Subject: No Mail In HTML, It Dumps You With Spam.
From: HTML_sender@
Sender: HTML_sender@

I append  http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/std/no_html_format.txt
See Also  http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/std/no_mail_formats.txt

Your mail was nearly dumped unseen.  I chanced to notice your name
buried in HTML junk, segregated automatically for deletion en masse.
You mailed in HTML, - spammers' favourite format.  Your previous
HTML mail may have been dumped unseen.  Same for future HTML.
Please change your mailer settings to send plain text (ASCII) not HTML, 
	http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/mail/ascii.html

Or get a better mailer that can,  Or do not expect me to see your HTML mail.

Reasons HTML mails dumped:
  - HTML is sent by clueless, incompetents, & spammers.
  - Nearly all spam is in HTML format. 
  - HTML fonts & sizes appeal to spammers.
  - Spam in HTML is harder to filter, (spammers like that too).
  - I save Lots of time not reading HTML spam, Without spam filtering
    I saw toward 1000 spams a day, mostly HTML. My addresses well known
    on the net & long since harvested by spammers.  
  - Clueless wasters of my time use HTML: Many club members used to mail me,
    appealing to consume my time unpaid, wanting free personal help
    for club mail list subscription changes etc, despite free robots
    being available for mail lists & ski bookings, & copious free
    help pages, & web booking form etc.  They consumed time I could
    not afford.  Now they're forced to spend their own time, educating
    themselves from my help pages & using the robots.
  - Clueless Job Agents: Those who don't specialise, & would want 
    to beat me down necessarily on hourly rate, cos they don't appreciate
    what they'd be selling, & would sell too cheap, they too use HTML.

Why To Learn How To Send Ascii:
 - To raise yourself visibly above the flood of spam excrement
 - To not be segregated automatically as a likely spammer.
 - To not advertise incompetence :-)
 - To not be ignored, dumped, or blocked, if you mail or post to lists
   looking for help from skilled internet professionals.
 - To not waste 2/3rd of the bandwidth on Internet on all email you send.
   (Imagine if all car drivers drove triple length stretch limos ;-)
 - To use older services, some of which eg mail subscription robots,
   & remote query & booking engines etc, may not allow HTML, only Ascii.
 - To encourage associates by example, not to all waste 2/3rd the
   Internet's mail bandwidth.  (HTML mail usually goes out in verbose
   form, along with a more concise Ascii version, bundled as
   `multipart/alternative'). You may think "It's just my email" but
   the aggregate spam & HTML of all the clueless incompetents wastes
   most of the Internet's mail server hardware, bandwidth, electricity,
   pollution generating & server staff admin.

Why The Computer Un- Skilled Use HTML:
  - Some providers & mailer software eg AOL pander to unskilled customers,
    seducing them with HTML format, which looks flashy.
  - AOL used to seem to provide a mailer that could not send Ascii.
  - AOL seems to defaults to display received Ascii mail in Courier font 
    (which some may not like).  The 2 are not synonymous though.
    ( I can display Ascii in any default font & size I choose. ) 
    Get a better mailer, even AOL supports at least 3 it seems:
	http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/mail/ascii.html
  - AOL are not the only ISP to lead the clueless astray with HTML.
  - Senders don't realise when they make some random choice of font,
    (eg "Arial") that looks pretty on their screen, that the recipient
    may not be running the same sort of software or operating
    systems, & may have only an ugly (if any) version of Senders
    font.  The recipient may be repelled by Ugly hard to read text.
    A recipient may well Not be motivated to ensure a good rendition
    of a sender's chosen random personal irrelevant font choice.
 -  The ignorant are unaware: Asserting a font is a criteria for
    spam detection.

Do I Fear Losing Customer Enquiries ? Not really:
   - Nearly all direct customers I've ever dealt with, are skilled enough to
     appreciate the services I sell, & know it's foolish to mail
     truly skilled computer people in HTML, 'cos many of us 
     automatically dump floods of excremental HTML.
   - It's DP/IT technical project managers who contact me for consultancy 
     work.  They know. Maybe personnel/ Human Resources don't know, but they
     don't initiate contact with freelancers.
   - Unix specialised agents who'd command a better price than general 
     job agencies, should also know not to send HTML junk.
   - Barely computer literate end users & home PC/ MS-Windows users have
     no budget to purchase my consultancy.  I'm not paid to support unskilled
     Microsoft users, (except to configure corporate interfaces to MS systems, 
     & gateway protect MS using servers in corporate environments.)
   - My email contact page http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/mail/ has:
     "Mail Me in plain text ASCII" & "please also give me a quick
     Phone Call" & some business contact pages have response phrases
     embedded to avoid deletion by spam filter.

Sorry If You May Think This Elitist
   - If you do, read http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/std/no_free_time.txt

Free Software http://www.berklix.com/free/
   To escape the mess of viruses, Microsoft, & Word doc junk.

Commercial Consultancy for firewalls, mail filters, web &
file servers etc, Unix & Microsoft etc compatible.  http://www.berklix.com

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