On 30 Aug 2025 16:54, Vinnie Falco via Boost wrote:
On Sat, Aug 30, 2025 at 4:48 AM Ted Lyngmo via Boost <boost@lists.boost.org> wrote:
Old netiquette: Send plain-text messages. Especially to mailing lists.
Mailing lists are declining in popularity. This is not just a Boost problem; Alliance researchers have analyzed other development project mailing lists and they all show a steady decline in participation starting around 2010. We don't plan to remove the Boost mailing list and we do want to improve the web-based front end, it is called Postorius[1] and part of mailman3. I would like to see improvements in the quality of the posts mailing list and this includes being able to write code blocks, applying styles to text (e.g. italic, bold). The ability to add bulleted or numbered lists, proper tabs, monospaced type, and so on. In other words all of the features that we are accustomed to using on the web.
It is not clear to me how restricting all messages to plain text is a sustainable choice. Is the goal to discourage new participation and drive the list into extinction?
Plain text is the only sustainable format for long-term online communication. It has lived for as long as digital communication existed and it continues to be the most portable and easy to work with format. Anything else is extremely dependent on the platform and/or client and can be a real PITA. Whatever you do on the web forum side of the ML, please make sure that all posts are sent (and perfectly viewable) as plain text over email to the ML subscribers.