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Members who post via email who are using plain text email end up with non-trimmed posts on the site - the ellipses algorithm is not working for them. Questions: (1) is this a known bug? (2) what are the downsides to using the setting "force HTML email"? What does this actually do? Thanks. J
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Members who post via email who are using plain text email end up
>
with non-trimmed posts on the site - the ellipses algorithm is not
Perhaps someone should tell the poor little snowflakes to TRIM
THEIR OWN REPLIES.
?
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Hi Xaun Loc, Our Mods spend copious amounts of time explaining how to things like copy and paste, down and upload, heck even some of the mods have trouble understanding "technology". With all the devices out there it would be a bit difficult and time consuming to explain to our members exactly how to to do this. Our ?members are not "poor little snowflakes". >:-/ ? ?They are horse owners with animals that need help they generally can't get anywhere but from our online group. Some of the horses are in incredible amounts of pain because the part that suspends the bone inside the hoof has ripped and the 1000 pounds body weight is driving the bone towards the sole. In mild cases the horse hobbles around until rehabbed in the worst case the bones are pushed through the soles and the horse remains laying down for weeks or more. I'm being graphic only demonstrate the seriousness of what our group communicates about. It is likely when they join our group, many of our members never needed to use a computer for anything other than emailing their grand kids.?They have more than enough to learn without having to deal with learning how to trim their posts - especially if there is an easy way to fix the problem ? --
-LeeAnne ?Archivist
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Thank you, LeeAnne. I, too, feel offended by these constant disrespectful references to group members.? J
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As someone who has owned horses, whose daughter owns horses, and two of my
three grand-daughters own horses, I am not as completely unaware as you might be
assuming.
?
I will admit that many of the cell phone email apps do make it difficult to
edit emails -- probably because the developers recognize that a 2"x3" screen
never was and never will be a reasonable format for text editing.? A cell
phone is a barely adequate device for reading trivial pure-text emails and for
composing short text emails.? It is not, and never can be, an adequate
platform for serious or lengthy email discussions.? Sorry if that doesn't
suit you and your group members, but it is a simple fact and no amount of
I-want-it-to-be-different is going to change that.
?
Believe it or not, people have been using computers and email since long
before the Internet (yes, there was a world before the internet).? This is
not complicated technology that requires a lot of esoteric training.?
Composing an email on a computer is NOT complicated.? What it DOES require
is a little bit of thought and a willingness to THINK.?? These same
people who cannot remember to scroll down to delete the previous email in a
reply (or worse yet, cannot remember to delete a complete digest when replying
to one item) would never fail to remember to tighten a girth would they?
?
?
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2017 14:30 PM
Subject: Re: [GMF] forcing HTML email
?
Hi Xaun Loc,
Our Mods spend copious amounts of time explaining how to things like copy and
paste, down and upload, heck even some of the mods have trouble understanding
"technology". With all the devices out there it would be a bit difficult and
time consuming to explain to our members exactly how to to do this.
Our? members are not "poor little snowflakes". >:-/???
They are horse owners with animals that need
help they generally can't get anywhere but from our online group. Some of the
horses are in incredible amounts of pain because the part that suspends the bone
inside the hoof has ripped and the 1000 pounds body weight is driving the bone
towards the sole. In mild cases the horse hobbles around until rehabbed in the
worst case the bones are pushed through the soles and the horse remains laying
down for weeks or more. I'm being graphic only demonstrate the seriousness of
what our group communicates about.
It is likely when they join our group, many of our members never needed to
use a computer for anything other than emailing their grand kids. They have more than enough to learn
without having to deal with learning how to trim their posts - especially if
there is an easy way to fix the problem?
--
-LeeAnne
Archivist
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On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 04:40 am, Xaun Loc wrote: Perhaps someone should tell the poor little snowflakes to TRIM
THEIR OWN REPLIES. Perhaps someone should tell certain other poor little snowflakes that this was not my question. ? J
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[Mod note: if GMF were not a welcoming place for opposing ideas
Xaun Loc's first reply in this topic would not have been approved.]
Thank you, J, for convincing me that the groups.io Group Managers Forum is
not a welcoming and accepting place in which to speak the truth.
?
In retiring I might note that the two major topics of recent discussion
have consisted of seeking ways to work around recurring user errors because the
users are either unable or unwilling to follow simple email procedures and
network etiquette that had been well known and common standards for four decades
years or more.
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2017 16:23 PM
Subject: Re: [GMF] forcing HTML email
?
Thank you, LeeAnne. I, too, feel offended by these constant disrespectful
references to group members.
J
?
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On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 06:14 pm, J_Catlady wrote: Members who post via email who are using plain text email end up with non-trimmed posts on the site - the ellipses algorithm is not working for them. Questions: (1) is this a known bug? (2) what are the downsides to using the setting "force HTML email"? What does this actually do?
Just wondering these things too, ?and if the ?ellipses algorithm (what ever that is!) can be tweaked to work for the plain text emailers? ? --
-LeeAnne ?Archivist
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All, [Mod note: if GMF were not a welcoming place for opposing ideas
Xaun Loc's first reply in this topic would not have been approved.] Further to this I want to say that we can disagree without being disagreeable about it. Let's try to stick to the business of helping each other manage our groups, and leave personal comments about other members unsaid. Xaun Loc, Thank you, J, for convincing me that the groups.io Group Managers
Forum is not a welcoming and accepting place in which to speak the
truth. I don't assume that anyone here has a lock on the truth, especially not where concerns managing members and how best to cope with and/or educate them. That aside, J's complaint about your reply is that you didn't address her question - which was about the functioning of Groups.io's software. So let's see if we can put this topic back on track. Shal GMF Owner
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J, LeeAnne, Questions: (1) is this a known bug? Don't know, hadn't noticed. Though I usually post in plain text, I also use inline quoting and so seldom leave anything for the ellipses to cover up. On the other hand, this message was sent in plain text and the ellipses worked. So perhaps it has to do with particular quoting styles in plain text. /g/GroupManagersForum/message/1330What does this actually do? It causes any arriving plain text message to be converted to a formatted message. More exactly, an incoming message with only a text/plain message body is converted to one which has both the text/plain original and a text/HTML conversion as MIME multipart/alternatives. (2) what are the downsides to
using the setting "force HTML email"? One downside is that it converts a plain-text quote (the kind I use, with > on the left) into an HTML blockquote - but doesn't style it to include the customary vertical bar on the left. At least, not when received by email - the bar does appear on site at Groups.io (probably by way of an overall page style). A minor downside might be the increased size of the message, containing over twice as much body text. But this is likely to be negligible in most cases. It might have an effect on vision-impaired users, good or bad. The converted message will use a default font and size for HTML, which may not be the same as that used for plain text, depending on the receiving member's email interface. Most might consider it an upside that the converted message will have the formatted style of group links in the footer, rather than the plain text style. Just wondering these things too, and if the ellipses algorithm (what
ever that is!) ... You can see it at work on the message cited above. Joseph's reply is followed by an ellipses button [...]. You can toggle that button to see or hide a trailing quote (of the message he replied to) which was in his reply. ... can be tweaked to work for the plain text emailers? It doesn't always fail. I think it is supposed to work, so maybe the failing cases are fodder for [email protected]Shal
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Thanks so much Shal! ? -- -LeeAnne ?Archivist
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On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 05:40 pm, Shal Farley wrote: On the other hand, this message was sent in plain text and the ellipses worked. So perhaps it has to do with particular quoting styles in plain text. Interesting that that one worked. Not sure whether by quoting styles you're implying there were quotes in the messages causing problems, but there are no quotes in the messages that have been causing the problems in my group.?
an incoming message with only a text/plain message body is converted to one which has both the text/plain original and a text/HTML conversion as MIME multipart/alternatives.
You don't mean that both parts are sent, though, correct? maybe the failing cases are fodder for [email protected] I'll email support. Thanks. J
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On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 08:47 am, J_Catlady wrote: > > You don't mean that both parts are sent, though, correct? >
In an HTML email, at least two parts are included in every email. There's the formatted part with color, text size, etc., and the plain text part, both of which are sent. The email program used and the operator's preferences determine which part is shown on the screen. A plain text email only has the plain part with no formatting. You should be able to look at the source code of any email to see what is included.
Duane
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J, Interesting that that one worked. Not sure whether by quoting styles
you're implying there were quotes in the messages causing problems,
but there are no quotes in the messages that have been causing the
problems in my group. Then I'm a bit confused. What did you mean by "non-trimmed". I thought we were talking about top-posted replies, where quoted matter from prior messages accumulates below. And is hopefully hidden or trimmed. You don't mean that both parts are sent, though, correct? Yes, as Duane mentioned, I actually do mean that. If you look at the View Source of a formatted message (in a group you moderate) - pick one that is short and simple - you will most likely see both copies of the message body. "Most likely" because I've seen a few email interfaces which don't bother to include the text/plain version of the message body. When formatting was first allowed in email, a standard (MIME) was created for how to transfer messages which carry formatting (e.g. HTML) together with a plain text rendition for backward compatibility with email interfaces which don't support formatting. Shal
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On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 12:26 pm, Shal Farley wrote: I thought we were talking about top-posted replies, where quoted matter from prior messages accumulates below. Shal, yes, I was talking about top-posted replies. It was a semantics issue. By "quoted" I thought you meant "intentionally quoted," as in, within quotes. The prior messages accumulate below, but I was not referring to them as "quoted" in that sense.? J
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On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 06:14 pm, J_Catlady wrote: (2) what are the downsides to using the setting "force HTML email"? What does this actually do? J I use this setting for all my groups. I've not had any complaints. We see very few posts come in with stuff left behind and those are handled properly by the system - the trail doesn't appear in digests and on the web interface it gets buried under the ellipsis. We are also extra careful - probably without need - and sometimes on our busier groups we trim any extra trailing stuff, but we moderate, so it's no biggie. I don't expect anyone in our group to trim posts and we don't ask them to. For starters it's something that groups.io handles mostly for them, where it doesn't, our mods do.? But mostly with users who are used to social media and similar technologies where trimming isn't necessary, we try to make it as similar as what they know so that there isn't a learning curve. We are well aware that younger users are mostly used to texts, posts, and tweets as well as emails clients/apps that handle threading and that they are mainly using their iphones to communicate- rather than desktop. We are here to serve and help them, not to lecture them about "netiquette" that doesn't apply in any of the other apps they use.?
Maria
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Maria, I'm with you 100%. This whole thread got started because of the *very few* instances in which the top-posting algorithm is failing in my group, with certain posters only. I wanted to know if this was a known bug, and whether forcing HTML email would be a workaround. It got turned around into a needless (IMO) argument about getting rid of the entire feature. I still don't have an answer to my question and will at some point email support about it. J
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On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 10:01 am, HR Tech wrote: I use this setting for all my groups. I've not had any complaints. p.s. Based on this I will try the setting for now. Thanks.?
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LeeAnne
Shal Farley
Duane