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Wisdom of forcing HTML e-mails

 

Hello everyone

I see there is an option to force HTML e-mails. What is the wisdom of using or no using this option? What effects would it have (that I may not be able to foresee)?

Thanks
Samuel
 

We wanted the Reply to Sender link to appear in the footer of all our group emails.? Without forcing HTML, that link won't appear in plaintext messages. Forcing HTML seemed the simplest way to impose some consistency in our explanations of how to reply privately.? Still, we find that naive or careless users can't distinguish between "Reply" and "Reply All" in their e-mail reader and Reply to Group and Reply to Sender in the footer.? Some continue to believe that Reply in their e-mail reader is a private reply, while Reply All in the reader is a way to reply to the group.? Sigh.? There always will be those who don't read or can't understand the memo.

Mark
 

Samuel,


I see there is an option to force HTML e-mails.? What is the wisdom of
using or no using this option?

One effect is that it means all outbound messages have the HTML footer. Which may be a way to address your concerns about the plain-text footer.

Also it means that linkification of plain-text URLs in the message body happens in a uniform way, rather than being left to the whim of each member's email interface.

A concern is that the conversion to HTML may undo the receiving member's default font choice for emails. Some members are vision-impaired and have their email interface set to render plain text using a larger than normal font size, or a font with particularly clear letterforms.
Another argument against it is that a message converted to HTML is bloated in size for very little real benefit.

Shal


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Mark,


Still, we find that naive or careless users can't distinguish between "Reply" and "Reply All" in their e-mail reader ... Sigh.? There always will be those who don't read or can't understand the memo.
?
A confounding factor is that different email interfaces make different choices about how to present reply options, depending on the header fields in the message, and what email address(es) to include in each reply option. Amazingly (to me) some interfaces don't even respect the Reply-To header field.

I don't think there's an easy answer to this, and a comprehensive answer is probably a book-length effort if you try to cover the webmail interfaces of the most popular email services plus the various desktop and mobile email apps.

That said, yes, some members won't stray from their preconceived notions and explore the options presented to them and the effect each has. Crossing the "how to learn how" threshold requires an investment of time and interest beyond what some are willing to make.

Shal

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On 2019/02/26 05:04 PM, Mark Emmer wrote:

Still, we find that naive or careless users can't distinguish between "Reply" and "Reply All" in their e-mail reader...
[I apologise if this is off-topic, or if I'm repeating myself.]

What do the "Reply" and "Reply All" buttons in your mail program do with GMF mails?

When I right-click a message in Thunderbird, I get three options: 1. Reply to Sender Only, 2. Reply to All, and 3. Reply to List.

With GMF mails, options 1 and 2 have the same effect: the mail goes to the list. When option 3, the "TO" field is empty but the rest of the e-mail remains intact (as if I would want to send it to someone else).

With mails from a Google Group, however, option 1 sends the reply to the sender, option 2 sends it to both the sender and the list, and option 3 sends it to the list only.

So, from a Thunderbird user's perspective, Google Groups behaves as expected and Groups.io behaves simply WRONG.

Some continue to believe that Reply in their e-mail reader is a private reply, while Reply All in the reader is a way to reply to the group.
This is exactly how some mailing lists that I belong to, work. So I can imagine it must be frustrating/confounding for users to discover that your (my) mailing list doesn't work like all their other mailing lists.

But anyway, yes, the reason I consider forcing HTML is to ensure that there is a link in the footer with the sender's e-mail address. There does not seem to be another reasonably predictable way to tell users what the sender's e-mail address is.

Samuel

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