From: John Stanley (stanley@peak.org)
Date: Thu Dec 28 2000 - 12:23:55 CST
> Here is some text for you all to try it on:
> foo bar baz
> The 'bar' is actually _^Hb_^Ha_^Hr and the 'baz' is ___^H^H^Hbaz.
This is why such nonsense should not be recommended or allowed. In the
reader where I first read this message, the "foo bar baz" was cluttered
with _ characters and little boxes. It was unreadable. Now that I've cut
and paste it, the garbage is gone. So is the apparently intended
underlining. I say "apparently" because in this case it seems that you
wanted to underline. In a normal USENET message you will have no such
clue, and will have to decide whether the sender was hit by a sudden
attack of line noise or lost his mind.
One should not have to print or cut and paste USENET messages to be able
to read them. You do not know whether the recipient's reader supports
backspace, or whether it will be destructive or not. We've already
discovered that backspaces do not work in Netscape, nor in trn.
> Our present text suggests that both should work. Should I change it so as
> to encourage the first form?
No. Change it so neither is encouraged or permitted. There are already
common practice methods of emphasizing text, suggesting that people make
their text unreadable as a means of emphasizing it is foolish and
counterproductive. It is also not common practice -- I've seen it once in
the last five years.