who thinks the format for the dailyish email should change? (poor man's poll)

Alternate a couple days between plain text and html. And then ask us which we prefer.

If they are going to look almost the same keep it as is, but if it is going to wow me, then why not upgrade. Or similar to how I can change my setting to either have desktop view or mobile view. I could have a setting to get either the plain text or fancy html.

I think the random freebie is a great way to help with folks checking the dailyish email. For the most part when I am active on the site I dont even see the dailyish email much less read it, but when I hardly visit the website, I will glance on what is popular and in the dailyish

Keep it simple.  

I love it how it is.  The best part is the written by hand, storytelling tone that Permies Staff have mastered!  Thanks to the writers.   Still, thread titles would be nice.  Lots of media and less writing -- not so nice.

The email upgrade I really want is story titles in the auto generated "Someone mentioned X in a post.".  That one is by a computer anyway, so I'm thinking it doesn't really have to be pretty HTML like <a href=..   it could just be text with both the text link and the text title.   Or whatever.   It is kinduv a fun puzzle to guess from the link's mangled title.  Haha.

In the email, there is already an explanation of what's in. I think that is the best of both worlds. I click on the links I'm interested in. I'm also sensitive to the argument that folks with a slow internet can get timed out while loading, so pleeeeease, keep it simple. It is really good. [Don't try to fix what ain't broke!]

I'm all for the HTML format, i.e. ability for better expression!

While you're at it, I would welcome the use of emoticons too!  😮  🤔   🤞

😊  😄  🤪  😎  🤐  

A little bit of HTML never hurt anyone, I mean .. it looks nicer to the eye and it gets easier to read if you pick the proper background/text color.

Amy Francis wrote:I'm all for the HTML format, i.e. ability for better expression!

While you're at it, I would welcome the use of emoticons too!  😮  🤔   🤞

😊  😄  🤪  😎  🤐  

I love emoticons, too ♥. Sadly, however, Paul doesn't care for them, so we don't have them enabled anymore

Sorin Trimbitas wrote:A little bit of HTML never hurt anyone, I mean .. it looks nicer to the eye and it gets easier to read if you pick the proper background/text color.

Define "A little bit". 🤔😊

My email provider automatically does not display pictures unless I click a button to do so.  I usually skip the pictures unless I need to see them to understand the text of the email.  But I appreciate the different types of fonts that make it easier to read, tell what's most important and/or which text is headings and which text is subheadings.  Easier to skim read to see if there's something of interest to me.  So I would vote for HTML so we could have variety in text but NOT all the flash that some newsletters or emails contain.

I like that the dailyish works for people who have slow internet or data caps (like me) who are off grid and/or on their land and don't have time and bandwidth to deal with the extras.  But I wonder if Paul's goal of reaching additional people with his message (maybe the ones who have lots of bandwidth and need a little more flash to suck them in ;)) could be achieved with a bit more.... (Not that I'm advocating alienating everyone else who is already here.)

Also, I agree with the poster up thread who mentioned the newsy, storytelling feel of the dailies. I love that!  

I also appreciate that there aren't a TON of links, just a handful of highlights - short and sweet.

Nicole Alderman wrote:

Amy Francis wrote:I'm all for the HTML format, i.e. ability for better expression!

While you're at it, I would welcome the use of emoticons too!  😮  🤔   🤞

😊  😄  🤪  😎  🤐  

I love emoticons, too ♥. Sadly, however, Paul doesn't care for them, so we don't have them enabled anymore

Awww...shucks!!!  I wonder how most members feel about the ability to use emoticons on this forum, e.g. with a sufficient number of requests for this, would that alter the current no-go situation?  Would such a poll be allowed even?  (I ask whilst cowering .... seeing my original post on this has been blanked out...sheesh!)

(she asked cowering .... seeing my original post on this has been blanked out...sheesh!)

I don't see anything blanked out, other than some emoticons. I think those are just the ones that don't have plain text equivalents. Some emojis have text equivalents (I think the older ones?, and those will show up. But others do not, and so our forum programming has no way to show them.

When I look on emojipedia, I see this smiling heart eyes one 😍 was "as approved as part of Unicode 6.0 in 2010" but the person shrugging 🤷 just shows as a box on emojipedia and also when I paste it here. It was only approved to unicode in 2016. I don't know who makes text equivalents of emojis, but it's not something we can control.

You can always use img tags like this

To do that, I went to emojipedia (https://emojipedia.org/person-shrugging/) and right-clicked on the image to copy the image URL, then pasted it into this code:

[img]https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/120/facebook/230/shrug_1f937.png width=15[/img]

I added the "width=15" to make it small so it wouldn't be huge like this

Nicole Alderman wrote:

(she asked cowering .... seeing my original post on this has been blanked out...sheesh!)

I don't see anything blanked out, other than some emoticons. I think those are just the ones that don't have plain text equivalents. Some emojis have text equivalents (I think the older ones?, and those will show up. But others do not, and so our forum programming has no way to show them.

When I look on emojipedia, I see this smiling heart eyes one 😍 was "as approved as part of Unicode 6.0 in 2010" but the person shrugging 🤷 just shows as a box on emojipedia and also when I paste it here. It was only approved to unicode in 2016. I don't know who makes text equivalents of emojis, but it's not something we can control.

You can always use img tags like this

To do that, I went to emojipedia (https://emojipedia.org/person-shrugging/) and right-clicked on the image to copy the image URL, then pasted it into this code:

[img]https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/120/facebook/230/shrug_1f937.png width=15[/img]

I added the "width=15" to make it small so it wouldn't be huge like this

Nicole - clearly my post wasn't blanked out when you quoted it, but is it still there now?  There is just a h-u-g-e/long blank space now where my entry was.  

Yes, I have my own emoticon 'library' to click and paste from.  I enjoy seeing animated, lively posts!  👍

🌈

Keep it simple please. Slow internet and low bandwidth for people (and sometimes this people!) mean html-bearing emails are deleted without opening.
Plus, the simple text format fits more with the tone of the forum. Save the rainbows hearts and flowers for off-forum communications!

carla beemer wrote:Keep it simple please. Slow internet and low bandwidth for people (and sometimes this people!) mean html-bearing emails are deleted without opening.
Plus, the simple text format fits more with the tone of the forum. Save the rainbows hearts and flowers for off-forum communications!

I didn't realise that these slowed down the internet!  Really?  I know the speed is affected/improved by clearing browsing cache and disabling add-ons.

Amy Francis (involuntarily) made a good point not to switch to HTML: Bugs in parsers and renderers (including E-Mail clients that where not written with HTML in mind). A forgotten <a> broke the entire post.

Amy, your post is a blank for me now also and I know I saw it earlier with emojis and all.

Now way over on the right are some words and bits of words appearing vertically and your emojis are there also but vertical...very strange looking!

Judith Browning wrote:Amy, your post is a blank for me now also and I know I saw it earlier with emojis and all.

Now way over on the right are some words and bits of words appearing vertically and your emojis are there also but vertical...very strange looking!

Thanks for your observation and post on this Judith.  All I see is of my original post is info on the left, i.e. my name, no. of posts, apples and what I like...then a VAST, very long space!  It would 'be nice' to know why....i.e. being given the reason.

Curiously, there were also some others posts on this threads looking the same i.e. blanked out....(but are now not even there in this format either!?)  Did they ask about emoticons too!?  Ha!  Just kidding...or am I!?  

Lee Daniels wrote:I like the plain text.  If I find the description of interest, then I click the link to see the flashy pictures.

Including the title ahead of the link is all the embellishment I think would be good. Pictures are helpful in Instructables email, but I don't see that as very helpful for Permies topics.

A lot of the time when I open a fancy html email on my phone browser, it ends up being formatted weirdly so that part of the text gets cut off, or I have to scroll horizontally back and forth to read it. I like that the Permies ones are simple.

I love emoticons, too ♥. Sadly, however, Paul doesn't care for them, so we don't have them enabled anymore

I've used simple smilies occasionally, but the vast library of emoticons is too much for me to spend time with. Plus, I'm not even sure what some of those tiny images represent.

David Wieland wrote:

I love emoticons, too ♥. Sadly, however, Paul doesn't care for them, so we don't have them enabled anymore

I've used simple smilies occasionally, but the vast library of emoticons is too much for me to spend time with. Plus, I'm not even sure what some of those tiny images represent.

I find that they can help clear up any possible misunderstanding i.e. are a boon to better communication.

That said, yes a few of them are a tad obscure but most are pretty clear!  

This is the only forum I have been on that doesn't feature them!

Amy Francis wrote:

Judith Browning wrote:Amy, your post is a blank for me now also and I know I saw it earlier with emojis and all.

Now way over on the right are some words and bits of words appearing vertically and your emojis are there also but vertical...very strange looking!

Thanks for your observation and post on this Judith.  All I see is of my original post is info on the left, i.e. my name, no. of posts, apples and what I like...then a VAST, very long space!  It would 'be nice' to know why....i.e. being given the reason.

Curiously, there were also some others posts on this threads looking the same i.e. blanked out....(but are now not even there in this format either!?)  Did they ask about emoticons too!?  Ha!  Just kidding...or am I!?  

lots of us use emoticons so I don't think that's it...more likely it's one of those things that doesn't show up the same for everyone depending on whether they are using a phone, a pc or as I am, a tablet.

I wonder if when you posted 'disable html' was checked?  mine is...I don't have a clue what that means but someone mentioned it I think.
I'm going to see what happens when I quote nicole's reply that includes yours...I love mysteries

Judith Browning wrote:

Amy Francis wrote:

Judith Browning wrote:Amy, your post is a blank for me now also and I know I saw it earlier with emojis and all.

Now way over on the right are some words and bits of words appearing vertically and your emojis are there also but vertical...very strange looking!

Thanks for your observation and post on this Judith.  All I see is of my original post is info on the left, i.e. my name, no. of posts, apples and what I like...then a VAST, very long space!  It would 'be nice' to know why....i.e. being given the reason.

Curiously, there were also some others posts on this threads looking the same i.e. blanked out....(but are now not even there in this format either!?)  Did they ask about emoticons too!?  Ha!  Just kidding...or am I!?  

lots of us use emoticons so I don't think that's it...more likely it's one of those things that doesn't show up the same for everyone depending on whether they are using a phone, a pc or as I am, a tablet.

I wonder if when you posted 'disable html' was checked?  mine is...I don't have a clue what that means but someone mentioned it I think.
I'm going to see what happens when I quote nicole's reply that includes yours...I love mysteries

Thanks for offering a possible explanation into my blank post.  I haven't done anything new re. settings and this was the ONLY post ever to be blanked, i.e. asking about whether we could have emoticons and learning, subsequently, that Paul doesn't like them.

Amy Francis wrote:I'm all for the HTML format, i.e. ability for better expression!

While you're at it, I would welcome the use of emoticons too!  😮  🤔   🤞

😊  😄  🤪  😎  🤐  

I decided to try to hit the quote button on your original post that looks blank to us...the buttons show as small dashes way over on the right...luckily I hit the right one and it did it.  It seems your post is still there but maybe a broken code or something?  

Judith Browning wrote:

Amy Francis wrote:I'm all for the HTML format, i.e. ability for better expression!

While you're at it, I would welcome the use of emoticons too!  😮  🤔   🤞

😊  😄  🤪  😎  🤐  

I decided to try to hit the quote button on your original post...they show as small dashes way over on the right...luckily I hit the right one and it did it.  It seems your post is still there but maybe a broken code or something?  

Thanks Judith for looking into this!  All rather odd/mysterious and beyond my limited techno ability to make sense of...if that is the cause.

I think there might be a bit of broken code on this thread that's showing up for just non-staff. I'm going to look into this. Thank you!

Amy Francis wrote:

David Wieland wrote:

I love emoticons, too ♥. Sadly, however, Paul doesn't care for them, so we don't have them enabled anymore

I've used simple smilies occasionally, but the vast library of emoticons is too much for me to spend time with. Plus, I'm not even sure what some of those tiny images represent.

I find that they can help clear up any possible misunderstanding i.e. are a boon to better communication.

That said, yes a few of them are a tad obscure but most are pretty clear!  

This is the only forum I have been on that doesn't feature them!

Well, the emoticon Nicole used looks like a yellow-green-face eating a teardrop. It just looks odd, but I think I get the meaning from the text. That makes the emoticon nothing more than a minor distraction. I suspect that you need to be a frequent user to gain any benefit.

Amy, I'm using Firefox which isn't even showing the 'quote' and other options.  Attached is a screenshot.  

On that blank-looking post, do you see the 'edit' option?  I am wondering if you select 'edit', if text appears as you wrote it.  If it does, then perhaps a link or an image is not playing well with how the page is displayed for the rest of us?  And if you copy / paste the entire post into a text document so it isn't lost, then copy / paste only text from that post and submit, if that works.  If it does you may able to solve this :.)

On the other hand, it doesn't make sense that your post would move your name and profile info to the right as if it were indented.

I think we've got it fixed. Does everything look right to everyone?

Nicole Alderman wrote:I think we've got it fixed. Does everything look right to everyone?

It's all back to normal now...mystery solved

Images have issues - KISS
Why put paint on the cob? That would just create an environment for undesirable organisms; maybe even - hush -  privacy considerations.

Has Paul considered hosting a simple telnet enabled Builtin Board System for his digital products?

Catherine Windrose wrote:Amy, I'm using Firefox which isn't even showing the 'quote' and other options.  Attached is a screenshot.  

On that blank-looking post, do you see the 'edit' option?  I am wondering if you select 'edit', if text appears as you wrote it.  If it does, then perhaps a link or an image is not playing well with how the page is displayed for the rest of us?  And if you copy / paste the entire post into a text document so it isn't lost, then copy / paste only text from that post and submit, if that works.  If it does you may able to solve this :.)

On the other hand, it doesn't make sense that your post would move your name and profile info to the right as if it were indented.

Thanks for looking into this Catherine.  Whilst I am also in Firefox, the blank space of my post didn't feature any edit facility.  As mentioned, just my data on the left margin i.e. my name, no. of posts, apple and what I like.  

Nicole seems to have now fixed the situation though since my original post is now there.  In the much shorter time of my post's return, I note that 5 other members liked it, i.e. approve of emoticon use!!  (Wonder how many more there'd be with a poll but I will let it go now).

Chris Kay wrote:Has Paul considered hosting a simple telnet enabled Builtin Board System for his digital products?

I was the sysop for several BBSs back in the day, and I am the author of BananaCom - the most downloaded terminal emulator for DOS in 1995.  

Not only did I write the most popular terminal emulator, but I also modified a LOT of BBS software.  And there were several features I thought were stupid - so I disabled them.  

And BananaCom's competition included ProComm, Telix, Qmodem, RipTerm ...  and the reason I wrote bananacom was that I thought all the stuff had 20 times more gizmos than was needed.  So I made something for non-geeks.  Something that could get a person online in 20 seconds without having to learn what "baud" means.  

The dailyish is fine the way it is, the links work. The thing I would like to see added is an accurate description of the link, like: Poll on the dailyish wheree you can comment. That was missing for the link to this page that was in the dailyish.

I think some HTML is nice, however, the text in colours can make it quite difficult to read some times. So it may be best to avoid that if possible. As is, love the daily-ish anyhow. =)

I don't think we would do elaborate newsletters. What we mostly want is the ability to so basic stuff like we would do in a Permies post.  Bold a section header here or there...  Make the boilerplate text smaller so the content stands out. Or to actually hide ugly links with large strings of numbers like gift-code links or whatever.


This is just an example, I suck at design

Sample HTML Dailyish wrote:

Let's make mayonnaise! Jocelyn started this thread and many variations were posted:
https://permies.com/t/27740/


My personal quest to see how many things I could get from milk. Hint: It is way more than butter and cream:
https://permies.com/t/131895/

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paul wheaton wrote:
I was the sysop for several BBSs back in the day, and I am the author of BananaCom - the most downloaded terminal emulator for DOS in 1995.  

I should have remembered that, I sure you mentioned BananaCom in the podcast previously.
I brought the topic up because Brian of lhttp://lunduke.com/ recently extolled the virtues of BBSs in one of his podcasts: https://open.lbry.com/@Lunduke:e/why-the-bbs-is-still-awesome-in-2020:9?r=HRiuDKLwYB7tDJ6rdzdmUrGCH35W9HRh

To sum up the 'cast in a paragraph; BBSs are simple to use by normies, promote ownership and responsibility (homesteading) because you are not relying on architecture that is not entirely under your control, and even the oldest devices can be modified to access a BBS keeping old tech relevant.

Which reminds me; Patreon is under serious legal threat for censoring its customers. Vox Day's legal Team and Owen Benjamin's following may just financially collapse Patreon entirely.
Make the BBS great again Paul! https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/ hosts its super lean website locally with solar. How lean can cheap can BBSs be?

Back to the OP - plain text in the newsletter forces the authors to work harder expressing their colourful personalities. Which as other posters have noted is a kind of beauty that should be praised. The authors work harder so that the tech the audience use to receive the information can stay simple, relevant and repairable.

Summary: To my mind; rough and workmanlike utilitarianism equates to enduring honesty. Naked truth is attractive to the honest.

A daily email is not something a typical person will volunteer to receive  at least not until they see the value of this community.

As a new comer I dont want to over step but I believe it is more pertinent to focus on monthly or weeklyish type emails that a someone unfamiliar to wheaton labs may sign up for.

New members will want quick gratification and shiny pictures with beginner topics and probably not every day.

It seems like when I heard about permaculture first I wanted all the cute herb spiral pictures and goat cartoons and clever building ideas you see on pinterest and some of the lighter books.

After a few weeks or months I started getting frustrated with the petty stuff. I needed something stronger and moved up to salatin and wendel berry stuff but then I needed more so I moved to gaias garden and the hunger grew I needed the hard stuff the mollison text book!
Now I'm so thirsty for it that I gladly sign up for daily emails and click the plain text links.

That was a bit over dramatic but I think my point is clear.

I would rather the seldom sent emails be focused on for glamour and drawing folks to the community while the dailyish remain how it is raw   but of great substance.

Thanks for all you guys do for us.

Last vote in apple poll was on August 19, 2023