mail you don't want to subscribe.
What about the people who DO want an e-mail, just not in HTML? Are we going to exclude them just because we have such high standards?
We will not exclude them. Anyone can also see the quarto out on most project main pages and it is announced as well in mailing list.
What we are currently trying to do is to set up an additional system to announce it.
Right, and the "additional system" you are setting up excludes those people.
Does anybody even realise that HTML e-mails display very differently in different clients?
Or that many people have turned support for HTML e-mails off because of 1-pixel images as described above and other malicious uses of HTML?
Why not offer an option?
Are you ready to take care of the development on that topic ?
Or even better, why not send people a plain-text e-mail with a LINK to an actual website with the newsletter?
Because we can not send A link. Depending on the language people talk, they will choose amongst for example 15 different links.
Why not direct them to a site offering a choice of language? Or have 15 different links in the e-mail? Or have them choose their preferred language when they sign for the list in the first place?
And I'm sorry, but "quarto" just sounds to me like an aborted attempt at a cartoon villain. When I say it it sounds like "court-o" or "cord-o". And really, I don't think it sounds nice. Why not just "quarterly report" like the rest of the world does?
Mark
Because Wikipedia is not doing things like the rest of the world does.
If we're so intent on doing things differently, why not create a whole new spelling system just for Wikipedia? Wykkypedya, ddjaae fryy ensyyklyyypeedyya, lykz twu dwu ttjyynkz dfrryyntliiyy frwom ddjeea rheestj uobfvh ddjaae vwyyryld, swwo myttsj swwo ddjaet vwiyy gwoow awowt uobfvh uoowr wyye zjyyyst swwwo vweyy kyyn byy dfyyrnt. Or why not force everybody who deals with the foundation to use a new currency just for us called Wikimedian Gildollrils whose exchange rate is reset monthly by a random-number generator?
Just because we take a different approach to writing an encyclopaedia/dictionary/etc., doesn't mean we have to do everything differently. As I said before "quarterly report" is already a familiar term to many people, but "quarto" sounds dorky and not serious. "quarterly report" doesn't convey to me a sense of "We are just like everybody else".
If we want to use different terminology, why not use it for everything? We can call an encyclopaedia a Encyclo (sounds just as cute as quarto), we can call "foundation" Foundo, we can call "board" Boardo, we can call "fund drive" Fundo, we can call "designated agent" Designato, mailinglist can be called Listo, organisation members can be called Orgos or Membos, and Jimbo Wales can be the Foundo - but then that conflicts with our new term for "foundation". So perhaps we can call him Origino?
Mark