[kelnos]

> Or you can use an actual mail client.

An "actual mail client" is any mail client that speaks SMTP. This "use a real X" or "real programmers always do X this way" stuff is why many tech communities are considered hostile and toxic, especially to newcomers. It's childish in personal settings and unprofessional in work settings.

The funny thing is that most of the people who continue to hold these attitudes weren't even around or on the internet when it was slow and expensive to sling around rich text or binaries. I mean, I was born in the 80s and got an account with my local ISP in the early 90s, after spending a few years hanging out on BBSes playing door games (anyone remember Virtual Sysop?). I agree that binaries or anything other than plain text was a pain to deal with back then; I had a 2400 baud modem, and even when I managed to get something faster, the phone lines in my area were too noisy to give me anything faster than 19.2kbps. And I'm not some greybeard either; I wasn't around when 300 baud was state-of-the-art.

But we've moved on from that time. It feels like the height of arrogance and gatekeeping to look down on someone who just wants to be able to italicize or bold some text in their emails sometimes.

[a-dub]

> But we've moved on from that time. It feels like the height of arrogance and gatekeeping to look down on someone who just wants to be able to italicize or bold some text in their emails sometimes.

does rich email formatting still make a mess on mailing lists? most clients send a plaintext part, sure, but is it well formatted?

i think it's okay for a team to have customs, and even engage in a little gatekeeping. it's not that much to ask considering how much effort goes in from long time contributors.

last i heard github was adding features to actually make it harder to submit drive by PRs because exhausted maintainers were finding themselves further exhausted by uninvested contributors making superfluous contributions. (for events or name recognition or whatever)

that said, disrespect is never a good thing.

[comex]

> last i heard github was adding features to actually make it harder to submit drive by PRs because exhausted maintainers were finding themselves further exhausted by uninvested contributors making superfluous contributions.

Which features?

[a-dub]

good question what, if anything, they actually added... but search hn history for "hacktoberfest" for background...

[seniorgarcia]

>>It feels like the height of arrogance and gatekeeping to look down on someone who just wants to be able to italicize or bold some text in their emails sometimes.

I really disagree with this part of your post. Plain text is just that, plain text. By definition there is no bold and no italics. We can talk about the the weird technical limitations and requirements for submitting inline patches all night if you like but I'm not sure what you are even complaining about aside from the technical limitations of plain text emails. If you think this is gatekeeping and it keeps you from expressing yourself I don't even know what to say.

[jhgb]

> An "actual mail client" is any mail client that speaks This "use a real X" or "real programmers always do X this way" stuff is why many tech communities are considered hostile and toxic, especially to newcomers. It's childish in personal settings and unprofessional in work settings.

Isn't it perfectly justified in "use the right tool for a job" situations? If someone tells me not to hammer nails in with a pair of pliers, I'd hardly consider it "unprofessional" or "childish". If tool A requires you to use tool B for interoperability, I would imagine a reasonable person would simply use tool B, and not complain about people being "hostile" or "toxic" for suggesting to do so.