Re: plain text only policy prohibits the use of android based mobile devices

From: J.H. <warthog9@eaglescrag.net>
Date: May 18, 2011, 22:16 UTC
Message-ID: <4DD4452B.4030206@eaglescrag.net>
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTik5g+oahTuTZ5BSOunQMfzGNRZ-7Q@mail.gmail.com>

On 05/18/2011 03:03 PM, Eugene Sajine wrote: [...]

Show 6 quoted lines

> Due to the existing policy about plain text only messages accepted by
> the list it is impossible to send an email from any mobile device
> using gmail native app. The problem is that Google for some reason
> doesn't include plain text email sending as a configurable feature in
> Android v2+ and only sends multipart HTML and plain text messages from
> Android 3.1+ devices (AKA Honeycomb tablets)

That sounds mostly like a bug in the mail client you are using. K-9 Mail for instance allows for this. I'd report the lack of plain text to your e-mail client provider, I.E. Google.

> The necessity to use the desktop in order to send a message to the
> list is annoying and not quite contemporary.

Not to be snarky or anything, but the "contemporary" thing these days is to use forums and twitter, which really don't make good development arenas.

> In the same time this policy doesn't seem to cut off SPAM effectively
> as I'm getting plenty of different emails of stupid nature with git
> majordomo or whatever it is signature inside.

That is a war that the side of "good" will ultimately lose at though, SPAM will win no matter what we do, we just have to hold off as much as we can.

> Can the filter be made smarter to accept at least the messages from
> Honeycomb devices 3.1+?
> Is there any other steps that can be made to make the list more mobile-friendly?

Asking on the list isn't going to be all that helpful, if for no other reason than the actual list administrators aren't on it. My guess is that the answer is going to be 'no' or to use a mail client that properly supports plain-text, like K-9 for instance.

That said I've CC'ed postmaster so that your concerns are actually seen by the people who might be able to help you, or at least explain the reasons behind what's going on better.

- John 'Warthog9' Hawley